I was hoping that purchasing a Steam Controller would let me play some of the games that were clearly controller-based like Rocket League, or other action-type games not particularly well-suited for keyboard and mouse.
The controller feels plasticky, poorly balanced, and fragile. Give it a gentle shake and you can actually hear the buttons moving around.
Every single game I wanted to play required configuration of some sort or simply didn't work. I even bought games like Rocket League specifically to make use of the controller.
Instead of just working. I had to unplug the USB dongle a couple of times, setup some manual configuration, only to have it still not work, have to be blown all away and reset back to default. It eventually worked... until the next time I went to play and sure as hell: I had to restart Steam a couple times, re-plug in the USB dongle a few times, and eventually the controller was properly identified and working.
The sheer number of incorrect options available for this thing make it useless. Should it emulate keyboard? Is it a gamepad? Joystick? Mouse and gamepad? Mouse and joystick?
I lamented my purchase and wished I would've bought a more standard controller like an Xbox controller or a PlayStation controller as this was a nightmare.
The article appears to be heading down the right track, with trying to get developers on board with mapping actions instead of buttons, but I simply don't have the time to tinker with something like a controller. When I want to play a video game, I want to sit and play a video game.
I spoked to some of my game development friends about it and every one of them said that controller and device support was among one of the most mind-numbingly frustrating and difficult parts of cross-platform development.
The last time I tried the Steam Controller, I fired it up and none of it worked. I could see the controller was detected, but nothing worked. The mouse pad, buttons, controls, nothing. This had happened so many times before. I installed the beta version of Steam, browsed forums for fixes, and everything.
I tried very hard to like this peripheral but it was a complete failure. I'm very hesitant to try even more configuration options considering how much time I sunk into it last time. I literally gave up on having a controller-based gaming experience with my computer, got a PS4 for the holidays, and haven't looked back.
I still play games on my computer, but I gave up on the dream of having a nice controller-based gaming experience on my computer.