Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license

digitalfoundry.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 632 posts

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license

#171

Post by Karliss »

Ethee wrote: post #104
poisonborz wrote: post #29

Even if Valve and Steam is great and overall a blessing for the PC space, I don't like the direction they take with this controller. It only works with Steam, it can't work on a desktop OS without it, despite standard layout. It is a subtle move towards a walled garden.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. Operating systems don't typically include drivers out of the box for every single interface that could possibly connect to it. Often you'll get 'generic' drivers on Windows that at least map some of the basic inputs, but up until like late Windows 8 iirc Windows didn't even include that. Previously if you wanted to connect ANY controller to your PC you had to install third…

USB HID protocol has been designed with huge flexibility and self descriptive devices in mind so that in theory you shouldn't require a custom drivers for vast majority of current input devices even controllers order of magnitude more complex than anything currently sells. Just like you don't need a custom driver for each usb flash driver.

In practice half-assed HID drivers by OS, badly designed OSapplication APIs, hardware manufacturers copy pasting HID descriptors from other devices, not following the standard properly, firmware bugs getting fixed with drivers instead of firmware fixes, intentional discrepancies from standard, console manufacturers reinventing the wheel has lead to the current mess.

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license

#172

Post by BobaFloutist »

nananana9 wrote: post #56
benoau wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We let kids gamble so much money in games that they don't have to nickel and dime the adults.

They also nickel and dime the adults, but only the ones who make the games. It's fine though, because they're nice to players and they've brainwashed them into giving their money to Valve instead of to the developers who actually make the games they fucking play.

When I'm interested in an indie game, I always go first to the developer's website to see if I can just buy a copy directly from them. The vast, vast majority of the time I have to buy it through Steam, maybe Epic, and itch/gog if I'm lucky. It's vanishingly uncommon for them to host the game themselves.

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license

#173

Post by bityard »

Onavo wrote: post #59
roer wrote: post #4

I love the readme on the gitlab page [1]. It feels so.. friendly :) > This repository contains CAD files for the external shell (surface topology) of Steam Controller and the Steam Controller Puck, under a Creative Commons license. This includes an STP model of each, an STL model of each, and an engineering drawing with critical features/keep outs for each. Feel free to use these to make your own Puck holders, Contro…

I think at this point Steam might as well just release the hounds and let third parties build and sell steam compatible hardware (the Android play). Their own attempts have been, well, not great. Dealing with hardware supply chains is a very different game than software. They already have a platform, the hardware is purely for distribution. Whether they make a profit on hardware or not doesn't really matter. They are…

According to Wikipedia, they already officially support the Lenovo Legion Go S.

Not sure what you mean by "not great," the Steam Deck is awesome. The one in our household is like 3 years old and still sees daily use. They have been very well received by the PC gaming community.

SteamOS is mostly just the regular Steam client on top of Linux. You will get more or less the same overall experience by starting with a reasonably capable GPU, then installing any mainstream Linux distro, then installing the Steam client, and making a few tweaks. Valve has been very active in upstreaming fixes and features to upstream projects like the Linux kernel and Wine, so the Steam Deck (and soon Steam Machine) doesn't actually have any special sauce, it's just a nice self-contained unit for those who just want to play games and not be bothered by the OS under the hood.

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license

#174

Post by 12_throw_away »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #165
benoau wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We let kids gamble so much money in games that they don't have to nickel and dime the adults.

The problem with Steam is developers are paying 30% to introduce their players to CSGO and DOTA2. Another POV is, nobody on HN has any idea what he's talking about, it's all vibes.

[dead]

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license

#175

Post by charcircuit »

efsavage wrote: post #163
j_maffe wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course 30% seems reasonble to you, you're not the creator of the games. It's quite confusing to me that you're endorsing the side that has an insane ROI instead of the side that is sufferring greatly to make ends meet.

A 70% take would have blown the minds of developers pre-Steam. Retailers took 40% and were ruthless about shelf space and inventory. Distributors took 20%. Plus you had to actually make a box/CD/etc. They were lucky to keep 30% not pay it. This doesn't mean Valve is perfect but if a developer is "suffering" because of a 30% cut they probably need to improve their pricing/game/community/etc.

The economy is not static. A good deal in the past is not necessarily a good deal in the present.

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license

#176

Post by iugtmkbdfil834 »

Just in case anyone from valve is reading:

Dont care about controller, memory card or deck charger or whatever other irrelevant addition to existing products you have. I just want an update on the Frame. And yesterday too. Thank you for very much for your time and attention. Until our eyes meet again.

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license

#177

Post by wafflemaker »

Looks like a super cool feature for disabled players.

Regular controllers are good for people with the default number of arms, legs and fingers. But if you have some kind of disability, it's often pretty unique.

Regular game/computer controllers for disabled folks were pretty pricey last time I've checked.

AFAIK, 3d printing is not that expensive. Many places have hacker spaces or just people who print for almost free.

So I guess it's a huge win for people who need accommodations. I'm very happy for that!

I'm not disabled myself, it was just the first thought I had when I've read the news.

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license

#178

Post by BobaFloutist »

AmbroseBierce wrote: post #161
cortesoft wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developers choose to give Steam 30% of their revenue because they know the steam channel increases their revenue by more than 30%. Doesn't that make it a good deal for developers?

Attention span is finite and Steam took a big chunk of it from gamers, in other words there is a chance that in a world where everyone hated closed platforms like steam (for not allowing reselling or any other reason) direct ads would be more favorable for developers than steam, or word of mouth, or any of it's alternatives.

Ok, so now you're criticizing them for being too successful.

They don't own the OS, they don't (until very recently) own the hardware, they haven't really made any major uncompetitive or anti-consumer moves I'm aware of, and they provide a service that the majority of devs consider worth it.

I guess you could argue they're taking advantage of a bit of a "natural monopoly", but there's still plenty of room for other people to eat their lunch, and things like itch seem to have carved out a niche for devs that would rather keep their money than get the additional services Steam offers.

I don't think Steam is flawless, but for how powerful they are, they sure seem a lot less evil than almost every other large corporation.

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license

#179

Post by retired »

doodlesdev wrote: post #130
bsimpson wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that's Valve's fault. Windows is designed for gamepads to emulate an Xbox controller. All those Steam Deck competitors are implemented as an Xbox controller with a partial keyboard grafted on. That's why you need Legion Space or Armoury Crate to make them usable - they tell the controller firmware what keybindings to send for those rear paddles. InputPlumber serves this purpose on Linux. Without it, you…

Answering a now-deleted answer regarding PS4 controllers working out of the box on Windows: PS4 controller support on Windows used to be a huge hassle, because you had to install DS4Windows to make it work. Nowadays, Windows automatically downloads the proprietary drivers to make it work, but I'm not sure if that covers the PS4 controller-specific features such as the touchpad, gyroscope, lightbar or if it enables XI…

Can Valve do the same with their controller? Release a Windows driver so that I can use it with my emulators?

Re: Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license

#180

Post by wafflemaker »

jpk2f2 wrote: post #156
foresto wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their new refund policy is great, The "played for less than two hours" refund policy is more of a compromise than great, IMHO. It works well for games that are quick to run and enjoy. However, quite a few of the games I've played will easily burn two hours on loading, compiling shaders, watching unskippable branding animations (splash screens), tuning graphics settings, setting up key bindings, and working past mis…

That only applies to the automatic refund. I've refunded a handful of games well past that window, so long as you justify it, I've never had an issue.

This is very good to know!

I always used the "doesn't work on my system". Though, most of the games I've refunded were really not working on Linux the way I'd like and I just didn't want to hack around or have to reboot into Windows for that game.

Post reply on HN