Valve are trying to give developer a bit more data on what controller / gamepad they're using, which is a good reminder for developers to make sure they are testing for more than just a mouse and keyboard.
In the announcement, Valve mentioned how "48 Million players have used a controller in a game on Steam, with about 10% of daily game sessions being played with a controller" - that's a lot of people, and of course it does heavily depend on the genre.
Showing off some sample data from the new reports system, it gives developers a pretty nice clear picture of what hardware people having in their hands (or could have, if developers added better support). Developers will see how many people have played their game with a gamepad, it gives a little league table of popularity to show what exact controller players have been using, daily active users that hook up a controller, graphs over time and much more.
The data that Valve showed for games that weren't named, clearly showed that the Xbox Controller was always top of the list. Not surprising though and I doubt anyone will be shocked by that.
The big example is below to save you a click if you just want to see quickly (click it to enlarge):
Seems like the data has surprised even the folks at Valve, who mentioned that "a lot of players like to play a large cross section of games on Steam with a controller – which is something many people, including those of us at Valve, find a bit surprising".
Nowadays on Steam, if a game can support Steam Input it ends up getting access to a lot of hardware support. As Valve adds support for more, developers pretty much get it free with Steam Input. There's also Gamepad Emulation which is the more basic form of it. For more details see the info here.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
slaapliedje Feb 26, 2021
The thing was, the Steam machines were not made by Valve, and they had wildly differing hardware specs. If they ever try for Steam Machines again, they need to do it themselves, and have a standard spec for them. The problem is that the PC in general doesn't work well as a gaming console because the hardware moves too fast. So let's say they build a box based on the currsnt Zen / Ryzen platform. Next year PCs will be able to outperform it by a lot, so a lot of people will just be upgrading. Consoles usually have a life of 4-6 years... nit upgrading a co.puter in that long of a time is an alien concept to most PC gamers, and they would just declare it is old, or that they could build a better spec themselves for cheaper, etc... all the reasons people say the VCS sucks ha.Too bad Steam Controllers are only 2%.
Too bad Valve never really wanted to sell them to anyone. Just like the Steam Link. If they'd actually been easily available for purchase then they would have sold a ton. In Norway, you couldn't really get one outside of Ebay.
I agree. Valve doesn't seem to be serious about selling hardware. I still remember the lame launch of the Steam Machines.
FutureSuture Feb 26, 2021
What's the best controller and why its Xbox Elite Controller 2?I don't think it is.
slaapliedje Feb 27, 2021
I like my eswap Pro. Excellent controller, and ver comfortable to use.What's the best controller and why its Xbox Elite Controller 2?I don't think it is.
FutureSuture Mar 2, 2021
I like that the parts are easily swappable. With all these controllers getting stick drift, one at least doesn't need to fiddle around too much when replacing the sticks on this controller.I like my eswap Pro. Excellent controller, and ver comfortable to use.What's the best controller and why its Xbox Elite Controller 2?I don't think it is.
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