MudMan

I’m very torn, because people here are correctly going “nothing”, but then launching on long descriptions of what’s convenient for a server to have. I can’t tell if that is answering your question or if the correct answer is just “a server is any computer that hosts a service for some other computer to access over a network”. Both?

Hell, technically a server doesn’t even need to be a PC at all. You can absolutely have a server and a client be just pieces of software hosted in the same physical machine. “Server” and “client” are just words for what thing is asking for the data and what thing is sending the data over.

Not most users, not even as Valve intended (on the Deck, at least).

They literally reserved the green “Verified” badge for games with full controller support and are the only ones eligible for the “Great on Deck” tab. Mouse and Keyboard games get the yellow “Playable” tag instead and a warning on boot.

See, that’s the sad part about actually looking things up. It takes time, people get to nitpick it to death and then some guys will just… you know, say stuff.

None of the measure are incompatible, none of the conclusions are incorrect and you’re still wrong.

It’s a different measure because Valve does not disclose full install counts at all, let alone per hardware type, but it does provide concurrent users. I work with what I have. In any case, the top of the list is in the hundreds of thousands of concurrent users, so that does show that the top 100 on Deck does run the gamut until fairly low in usage. That’s not a surprise, gaming is very winner-takes-all right now, particularly on PC. Steam user counts drop VERY quickly, so your argument that the top 500 is all huge is not accurate.

As for Civ VII, I was going off the last top 100 list, which is yearly and thus covering a period before the Civ VII launch, but Civ VI was actually there and I missed it. It shows up at 37. That’s now 3% of the list that is mouse driven. I stand corrected. You’re still wrong.

By the way, speaking of using different metrics, “trending” games aren’t built on absolute numbers, so top played and trending don’t line up at all. I’m assuming Civ VII will make the cut on Deck whenever it does get counted on absolute usage, though.

Nintendo has done backwards compatibility before, pretty extensively. The Switch 2 isn’t a departure. They put a GBA cartridge slot in the first few Nintendo DSs (they lost it in the DSi), and the 3DS was backwards compatible with the DS. They also did GC to Wii and Wii to Wii U (but not GC to WiiU). They even put physical plugs for GC controllers and memory cards on the Wii.

And they’ve done weirder stuff, like the ability to use a GBA as a controller on the GameCube and some cross-save bonuses between games in some platforms.

The Game Gear is a weird example for that, specifically, since it was basically a repackaged Master System, so there was a lot of game crossover. Sega also had a widely advertised adapter that allowed the Mega Drive to play Master System games.

Anyway, nerdy retro gaming stuff aside, there is definitely a gradient across Valve, that is mostly driving a software platform across a ton of third party hardware, the 4K twins, which are relatively focused on service providing and Nintendo, which is somewhat more focused on a single platform, at least so far. It’s very much not black and white and very much not a new thing, though.

And in any case, the smooth gradient does mean that ultimately it should be fair to at least compare Deck sales to console sales.

Huh, Okay, buried the lede there because I was very skeptical of your specific set of needs until this and now it makes sense.

The Mechen M30 seems to meet your spec, but I haven’t tried it, I just looked it up. There seems to be a bit of a niche for single-use audiophile music players that may get you what you need.

Granblue Relink is just about closing that top 100 and has about 650 players right now. That’s not on Deck, that’s across all of Steam.

That’s a big birthday party, but not an all-timer.

I know what a radial menu is. The menu you sent is a nine square grid, which is a neutral spot surrounded by eight directional inputs. So a radial menu.

You can make other menus, but you just happened to send me a radial menu, specifically. Which I suspect was chosen there because, like I said, the small touchpad at best suits a radial menu or a directional menu.

And the point isn’t that controller-first games are more popular, it’s that mouse-first games are quite unpopular. Several big mouse-first games are in the overall most played list but not on the Deck list. Others appear lower. DOTA 2, for one, which is at the top of the overall and nowhere to be seen on the Deck top 100.

And yeah, when somebody argues something iffy in an online discussion I’m the kind of person to go and check. I don’t mind being wrong that much, but I do want to know.

Homework.

I mean, “MANY” in relation to, say, how many people would show up to someone’s birthday party. Not “MANY” as in “the size of a videogame audience”. We kinda know that for a fact. For reference, Steam does show the most played games on Deck. The first game with no official controller support shows up at 79. It’s The Sims 4. For what it’s worth, the two most used Steam Input configs do use the trackpads, but they just map the right one as a mouse and have the left one mapped to four directional functions. If your argument for the dual trackpads was simplicity, let me tell you, both of these configs are complete spaghetti, so I don’t think that holds much water.

Rimworld is in there, suprisingly, in the 80s. Made me count all the way there, they should really put numbers on that list. Those seem to be the sole two mouse-driven entries. There are no RTS games, tycoon games or city builders that I can see.

In any case, you’re right that we agree on whether playing strategy games on a touchpad is fun. It really is not.

By the way, you do realize your counter to the radial menu thing was a screenshot of a radial menu, right? The fact that it’s using squares doesn’t change how that works (except for how a grid layout actually fits fewer things than a radial menu, but that’s neither here nor there).

Hah. You’re overestimating the potential of 90s gaming devices. No game console, handheld or not, had sold a hundred million units. Hell, the Game Boy didn’t crack into the hundreds until the Game Boy Color came around, and it was certainly the first.

Anyway, mild exaggeration aside, I get what you’re aiming for, but I guess my question is why people read that positioning on Valve devices in the first place. There’s no obvious indication that Valve is any less ambitious than any other first party, or any reason why they would be. They went to AMD and comissioned a custom APU at scale, just like Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft are doing. The only differentiating factor is they built the thing on top of a mostly usable pre-existing OS (which I suppose Microsoft also does, but hey). If anything their entire call to fame was to “consolize” Linux for SteamOS, which they’d been trying to do for a while anyway.

I agree that their goal is to set up an ecosystem that works for them, but I find it surprising that people assume they’re disinterested in hardware sales. If I had to guess I’d say it’s because they refuse to market too hard outside their own ecosystem, so their branding feels different than the more in-your-face releases of Sony, MS or Nintendo products and people assume that’s because they’re intrinsically or intentionally smaller, which I don’t think is true. I do think that image is projected on purpose, though.

I have no idea where you saw me saying anything about “using a single touchpad” where I was agreeing with you. I said I wouldn’t play those games on any touchpad, single or dual, haptic or not.

You also underestimate how powerful Steam Input is, weirdly. Chords, button combos and controller layers can be combined into surprisingly complex setups. Probably too complex, unless you like playing Steam Input more than you like playing your game, but definitely very capable of doing as much as the left pad. Which, by the way, can be mapped to a radial menu and that’s about it. Let’s not get crazy with our much real state you have on that thing, especially if you’re trying to do anything time-sensitive.

And no, the argument isn’t “stop having fun”, the argument is “don’t force games that aren’t fun on a controller to be on a controller”. I can’t imagine having fun with a fast mouse-driven game on the tiny touchpad on the Deck, or even in the larger one on the Steam Controller. Or on a huge Macbook touchpad or on ANY touchpad. They don’t need to be coaxed to work poorly on a mediocre replacement when they work great on the native control setup they’re designed for. A few cases overlap enough to make things work well enough, but then the lack of an overengineered dual touchpad setup is not the limiting factor because there are so many alternatives in modern devices, from motion controls to touchscreens and paddles.

The touchpads were always a solution looking for a problem, even when controllers were a lot simpler. Now they’re a sub-par solution looking for a problem.

Out of curiosity, what RTSs do you play on the Deck or the Steam Controller? Because I’ve tried that (it was 2015, I had just gotten a Steam Controller and didn’t know any better) and it’s one of the least pleasant gaming experiences I can imagine. Did you really do that on purpose or is this a hypothetical?

RTSs are unplayable on touchpads. I thought we agreed that touchpads aren’t a good mouse replacement for anything requiring precision. Who is out there doing micro on Starcraft 2 on a Steam Controller?

And no, absolutely not true that side scrollers with aim controls need a touchpad. Bloodstained? Maps it to the right stick. Prince of Persia? Right stick. The entire Trine series? Right stick.

I hate when platformers require analogue inputs in the first place, because come on, you want to use a d-pad. But even then I can’t think of a single example (since Abuse) that requires you to move and do analogue aim but won’t support an analogue stick for that. The common name of top down games with free aim these days is “twin stick shooters”, even. Nex Machina? Right stick. Minishoot? Right stick. Oooh, Knight Witch. Underrated. Right stick.

Rimworld, which I haven’t played much, IS definitely a mouse and keyboard game. Same issue as with RTSs, though. I would absolutely not try to play that with a controller. Or a touchpad of any kind. Hell, the screen size would be a dealbreaker there.

We’re looking for a bit of a unicorn here. It needs to be so coarse and slow that you can comfortably use a dual touchpad setup, but too cumbersome for a single touchpad or a touchscreen. Or somehow not supporting controllers but only for right stick aiming. Which Steam Input can simulate with a stick anyway.

Look, I’m not saying you can’t prefer to play that way. You’re in a very slim minority but you can absolutely be that guy.

I am saying that your choice is not anywhere near the only choice or the best choice. And for the places where playing with a mouse cursor is a must there is simply no good choice on a controller, with or without touchpads.

You didn’t mention any games. What games are those.

Do I point the mouse without clicking in Monster Train or Slay the Spire? Yes. But also, those games have touch and controller support, so I can do the same in other ways. What game would I play on a handheld that requires that but doesn’t have any other way to do the same? That’s not rhetorical, I’m drawing a blank here.

Where do you need to jump or press buttons on a controller while controlling the mouse? What is that? What game has controller support but also requires a pointer? I mean, Abuse, but that was in 1996, so maybe not that? Most games that use mouse aiming when playing on a keyboard map that to the right stick, off the top of my head.

Surely there’s a list of games you played this way with a Steam Controller or on Deck touchpads that wouldn’t play well elsewhere. They must have names. Right?

Alright, so more homework:

Neither I, nor Valve, have ever pushed the touchpads as a stick replacement, and I will just keep reiterating my point that they are indispensable for use with non-controller games and without them,

Valve DID say they were a stick replacement. Maybe we can keep going until we catch up with ourselves.

I’m confused about why playing on your desk is “not fun”, but I assume that was a joke? Besides that I’ve also mentioned multiple ways to use a mouse and keyboard on a TV, which I do routinely and it’s just fine with next to no compromises. Plus the touchscreen on a Deck, motion controls and other stuff.

For the record, the touchscreen doesn’t need a third hand at all. Plenty of games are perfectly playable touch-only and for anything with partial touch support it’s barely an inconvenience to tap something on the screen and go back to the controllers. Maybe at this point you should tell me what mystery game absolutely requires a dual touchpad setup but doesn’t require the responsiveness of precision of a mouse, thus making it indispensible to have your handheld device be the width of a tabloid or your controller have no right stick.

Because, honestly, I’m drawing a blank here. The proportion of games that don’t support controllers, can’t be navigated with a single touchpad and a touchscreen but would not require a full mouse setup is very small, in my book. And, frankly, for whatever those are the real answer is to… you know, play something else? Not every game needs to be played on every device. I wouldn’t play some games on a Deck not because they lack controller features but simply because they’re not the best fit for the device and I have thousands of other games I could play instead that feel at home on a handheld.

I don’t think anyone has ever expected or suggested that analog stick would not be included or do not belong on the Steam Deck, including Valve. The idea that Valve is against analog stick or attempted to not include them in the first place is ludicrous and the points you make about this are completely moot lol.

I mean, it’s easier homework if I only have to scroll up. You said what you said. Valve said what they said.

The weird part is we’ve ended up in the same place as the original Steam Controller. From being the “everything controller” that will support all types of games on a TV to being… well, not the right controller for games with controller support and clearly not as good as a mouse and keyboard for everything else, but hey, you could play stuff this way if you really wanted to.

Which is obviously not a great value proposition. “Hey, here’s a slightly worse way to play a few of your games on a TV instead of at your desk” was never going to revolutionize gaming.

Oh, and by the way, I let this pass earlier because we weren’t focusing on it, but for the Steam Deck specifically, the idea that the touchpads are “irreplaceable” and completely change the game when compared to other devices is also kind of confusing because…

… well, there’s a touchscreen right there.

Not all games play well with touch inputs, but when you pile that on top of everything else the slice of games where the touchpads are an irreplaceable, indispensable requirement is vanishingly small.

I don’t have a problem with people liking weird or inconvenient controls, mind you. It’s just that I really would have prefered a version of the Deck that didn’t need the Dumbo ears for the sake of keeping that weird vestigial remnant of the Steam Machines era.

No, friend, the argument you’re making is that Valve didn’t sell it based on its ability to replace sticks or mice, which is what is incorrect.

Also, there are no points. This is a conversation, not basketball.

Explain to me how we can simultaneoulsy agree that it’s not a great mouse replacement and you can still claim that it’s a good solution to play non-controller games.

What non-controller games are these that don’t rely on a mouse? Have we been arguing about your Donkey Konga or Typing of the Dead controller all along?

Valve said it. It’s not a straw man. I’m not cherry picking. Those are direct quotes from contemporary reviewers going off Valve’s marketing and review guides. The first that I could find, too, there’s only so much homework I’m willing to do.

The damn thing went to market with that as a USP. They told everybody the pads were superior before they had to backtrack on it and add a single stick because they couldn’t get playtesters to go along with it.

If you think you know better than Valve and they mismarketed the thing… well, great. Good for you. But they still mismarketed the thing, people still reviewed it as a stick replacement and it still reviewed poorly on that front.

Now, I’d argue it was also poor at being a mouse replacement, which is also something mentioned in contemporary reviews. It may technically enable you to play a strategy game, but you’re not going to excel at Dota 2 on a Steam Controller. There are multiple superior alternatives. Most obviously to just… you know, go to a desk and play with a mouse, but there are also multiple solutions to have a laptop mouse and keyboard combo. There was that Roccat solution and there are a number of variants on “here’s a flat surface with a USB hub inside it” you can use for that, if you must.

So if it’s not a great standard controller replacement and it’s not a great mouse replacement, what is it for? It never solved the issue of playing mouse and keyboard games on the couch effectively, which by your own account was the entire idea (even though it wasn’t). The solution to that ended up being developers adding mouse and keyboard options instead. And maybe gyro aiming.

In any case, we at least got Steam Input out of it, which never did much to fix the shortcomings of the Steam Controller, but is a solid tool to enhance controller support for other devices and it picks up the slack from Sony refusing to properly support their controllers on PC.

Oh, my Gabe.

Okay, here. PC Gamer review:

I have no doubt that some diehard PC gamers will put in tons of time customizing Steam Controller profiles, practicing, and becoming much more accurate than they ever would be with gamepad aiming. But the best you’re ever going to get is almost as good as a mouse, and I think games designed for an Xbox or PlayStation pad will still play better with the native hardware. Spending hours trying out the Steam Controller in the living room, I realized that don’t see much reason to make that compromise. There are very few PC games without controller support that I really want to play on my TV. When I tried, I mostly ended up just missing my mouse.

Hilariously the guy got much more negative (honest?) about it over time.

IGN, on the trackpad on its review:

It works great for typing in Steam Big Picture mode or in SteamOS, but it ultimately fails at replicating the speed and precision of a mouse for gaming. Traditional controllers use a thumbstick to let users look around in games, but with the Steam Controller, you’re forced to use the right touchpad to look around and aim. I tried tweaking the sensitivity of the pads for various games but I could find any setting that felt natural. I constantly overshot my targets and relied on the right thumbstick for accuracy instead.

Windows Central:

As touched on already, it’s difficult for the dual-trackpads to replace the trusty thumbstick, especially when it comes to aiming in first-person shooters, or even moving the camera around. I believe it’s certainly possible to get the hang of it and while everything appears to be accurate enough, it simply doesn’t feel as responsive as the thumbstick, or rather you don’t feel quite in control for quick snappy movements.

Valve being reported as saying trackpads are the superior option at The Escapist while also admitting they couldn’t get people to use them:

The machinist said that the new prototype’s analog stick was tied to movement, in order to “ease new players in” to using the two trackpads, by starting them off using just one for aiming. While he said that the prototype had been successful, and that players were eventually able to transition to the dual trackpad layout, its big disadvantage that the controller’s d-pad had to be cut to make room for the stick.

I was there. I bought one. Why do you make me do homework?

Maybe? That’d be a shame, I do like PC handhelds.

As you say, it doesn’t seem that manufacturers are too unhappy with their sales here, but I’d also like to see scale grow to the point where we can start seeing devices launch cheaper, rather than more expensive. Besides the presumably heavily subsidized (or at least priced for scale) Deck the more interesting alternatives are luxury items. It’d be nice to see them find some room for more competitive pricing, and that probably requires adding a zero to the sales numbers.

No, I get it, no animosity here. I’m just curious about why you think the bar is fundamentally different for the Deck than for consoles in general.

Hell, adjusted for inflation the Game Gear retailed for the equivalent of 300 bucks at launch, which is not far off from the lowest price for the Deck at 399. Plus 90s devices sold a lot less than modern devices. Why would meeting the Game Gear not be a reasonable target for the Deck?

It’s the most successful individual PC handheld, but it’s also not made it into the same range as most consoles so it hasn’t turned this product category into a mainstream device… yet.