Valve’s Newest Release, A Gamepad Revolution

This past week, we’ve been eagerly awaiting Valve’s three announcements that are aimed at revolutionizing the console and PC gaming industry. The first announcement was SteamOS, a free Linux operating system composed primarily of Steam. The second announcement was a vague description of the Steam Machine, the actual set-top console. Now, Valve has made its third and final announcement: a revolutionary new gamepad that replaces physical analog sticks with trackpads.

Unfortunately, not all revolutions lead to positive change.

The third pillar in Valve’s Steam Box — er, Steam Machines — announcement, is a controller that the company feels will allow us to play PC games more easily while relaxing on the couch, as we would when playing traditional console games. The concept art depicts a controller with four face buttons (A, B, X, and Y), two trackpads in place of analog sticks (that can also click), a touchscreen in the center like a tiny Wii U gamepad (can click as well), four shoulder inputs, and two inputs on the back of the controller grips for your pointer or middle fingers.

If you have ever played a smartphone game that attempts to emulate analog sticks, you’re already very aware that the transition from physical to flat does not work. The same goes for attempting to play a game on a laptop’s trackpad instead of a traditional mouse. With the Steam Controller, Valve aims to smooth that transition along thanks to advanced haptic feedback. Rather than an off-kilter weight rumbling around the inside of a gamepad, the Steam Controller employs dual linear resonant actuators; a fancy phrase for weighted electromagnets. Valve states the electromagnets give precise control over direction of movement, frequency, and amplitude. In short, Valve will use the actuators to trick your brain into thinking the trackpads feel like sticks.

The reason why gamepads and computer mice have not changed very much over the years is neither because of hardware limitations, nor because humans just couldn’t think of an innovative new design. Motion controls (more or less) worked fine this generation — with the underutilized PS Move at the forefront of 1:1 precision — but the control scheme ran into the significant, unavoidable issue of  it being strenuous to constantly flail your arms around in the air. While the trackpad is a quality form of input, it’s not precise enough for gaming — not because of the trackpad’s sensitivity, but because of the level of manipulability of our own human fingers and hands. This is why, however precise the Steam Controller’s trackpads are, they won’t be an ideal form of input for traditional PC games.

Sadly, Valve kind of shot itself in the foot when it specifically name-dropped the game genres the controller would allow you to play from your couch: RTS games, strategy games, 4X space exploration games, and so on. The problem being that this controller, regardless of the trackpads, will likely control exactly like one with analog sticks instead. Think about using your thumb to draw a bounding box around tiny units in an RTS, or to attempt a deny in Dota 2. On the other side of the gaming spectrum, would you rather play, for example, Rogue Legacy with actual analog sticks, or with thumbs on a trackpad? Interestingly, a theory as to why Valve chose Portal 2 as its Steam Controller example is because Portal 2 doesn’t require twitch control, and isn’t too active. You can stop and think of how to solve puzzles, and if you mess up, there isn’t really any punishment — you don’t die and have to start a level over, or lose any kind of experience points, items, or currency. The Steam Controller will likely work well with a game like Portal 2, whereas it wouldn’t work as well in Dota 2, where an imperfect level of precision for even one second will have dire consequences.

Of course — going with the Steam Machine mantra — the Steam Controller isn’t necessary, and you can plug in either a traditional gamepad, or a keyboard-and-mouse combo. If you were hoping Valve would figure out some magical way to transform the precision of a keyboard-and-mouse combination to the palm of your hands, you won’t find that in the Steam Controller.

The Steam Controller will be made available with the first 300 beta Steam Machines, and won’t be wireless or have a touchscreen until the retail unit, which is coming sometime in 2014.

It’s worth saying the usual disclaimer: we can’t truly praise or damn something until we get our hands on it. However, you don’t need to take a bite out of rotting food to figure out that it’ll taste bad.

Judul: Valve’s Newest Release, A Gamepad Revolution
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