We've only known about the Steam Controller for 24 hours but it turns out a variety of developers already got a chance to put the controller to use ahead of the lucky 300 beta participants later this year. The devs we spoke with didn't use the final format of the controller but the non touchscreen beta form seen above four large buttons stand out in place of the clickable touchscreen panel (planned for the final version of Steam Controller). It's the version that will ship to those aforementioned 300 beta participants later this year and it's the version that Valve is showing game developers ahead of anyone else. Follow us beyond the break and find out what they had to say.
Steam Controller See all photos4 Photos
John Clark VP PC Digital (US / Europe)
Initially very sensitive however you settle quickly and the track pads do feel great. Remembering it's a prototype and the purpose of the beta is for the developers to experiment. We're really looking forward to seeing how it fares with PC RTS titles which are traditionally mouse and keyboard. We're excited to see the results
James Schall Director Digital Distribution (US / Europe)
First impression great to handle the beta controller the touch pads are incredibly responsive and I would imagine that once used to it it could deliver higher performance for the gamer.
Ichiro Lambe Dejobaan Games president
On how it feels It feels comfortable yet different from anything I've used before. They did a really good job of simulating physical controls through the haptic feedback ideally this means that the controller will morph into whatever you need it to based on how you program it.
Benefit as a game developer / Major differences from other controllers / Its greatest strength We primarily develop our games for mouse and keyboard and when we think about adding gamepad support it's a matter of mitigating loss of control. For instance WASD mouselook excels over a traditional gamepad for precise camera control or when navigating complex user interfaces. The Steam Controller largely does away with a gamepad's weaknesses there.
Within five minutes of picking it up I went from newbie to controlling an FPS camera better than I'd ever done with a gamepad.
On ease of development Dunno yet Most of what Valve creates (Steamworks API) is pretty developer friendly so I don't see why this would be any different. Having worked with haptic feedback before (with the Novint Falcon some years ago) I think there'll probably be some learning curve there as developers experiment to find what (literally) feels right.
What'd you see at Valve They had a few units out for our visit (an earlier one was 3D printed and therefore cruder than what we played with) but the then latest device was close to what we see in the announcement images (save for the touchscreen which was four physical buttons). We spoke to one of Valve's engineers who said that they'd tried a number of different forms some of which had the player's hands at unusual orientations.
The Steam Controller's weakness I think analog sticks are better at defining boundaries for instance I can mash a stick forward as far as I physically can and I know I'm going to walk forward as quickly as I can. I just can't push it forward any further. The trackpads require more finesse my thumbs will have to learn where to stop.
Tommy Refenes Team Meat co founder wrote a lengthy piece about his experience with the controller right here. He played both his own game Super Meat Boy as well as notoriously difficult and precision oriented Spelunky. While Refenes said he still prefers the Xbox 360 gamepad to Valve's beta controller it's more about the comfort of familiarity over functionality given his several thousand hours experience using the 360 gamepad. That said Refenes was able to easily navigate the perilous depths of Spelunky using the Steam Controller no small feat even with the best of gamepads. I played through Spelunky and the controller worked great he says.
We've got feelers out to several other developers who've used Valve's prototype game controller and we're updating this piece as we hear back. Gamasutra's also got a piece right here collecting reactions from a variety of indie developers who've spent time with the beta controller
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