• The amount of gamers on Steam using controllers instead of mouse and keyboard has tripled in six years.
• Around 15 percent of all sessions on Steam include the use of a controller.
• Most controller users, nearly 59 percent, are using an Xbox-branded controller.

Back in the day, PC gaming meant PC gaming, but then everything changed when the Console Nation attacked. According to a new report from the largest online marketplace for computer games, Steam, gamers on PC have steadily abandoned their traditions of the mouse and keyboard and embraced the neo-liberal agenda that is console controllers.

Now as per the report, the number of PC gamers using controllers has tripled since 2018, as the daily average leapt from around five percent of all sessions to about 15 percent. In another six years, this percentage could increase to over 25 percent – one-fourth of all PC gamers – and it will likely be even more than that.

In terms of what brands are being used the most, as much as 59 percent of all gamers that play with controllers on Steam now play using an Xbox Controller, meanwhile another 26 percent on top of that play PC games using a PlayStation Controller, while 10 percent are on Steam Deck.

It looks like there is five percent of controller users running unidentified gamepads while on Steam.

Around 42 percent of sessions using controllers are using the Steam automatic controller input to play, which the company says supports over 300 controllers as well as custom button bindings and community-made configurations. It is likely the most customisable system of its kind and removes hours of tedious online searching, downloading and installing of third-party software.

It is also likely the reason why more and more PC gamers turn to controllers instead of the mouse and keyboard, this alongside with the ballooning popularity of games that are simply made for controllers.

This includes games like Elden Ring, Grand Theft Auto V and more. However, with Counter-Strike 2, DOTA 2, Team Fortress 2, Apex Legends and other shooters, MOBAs and real-time strategy games (RTS) still right at the top of the leaderboard, we believe that there will always be a place for mouse and keyboard configurations because the system has always been the go-to for these genres.

Since 2008, game developers started prioritising controller support for their titles in the hopes of penetrating the console market. Studios like Bethesda were among the first to begin translating their entirely PC-made games for console audiences with Morrowind for the original Xbox and Oblivion for the PlayStation 3.

These were generally accepted as positive, while other studios desperately tried to find a system of RTS games that worked with a controller setup and struggled to achieve the same kind of control and reactivity. Games like Halo Wars may have one day been more important if they weren’t designed with console players in mind.

There will still be genres of game that necessitate mouse and keyboard inputs over controllers, but the current state of game development usually sees the option to try one or another. More choice for players is good. And we hope that the trend of “see what works better for you” can keep going for one of the best ways to play videogames.