Valve reveals just how many PC gamers plug in gamepads—and which kinds

Enlarge / How third-party controllers appear in the Steam Input interface. (credit: Valve Software)

Fans of PC video games inevitably point to the options they have for how they play their favorite games, whether with a keyboard and mouse, a large array of flight-sim pedals, or everything in between. But the data coming from leading PC platform Steam points to an interesting trend: millions of PC gamers who gladly stick to the console-like experience of a standard gamepad.

A Tuesday hardware survey from Valve Software, Steam's handler, reveals that "over 30 million" users have connected at least one gamepad to a Steam installation since the company began tracking "Steam Input" as part of its hardware surveys. And with some users connecting multiple pads to their PCs, the total number of connected Steam controllers ratchets up to nearly 60 million.

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