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Valve releases Steam Controller CAD files under Creative Commons license

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

#301

Post by somat »

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.

How custom is it?

I assume(hope?) it is usb device class HID(or whatever the equivalent is for blootooth devices), this is well understood and there will be SDL/independent drivers for it in a day.

On the one hand Microsoft's Xinput is sort of nice for standard interoperability. On the other it is sort of a crippled specification, woefully inadequate for anything other than a xbox controller, their earlier direct input driver spec(xinput is a shim on top of this) was more capable. but I still don't think it can specify a touchpad.

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

#302

Post by LukaD »

tylervigen wrote: post #293

Can anyone share their experience enjoying the two pads they put on their controllers? I have a Steam Deck and love it, but the only experience I have with those pads is “dammit I accidentally touched the pad again.” If I want a mouse, I just connect a Bluetooth mouse. I thought for sure everyone knew it was a flop and we’d never see it again, but obviously that’s not right since they are back. What am I missing?

The touch pads work great for emulating a mouse in certain games. I've played many hours of Civ V and VI on the deck thanks to the touch pads. You can even configure them to act as a radial menu or touch menu where different areas of the touch pad emulate different keys.

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

#303

Post by HeckFeck »

bsimpson wrote: post #54
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 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…

That spliced in USB hub looks messy. Does a new controller necessitate Xinput? I assume Windows still supports DirectInput, which was used in the past with more complex controllers. I'd recently brought up "JOY.CPL" in Windows 10. It would hinge on whether DirectInput can talk to games that expect Xinput.

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

#304

Post by sourcegrift »

herpdyderp wrote: post #8
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…

Sometimes I wonder what we did to deserve Valve and how long it can possibly last.

~30% commission on each game

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

#305

Post by unrealhoang »

andrepd wrote: post #277
artyom wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the other way around. Valve is the company where we spend a lot of money and they deserve it. The rest is companies that trick people into giving them money (battlepass! lootboxes!) and they don't deserve it. People often forget that consumers as a whole are the ones holding the power, and the sad part is that rewarding a company with a good product with your money stopped being the business model and it's now t…

> The rest is companies that trick people into giving them money (battlepass! lootboxes!) and they don't deserve it. It's really funny to read this given that Valve largely invented loot boxes!

Maybe not lootboxes but most certainly battlepass.

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

#306

Post by keyringlight »

legitster wrote: post #138
mghackerlady wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They still have absolutely massive sales, they just aren't random anymore. At least personally, I'd prefer having to wait a few months and having a good refund policy over more sales

50-75% off of AAA games from that year were not uncommon. I don't think the sales have ever really been comparable ever since. There are people who have put together Wayback machine compilations to compare - I just took a look at the 2014 and 2015 deals (refunds were ~ 2015) and there was a remarkable drop-off in the sales and variety of games at deep discount. I think more importantly for Valve though - the daily fl…

I think one precursor could have been EA's debacle with Sim City in 2013, when they apparently had a huge wave of disappointed customers doing chargebacks. I'm not aware of any public statement/evidence of this, but it really wouldn't surprise me if their payment processor leaned on them to provide a better means of accomplishing that, and it gave them a way to portray their store as customer friendly.

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

#307

Post by georgeecollins »

Cpoll wrote: post #233
georgeecollins wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are blaming Valve for forces way beyond Valve's control. Valve isn't perfect, but it is a way better steward for PC gaming and PC gamers than any other American tech company would be.

It's harder to say that when they invented loot crates. Sure everyone's doing it now, and someone else would've done it eventually, but Valve pioneered it. I suppose, yeah, some things would be a lot worse without Steam, so there's that.

Yes, I was there. I sat through a presentation about their original concept for selling content in Team Fortress. Trust me when I say that it turned out nothing like they originally conceived of-- which is a whole different story. The whole idea that they "invented" loot crates is weird because the idea goes back to collectable card games and other things. I am not saying they are without fault.

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

#308

Post by georgeecollins »

perryprog wrote: post #257
Melatonic wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could also argue loot crates are just the digital version of Pokémon card packs

You could, but that doesn't make /either/ an acceptable to market towards kids.

Yeah, because that would be like selling packs of baseball cards to kids with enticements like chewing gum, a practice that was outlawed in the United States in the 1950's.

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

#310

Post by somat »

nerdjon wrote: post #153
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.

> It only works with Steam, it can't work on a desktop OS without it I was very curious about this, No video I saw even said anything about the Steam Software being needed, and is extremely disappointing, on my computer I make a point that I only have steam running if I am playing a steam game. If I am not it is not running and it does not auto start. Now if it works with steam closed, I am slightly more ok with it b…

I expect it to work fine without steam. Nobody is going to invest in a completely propriety comms protocol. it will probably be usbHID and a usb keyboard descriptor(or whatever the bluetooth equivalent is). Instruct your usb attach code to attach it as a game pad and it will work fine.

However, the configuration utility for it is part of steam, it is a highly configurable controller, so much so that it could be argued much of it's utility is lost without this configurator.

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