How About Those MMORPGs?
I played several MMOs on my television with this setup with more or less success. While it let me quest, the problem with MMORPGs and the Steam Controller (again, the Link worked just fine) is a matter of ease. With so many mappable buttons, you can program in quite the array of abilities; however, the trade-offs are not always worthwhile.
If, like me, you program your interface windows to the D-Pad, and still want to keep mouse look bound to a trigger, you’re left with only a handful of buttons pre mode shifting. Since a mode shift button needs to be held, it’s that button is essentially off-limits for abilities as well. See where I’m going with this? At the end of the day, I had lots of abilities mapped, but in all but Guild Wars 2, they felt unnatural and easy to get tripped up on. And chat? It’s possible, but typing with any controller interface is a pain, even with Valve’s impressive radial typing system.
In my testing, the most obvious assumption was true: many MMOs will simply have too many abilities to make good use of the Steam Controller. Wildstar and Guild Wars 2 worked quite well, and TERA is a clear fit, but World of Warcraft and LotRO would be a challenge without physically clicking each button. Which you can do without too much hassle. Like I said, it’s possible, but not something you would want to do if the stakes were high.
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Conclusion
Which is kind of the story with the Steam Controller. If you’re willing to invest the time, it’s a very powerful gadget that does a metric ton for its buy in price. For gamepad centric games, you may still want to reach for a 360 pad, but for the rest, the controller mostly accomplishes what it sets out to do -- if you’re willing to invest the time to set it up in every game you play.
The Steam Link? That’s a given, and it doesn’t require the Steam Controller to work. Grab a wireless mouse and keyboard. Get a gamepad with two joysticks. But even if you avoid Valve’s controller experiment, get the Link. It’s worth every penny.
