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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

#371

Post by hbn »

opan wrote: post #332
retired wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm getting an 8BitDo controller because of the Steam lock-in on the Steam Controller. I can use the 8BitDo on all of my hardware without having to install software. It doesn't have the trackpads but for the rest is a very solid controller and also has Hall effect joysticks.

If you want to utilize all features of an 8BitDo controller at once, you also need Steam. XInput mode means no gyro, no back buttons bindable in software, Switch mode gives you gyro but makes your triggers digital, and you still can't bind the back buttons in software. You're limited to duplicating an existing input via the 8BitDo app and binding it globally at the firmware level. If you use the 8BitDo Pro 2 with Ste…

THANK YOU

It's been driving me crazy seeing all the hate Valve is getting over compatibility concerns when Valve is the only one making controller support on Windows outside of an Xbox controller work. For years I just assumed I couldn't use many of my controllers on Windows, until Steam added the ability to act as the in between and properly handle it. Microsoft has no interest in making anything other than their Xbox controllers work, and everyone suggesting some sort of "I can just buy X as an alternative" has some major caveat that gets conveniently ignored.

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

#372

Post by charcircuit »

mschuster91 wrote: post #232
charcircuit wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It still is a damn good deal. Steam abstracts a whole lot of messes. In ye olde times you as a game developer had to acquire a publisher for each country you'd plan on selling your game to deal with local distribution structures and laws, taxes, payments, update distributions, DRM and anti-cheat, user management... Steam conveniently abstracts all of that for you. One stop shop. No complex deals just to deal with get…

>taxes, payments

The market rate for this is low single digit percents.

>update distributions

Bandwidth is not worth a percentage of game revenue. If it were it would be >DRM

Steam's DRM is terrible.

>anti-cheat

Also terrible.

>user management...

This is not worth a percentage of revenue.

All of these together is not worth 30%. The only thing worth 30% is the ability for the Stram store to put your game in front of a random person. Being able to reach new customers.

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

#373

Post by sonofhans »

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.

Valve is what our culture deserves from all corporations. The fact that it seems like such an outlier is an indictment.

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

#374

Post by dvt »

fatal94 wrote: post #349
dvt wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same argument Microsoft used ("we're just an OS, totally not a monopoly"). I think to anyone that spends any time doing any PC gaming, it's obvious that Steam is the only relevant storefront by a country mile.

Relevance isnt anti competitive. Comparing them to Microsoft who not only monopolized but enforced it via product bundling is not the same at all. They simply have the best product and won the market.

Could say the same thing about AT&T, Bell Labs, etc. There’s a lot of precedent here, but most saliently, how you become a monopoly is not really relevant. They absolutely are one. But I’m being already aggressively downvoted with no counter arguments so the Gaben fanboys are here. (Defending a deca-billionaire is hard work, after all.)

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

#375

Post by ninjaoxygen »

artyom wrote: post #366
xingped wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with most of your statement, but Valve has and continues to make lots of money from loot boxes in both CS and TF2. Just want to point out that they do do stuff like that too.

And I forgot to mention in-game currency. I didn't say Valve is perfect. But they're definitely worth the money I spend there. Great service, proper support, regional pricing, and the list goes on. Everything works today. The work they've put on Proton/Linux gaming easily wins my support. Did they screw up sometimes? Sure. And I'm from the days when Steam didn't exist. I remember the NoSTEAM game versions in shady si…

Totally agree with you there, as much as I love to hate non-transferability, revokable licenses, permanent VAC bans on accounts that got hacked, I still find Steam the most convenient path to "owning" games in one place.

The Linux work done for Steam Deck is fantastic and I do credit their efforts with inspiring others to work on similar projects that extend and complement what Valve achieved. Much of the hard effort did go into Windows games on Linux before Valve looked at it; everything the WINE project, Codeweavers did, gaming via Lutris since 2009, however Valve have definitely been a force multiplier.

Trust is earned and I think Valve are doing pretty well on that front, especially when you look at the differences to other PC stores, Ubisoft, EA, and to some extent Epic. GOG and Itch are very different beasts.

To some extent I miss the time where Steam was totally curated, you had to make an impact to get your game on the platform, back before it was a free-for-all of shovelware and low-effort slop. Occasional controversies aside, at least on Steam the tools / marketing funnel are there to keep the popular games at the forefront of the store whilst also being fairly open to allow devs to publish without being the chosen one.

Is there a danger of doing to games what Spotify has done to music? Maybe, but I reckon the super deep-discount sales have calmed somewhat and are happening later in game's long-tail part of the lifecycle or used as promo for sequels.

There are plenty of publishers that choose to mainly avoid going that route, often the traditional established publishers with console outlets they don't want to cannibalise, for example Sony and Konami.

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

#377

Post by scheeseman486 »

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's features work fine without Steam on Linux.

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

#378

Post by artyom »

ninjaoxygen wrote: post #375
artyom wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I forgot to mention in-game currency. I didn't say Valve is perfect. But they're definitely worth the money I spend there. Great service, proper support, regional pricing, and the list goes on. Everything works today. The work they've put on Proton/Linux gaming easily wins my support. Did they screw up sometimes? Sure. And I'm from the days when Steam didn't exist. I remember the NoSTEAM game versions in shady si…

Totally agree with you there, as much as I love to hate non-transferability, revokable licenses, permanent VAC bans on accounts that got hacked, I still find Steam the most convenient path to "owning" games in one place. The Linux work done for Steam Deck is fantastic and I do credit their efforts with inspiring others to work on similar projects that extend and complement what Valve achieved. Much of the hard effort…

> Is there a danger of doing to games what Spotify has done to music?

I think such business model ultimately doesn't scale well for games (several million-dollars production budgets sharing minuscule pieces of a ~$20 all-you-can-eat subscription pie).

Microsoft always knew this, they didn't try to win the market, they tried to subvert the business model, probably expecting the industry as a whole moving towards it -- which didn't happen at all, at least not yet.

Simple math would prove this. There's no way acquiring half the good studios in the world and make them release flop after flop was a break-even operation. It's several orders of magnitude behind.

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

#379

Post by everyone »

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.

Still essentially Steam is a DRM system + another invasive program running on your pc, that absolutely doesnt need to, in addition to the game you want.

..

I vote with my wallet, I avoid buying anything from Steam. Gog and Itch.io are where I go out of my way to spend my money.

Itch.io is amazing! All the coolest games are there + the developer experience is about a million times better than Steam, just sensible and utilitarian. Steam dev experience is a kafkaesque nightmare.

..

Back in 2000 because of these features Steam was the epitome of digital evil. it's just that all other tech companies (google, apple, MS, sony, samsung, etc.) have become so supremely evil over time, whereas Valve has remained at its year 2000 level of evil and so now seems positively angelic compared to its peers.

...

I will also note that Valve probably are one of the biggest heralds of the year of the Linux desktop just by doing tonnes of work making games run in it well and hassle free. The biggest barrier to entry for Linux had long been that games dont work, thats basically solved now. So they get a bonus point for that.. Steam is still filth I dont want or need on my system tho.

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

#380

Post by gyomu »

sonofhans wrote: post #373
herpdyderp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Valve is what our culture deserves from all corporations. The fact that it seems like such an outlier is an indictment.

Our culture only deserves what we feel strongly enough to enshrine and enforce as law.

Americans like to clown on the EU, but consumer protections and privacy laws don’t magically pop up on their own, and businesses don’t all magically act in the consumers’ best interests unless they are legally made to.

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