I also prefer controllers (grew up playing Halo on controller), and gyro aim is sweet, but touchpads never felt good to me. I like physical buttons for d-pad style input (even a joystick is fine), and the right touchpad felt too much like a mouse to the point where I’d rather just use a mouse.

The Steam Deck strikes the right balance for me. The touchpads work when the mouse really is preferable, and they stay out of the way when I use the joysticks.

Sure.

It’s important to note that the PS1 also borrowed from previous designs, namely the Super Nintendo with 4 face buttons and N64 (the controller with joysticks came out a year after).

Xbox’s main innovation was the offset joysticks, which may have been due to patents more than anything, but I preferred it. I also didn’t mind the two extra buttons, and was a little sad when they went away, because they were largely replaced by the joystick buttons, which I think are hard to use properly.

But yeah, design stagnated a bit after the PS1 controller.

I use them for point and click games and other games where a mouse is better.

Exactly, I’d rather lose a D-Pad than a joystick, and the Steam Controller lost both. That’s why my Steam Controller sits on my desk largely unused, while my PS4 controller gets all the love (I prefer XBox controllers, but PS4 has better Linux support).

I’d love to see the Steam Deck controller be made standalone, it’s super comfy and preserves both joysticks and the d-pad while having useful trackpads.

Yeah, I consider them “better guys,” since they’re better than their competitors. I say this because:

• they firmly support Linux, which was my platform of choice before Steam came to it
• they have useful Greeks features like Steam input
• they have a good refund policy

Yup, the touchpads are cool, but I would’ve bought a Steam Deck without them, but I wouldn’t if Proton didn’t exist. I was on Linux already when the Steam Deck came out, so I was already familiar with Proton.

It absolutely is.

PS1 controller

The original PS1 controller didn’t have joysticks, and when it did, the position sucked for larger hands. I have always preferred the XBox layout.

you had to map it

Did you? I thought most games worked fine, though admittedly I only played a couple because I never got used to the trackpads.

I think it wasn’t very post all popular because it was so different. Even if it worked as expected out of the box, a lot of people dismissed it at first glance. It was also only available through steam, so there was less reach.

But even then, I still don’t think it failed on its own merits. I think there wasn’t a compelling reason to get it without a Steam Machine, which flopped because Valve didn’t commit to it.

Yeah, the left trackpad sucks. I think they could also fit another joystick if they made the right trackpad a little smaller.

Yup, that’s correct. What about it?

You can based on the port.

Yeah, this is why I reuse my old PC parts. Here’s my rough history:

1. Built PC w/ old AM3 board for personal use
2. Upgraded to AM4, used AM3 build for NAS (just bought drives)
3. Upgraded CPU and mobo (wanted mini-ITX), and upgraded NAS to AM5 (did need some RAM)

My NAS power draw was cut in half from 2-3, and it’ll probably be cut again when I upgrade my PC again.

Old PC parts FTW!

that’s exactly how it works right now

Right, I’m explaining how Stop Killing Games would change things if adopted.

Public servers will either sell micro transactions themselves

That can certainly be restricted, since they’re profiting off someone else’s IP. Selling hosting is one thing, reselling assets in the game is another thing entirely and AFAIK would be a violation of copyright’s fair use provisions.

If they’re no longer profiting from a game, surely releasing access to gated content isn’t an issue any more? It’s not like they are losing anything. So I think unlocking cosmetics for everyone would be fine, but it’s up to them. If they want to preserve the restriction, they can find a way that doesn’t reauire ongoing costs, such as the ones I mentioned.

I basically quoted the whole thing, the last bit wasn’t really relevant. And yeah, it’s pretty much just BS.

Yup, I run a Minecraft server at home, and it’s great. I’d love for more games to do the same.

They should be compelled to either make those cosmetics available for everyone or have some technical means to prove ownership (e.g. blockchain or cryptographically signed file). You can’t lose stuff you bought just because the publisher shut down the servers.

Sure, you’re paying for a performance when you watch a film or play at a theater. If I pay to watch a video game tournament, I’m likewise paying for a performance, not the game.

When you buy a film (DVD, Bluray, or Digital Copy) or a recording of a play performance, you own that copy and can watch it as often as you want for as many years into the future as you want. What we’re saying is that video games should work the same way, if I buy a game, I should be able to play it whenever I want at any point in the future. That’s it, it’s the same thing as with a film.

Sort of. They need to have the tools as well. So I suppose they could release the APIs for their servers before shutting down their servers so community servers can be created, that would probably be sufficient. But they need to do something beyond just saying, “we won’t sue you if you reverse engineer it.”

True. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t attack predatory behavior when we see it. If they want to sell me something, I need to own it, and that means I get to use it after they’ve stopped supporting it.

They still will, this will just limit their ability to force you to move to the next one once the servers shut down.