Back in 2013, Valve unveiled their Steam Machines, and along with it a Steam Controller which would be used to play with the Steam Machines. The design of the controller itself was very unique and safe to say that it did not look anything like the competition, but apparently it proved to be too controversial which was why Valve announced a slightly redesigned Steam Controller which did away with the secondary display in favor of more familiar D-pads. That being said, we’re sure many of you guys are wondering how did Valve even come up with such a unique design in the first place.
Speaking during Steam Dev Days, Valve’s Eric Hope outlined how the company conceptualized and experimented to eventually come up with the Steam Controller. According to Hope, one of the goals of the Steam Controller was to emulate both the mouse and the keyboard in a single device, or as Hope puts it, “We wanted to embody everything that made Steam and PC gaming in general great inside of a controller.” To that extent Valve experimented with a variety of ideas which included motion controls and track balls, but these ideas either ended up being too expensive or too heavy, which Valve eventually whittled down to the Steam Controller that we know today. The talk itself is almost an hour long so if you have some time to spare, check it out in the video above.