The issue comes down to how the device interacts with your computer. Just like the original version, the new Steam Controller has no native Windows drivers. This means the hardware relies entirely on the Steam app to function properly. If you do not have the game running via Valve’s storefront app, your shiny new gamepad turns into a useless piece of plastic.
Gamers Nexus also reported this and there are a lot of other news outlets also covering this. It is kinda the same as with the steam deck where I noticed that the inputs just don’t work until steam is launched. I really don’t like that I have to have Steam running for this controller to work. I don’t know if it is a dealbreaker for me, yet, but it really put a damper on my enthusiasm about it
Its a problem that it works that way not that it wasent advertised. Sure it works with steam but im betting people expected it to work like a basic controller outside of steam as well like xinput. Even the Xbox controller does this. Yes theres an app you can get to use the extra functions but my elite controller works like a normal controller without that app especially because I mainly use linux now.
There are a lot of people who link controllers to their phone either to game on their phone or stream games to their phone and I do not think the controller would work in that case.
Edit for some clarification: Steam is required for the controller to work and it only works for games added to Steam according to the article this means that:
This only accounts for a small amount of users sure but why should they be getting shafted when they dont have to be?
Where is really bad though is unless the driver is initialized on the log in screen what happens to your controller when you dont have internet? What happens when servers go offline or Valve decides to block your VPN or whatnot? Itll be a brick. I do not want to give any more credit to them I promise you but my Xbox and DualShock controllers work just fine in this situation. (I still do want a Steam controller but I do not want to reward this sort of behavior)
Every comment thread longer than ten replies will include a variation of, “This isn’t new.”
I would absolutely not want it to work as a controller outside Steam. In initial mode, aka lizard mode, it works as a keyboard and mouse because they want it to be able to boot your OS. That way you can even use it to manage your UEFI settings. Even in bluetooth mode, the og. SC works initially as a mouse. It’s designed for HTPCs after all.
If it works as a mouse and keyboard without Steam open then that would be fine but from what im reading so far it doesn’t do anything until steam is launched
You don’t want a controller to work as a controller?
Why? It’s what it’s for.
Ok, I didn’t downvote you, but…
Its a Steam Controller.
For Steam.
… If you just made up some expectation, contrary to everything that Valve has said about this thing, and marketed it as…
To a certain extent, that is magical thinking, that is abandoning any concept of checking your hopes or expectations against… reality.
If you… want to run… a game… with this controller…
You install Steam, and the game.
Steam is the drivers, for the controller.
If you own the game in a way that you can’t add it to Steam… sorry about your DRM, I guess?
The Steam Controller has always been described by Valve as an evolution of the Steam Deck tech, both hardwsre and software… it pretty much literally is a Steam Deck, without the screen and PC, in a different shape.
EDIT:
IRT to your edit:
Point 1: Correct. The Steam Controller… works through Steam.
Point 2: … I don’t think the first half of this is correct. I’m not 100% sure, but I think you can do this via Moonlight/Sunshine. I mean… I know you can in general stream Steam games from a PC using Moonlight/Sunshine, I’m not 100% sure this will work with a Steam Controller… but it works on a Steam Deck, so… probably will work.
As to the second half of this… yeah, the Steam Controller probably won’t generally work as a controller for a game on a phone. Though FeX may actually somewhat/eventually aid with getting that to being possible.
Any projects? Make your project support Steam Input. I can’t speak for other engines too well, but Godot has GodotSteam, supports Steam Controllers, the SteamInput system.
As to your internet related concerns: Steam has an offline mode. Unless you are running a game via Steam that has its own/extra DRM that requires a constant internet connection, you’ll be fine.
SteamInput works without internet. If it didnt’t, a SteamDeck’s controls would not work at all without internet access. … It does.
EDIT 2:
Just for super duper clarity here:
Making a Steam account costs nothing.
Maintaining a Steam account costs nothing.
Any … .exe or .sh or whatever… can be added to Steam, to be launched and played via Steam.
The… only kind of situation where this wouldn’t work is essentially via a game that is installed/managed by some other platform that basically encrypts the exe in a way that only that platform can decrypt.
A GOG game, or something from Itch.io, with no DRM?
Plop it in Steam, it’ll work.
Really well written out response, thank you! I havent streamed games from my PC in awhile but IIRC you connect the controller to your phone and it passes the inputs through to your PC as if the phone in the controller. I could be completely wrong on that but if true then Id think it would be quite problematic to get it to work if it required something proprietary, no?
Also for the project thing I was meaning less software and more electronics/robotics. Vavle didnt intend for the steamdeck to be used as a robotics controller but because of the nature/spirit of the Steamdeck people often use them as controllers. I think even Disney uses them to control some of the robots that move around their parks.
The full point is a peripheral you own shouldnt be tied to an account to work and a peripheral that does not provide the same functionality as other peripherals at or below its level should be criticized. Theres no reason for the drivers to not be a standalone download or at least for the basic functionality to work like any other xinput controller. I really like Valve but I think this move is still pretty stupid and ultimately harmful to the consumer. It steps away from the sorta open, not-supported-but-will-not-hinder-creativity theme theyve been doing with their recent hardware.
Remember the Spotify car thing?
I think you are describing just one category of a way to stream, when you talk about connecting your controller to your phone, and then the phone acts as a wireless middleman to your PC.
You… can just directly, wirelessly, connect a controller to a PC via a 2.4ghz dongles, usb dongles, bluetooth connections… many ways to do this exist. The Steam Controller uses a usb dongle (which also doubles as a wireless charger for the controller when physically connected), and it also works via bluetooth (iirc).
Streaming is not the same thing as connecting a controller, not necessarily. You can stream the game rendering output from your PC to a TV, or to a phone, or to another PC… and you could do that over a local network, or you could do that from like a server farm across the internet, to a local device that doesn’t have to involve the controller, at all.
Like when you are watching a livestream … thats likely a phone camera or usb camera, streaming, live, to your device.
There are many different protocols and standards for streaming different kinds of content, to and from different kinds of hardware, via differing physical transmission methods, which may or may not support various kinds of input/output as well. Some of these are proprietary, some are open source, some work on some operating systems, specific hardware architecture (x86 vs ARM)… etc.
I do hear what you are saying when a proprietary tech is involved anywhere in the loop. Yes, it is always possible that one day, that could blow up in your face.
However, as best I am aware, SteamInput is a totally open standard… its sort of like a game engine where the source code is ‘available’, but it isn’t fully open to be freely modifiable.
You bring up robotics. You can make a robotics controller program in Godot, I’ve seen people do it. Godot also has an opensource plugin that supports SteamInput. So you could make a robotics project that works with a Steam Controller in that way. I’d say its pretty likely there are other game engines that support Steam Input as well, or other projects that do this in their own way.
But yes, it is always possible that Steam could become evil when Gabe retires/dies.
However, just as others have noted that proprietary designed Nintendo controllers have had people develop software for them that enables them to work on non Nintendo products… I would be amazed if that is not basically the case for the Steam Controller within a year or two, if it isn’t functionally already the case via stuff that’s been developed for the Steam Deck, that would only need updates.
Why does Valve not use a totally open universal standard?
Because no existing totally open universal standards supports all of the input and control functionality that the SteamInput system does.
Steam has a whole system of controller configs, hosted on Steam: A game publisher can issue an ‘official controller template’ for their games on Steam. Through Steam, users can tweak and customize and rebind keys and buttons and commands, and create their own controller templates for games… you can save these locally, tie them to your Steam account so they’ll work across devices, sort of like cloud saves, or, you can even publically upload these controller templates so that other users can use them, and then they can modify them, make their own version, etc.
Would all of this ideally be totally open source?
Yes.
But… Valve had to invent all of this, so they based it off of what they already had, that encourages people to use it with their platform, which is at least currently, a very open and featureful platform, at least as far as platforms go.
They are, after all, in a platform/console war, with other corpos, where said other corpos all have publically traded stocks and thus more money snd also investors they must please, whereas Valve does not.
Valve is not a third party, universal peripheral manufacturer.
They are a first party peripheral manufacturer.
Hopefully this reads less as an ‘I think this is totslly morally correct’ defense, than it does as an explanation.
You bring up a lot of good points, but something I would to add is that there is a reason why you wouldn’t want it to act like a standard xinput device without steam.
One big usecase for the steam controller is as the primary (and possibly only) input for a HTPC (such as the steam machine). So having the controller act as a basic keyboard and mouse without steam (ie: lizard mode) allows you to navigate menus that a standard controller can’t such as pre-boot Operating System menus or BIOS menus without having to breakout a keyboard and mouse.
As I am understanding it right now it doesn’t work that way though. Its just a plastic brick until Steam is launched. If it DID work that way that would be sick and I really hope I am wrong.
Why would it support xinput? If it did then touchpads wouldnt work in that mode, gyro, gripsense, macros, and the back buttons. Also not a single valve product has ever supported xinput not the original steam controller or the steam deck, why would this suddenly be a massive departure?
It’s a problem when people don’t understand what they’re spending their money on. Steam can make their device do whatever the fuck they want, and “consumers” are fully within their rights to not buy it…
And we are able to freely criticize them about it. If any other company did the same people would be irate.
But these lemmings on the internet don’t like it if you criticise Lord Gaben.
I definitely believe theres some bias and rose tinted glasses going on here. I love Valve currently but people shouldn’t reward bad/sketchy behavior regardless of who it is.
I would really like to see Valve release some basic open standalone drivers to keep in the spirit of their other recent hardware.
Other companies do the exact same though, Nintendo controllers don’t support non-Nintendo devices (although they’ve been reverse-engineered for Steam and Linux).
… but the Steam Controller works with any hardware that can run Steam.
… which is… any PC, thats less than roughly 15-20 years old.
So this is absolutely not the exact same thing as what Nintendo does.
Steam is hardware agnostic. Nintendo is not.
You could run a Steam Controller on a Nintendo Switch, provided you got rid of Nintendo’s operating system, like so:
https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/handheld-gaming/steam-shown-running-on-nintendo-switch-thanks-to-latest-proton-beta-fex-2604-translates-x86-to-arm-friendly-instructions-on-linux
I did forget about Nintendo but to be fair, people hate the shit out of Nintendo. Microsoft and Sony controllers have been pretty plug and play for me though.
Other companies do do this… and people are fine with it,. Get a grip.
Sony and Xbox controllers are plug and play on almost any computer I’ve used and even some phones. What do you mean?
My dualshock 3 controller never got an official plug and play driver on windows 10.
Doesn’t it default to Xinput? Ill admit im less familiar with the PlayStation controllers but I know my roommate has a few of the newer ones and just pops those into whatever system he was using pretty seamlessly (Win 10, and Mint IIRC)
Nintendo, and it’s new to recent console generations that those controllers have crossplay because they found it more profitable to let PC players buy them.
You know this though…
And people rightfully criticize Nintendo. They criticize Nintendo for their other wrongdoings more because the controller thing is really just a drop in the hat.
Are you good? I dont think im being aggressive here but you’re coming off as really toxic.
I’m a bit frustrated today. Thanks for asking.
Not everyone criticizes Nintendo for that because some people think it’s good that they protect their brand and their player experience to a degree. I prefer Nintendo doing things with intention beyond what’s immediately profitable. I respect the long game when it’s to maintain a standard of quality.
That said, I really don’t care that much, I just think it’s our individual responsibility to know what we’re buying.
Yea Nintendo for me is really on my shitlist for how they’ve treated their players and their policies but they certainly make a good product and people are going to take that into consideration too.
I also agree, people should definitely know what they are buying and I think Valve has done their due diligence on providing that information. However, I think Valve making a peripheral that only works when logged into Steam and nowhere else is not a good thing and should be looked at critically. Other mainstream peripherals are much more plug and play to PC outside of their own ecosystem (Xbox, PlayStation) for a lower price. I do not see why the controller doesent support xinput or whatnot or at least why the driver cannot be a separate download and entity from Steam. It wouldn’t even be remotely controversial (Heh) that this is a device that could go the route of something like the Spotify Car Thing.
I hope you find some peace today. Im really sorry if my comments inflammed your frustration at all.