Thick Thighs Save Lives
NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
This is aimed at game devs, but I found the part about PlayStation controllers market share massively expanding in the past 5 years rather interesting. Considering that 27% of controller sessions are now via PlayStation controllers, I'm hopeful that all AAA studios that decide to put their games on Steam will begin to offer full support for both Xbox and PlayStation controllers and making that visible on the product's page as in the example shown below.
"But recently we've seen the most growth among players using various types of PlayStation controllers. For example, in 2018, PlayStation controllers comprised about 11% of controller sessions. Fast-forward to today and we now see 27% of controller sessions being played with PlayStation controllers."
"But recently we've seen the most growth among players using various types of PlayStation controllers. For example, in 2018, PlayStation controllers comprised about 11% of controller sessions. Fast-forward to today and we now see 27% of controller sessions being played with PlayStation controllers."
Steam will soon start showing this information on store pages and in the client
The Steam store and desktop client will soon be able to help players find games that support DualSense or DualShock controllers.
If your game supports either of these devices, you can now enter that information in the Steamworks 'edit store' section for your app.
Steamworks has a new controller-support questionnaire for developers to better describe the devices supported by the game. If your game plays well with a DualShock or DualSense Controller (PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 respectively), you can now specify that information within Steamworks.
This is the first step toward helping players find games that support the most commonly-used PC video game controllers. Starting in October, we'll show this information to players in the Steam store and Steam desktop client.
Here are more details on this new level of support.
First, describe your games' controller support
As part of the 'edit store' section for each game in Steamworks, you'll find a new questionnaire to describe your controller support
Through this questionnaire, you will self-identify the level of controller support that your game handles. You'll be presented with a set of criteria and options for describing whether your game meets that criteria.
For now, the results of this survey will do two things:
- It will output results that are displayed using our existing options on the store. This generally boils down to just "Full Controller Support" or "Partial Controller Support" with special cases for games that require controllers or only work with keyboard/mouse. If you already had controller support indicated on your store page, you may not see anything change immediately on your store page.
- It will also output a preview within Steamworks of what the future store display will show for the game. This will distinguish between full and partial Xbox, DualShock, and DualSense Controller support.
Important note:
Support for DualShock and DualSense controllers isn't automatically assumed if you already have good Xbox controller support. These two PlayStation controllers are pretty different, so if you haven't done specific work to support them, then you almost certainly do not have support for those controllers.
Starting In October, New display and filters roll out to players
Once game developers have had a chance to review the new controller-support questionnaire and enter updated controller support, we'll start showing players this new information. So starting in early October, we'll roll out some updates to the Steam store and the Steam desktop client to expose this new information. This update will include the following:
- Updates to store page area that displays controller support to also specify the level of PlayStation controller usage
- Updates to some browse pages to make it easier for players to find new games that support their controller device well
- Updates to the Steam Desktop client to indicate a game in your library has PlayStation controller support
- Updates to the Steam Desktop client to make it more clear when a game requires use of a controller to play
Why Controller Support Is Important
Over the past few years it has become more and more common for players to enjoy games on Steam using a controller rather than strictly keyboard/mouse. In fact, since 2017,
Steam has seen over 87 Million users play at least once using a controller. Among those players, the majority (~69%) have used some version of Xbox controllers, with the remaining being a mix of PlayStation controllers, Switch Pro Controllers, and hundreds of other devices.
But recently we've seen the most growth among players using various types of PlayStation controllers. For example, in 2018, PlayStation controllers comprised about 11% of controller sessions. Fast-forward to today and we now see 27% of controller sessions being played with PlayStation controllers.
How to Support PlayStation Controllers (and many more)
Supporting PlayStation controllers in a game on your own can be challenging, so Steamworks provides some streamlined APIs to help. If you have an existing game with good Xbox Controller support, you might just need to add calls to get the right glyphs to show for players using a PlayStation Controller. If that's the case, check out our Steam Input Gamepad Emulation - Best Practices documentation. Or, if you are starting your controller support from scratch, we've got great APIs that make it easy to support hundreds of different devices with one integration. For an overview on Steam Input support, please check out documentation here: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/steam_controller
