That’s just a by-product of how Steam works. Playtime is counted as long as the Play button says “Stop”.
For games without DRM (e.g. KSP), you can launch it from the Steam install folder without Steam running. Everything works perfectly but your playtime won’t be counted for the same reason.
Try a strategy title with the pads, in particular something like Civ, where there is no time limit. Right pad works fantastic as a mouse replacement. Left pad is always kind of just there, though it can be useful as a radial menu if you use the configurator (albeit that makes more sense on Steam Controller since the pads are round).
Came here to say this. I use mine almost every day, specifically for titles that don’t have controller support.
While I do prefer a twin-stick like the DualSense for games with support, you cannot at all beat a Steam Controller for strategy gaming from the couch. I’m still on my first, but have two as backup (it was limit 2 when Valve offloaded them for $5 each).
I am hopeful for this. Playing it on day one, I reported a garbage management bug on the official forum: only to be told it was “by design”, and yet still game-breaking.
The performance woes got all the press, but the game was fundamentally broken. It was nearly impossible to lose. Too many services for a small city? Here’s free “government subsidies” that you also can’t shut off when your city is successful. Don’t have garbage service? No problem, a neighboring city you have no control over is gonna handle your trash – for free.
I hope this is finally a step in the right direction, but I’ll never understand why it took a year to listen to day 1 issues. If the game had been released Early Access the response would have been better all around. Performance issues need to take second place: if the game isn’t fun, I don’t care how it performs.
The fact that Elite was made to work with that amount of complexity on a C64 was absolutely mindblowing at the time. So often we forget how far things have come.
Imagine buying a T-shirt, and the manufacturer, without your prior knowledge or consent, could somehow render your shirt unwearable – that’s effectively what’s happening here. The only “gray area” might be that ultimately you don’t own a copy of the game anyway (since digital copies are effectively leased – a whole other issue unto itself), but regardless: more power to this lawsuit. Seriously shady shit getting tacitly accepted lately.
I mean, usually they’re already active as soon as the game starts, so I don’t really think it could be considered that way. Ideally I’d just like to be able to turn them off, which I think would provide some challenge to the budget.
Doesn’t surprise me, if you read their forums there are a ton of folks reporting issues either being outright ignored or told that the game-breaking bug they found is “as designed”.
Yeah, I’ve heard of people having a different experience (the economy just never picking up enough to succeed) – I think both are indicative of a borked simulation.
For me, I can even be completely in the black, with 100k+ income, and I’ll still be getting hundreds of grand in subsidies. Ruins any challenge.
It was definitely possible to tank a city in Skylines 1. That said, it’s also not the most challenging game.
But with Skylines II, I can’t even tank one when I try. Hundreds of thousands in the red? The game throws free money at you in the form of “government subsidies” to compensate. And they cannot be disabled. Absolute shit show.
I was so excited for Cities: Skylines II, and it is a shell of the former game. So many systems seem to fake the economy, and it also feels impossible to make your city fail.
Waiting until I see evidence of a good game post-release before I board any kind of hype train.