I thought about trying the Steam controller but I'm glad I held off since not many people seem hot on it. I'm sure you could figure out ways to customize the controller to really work well with certain genres or types of games, but at the end of the day I feel like why bother trying to learn yet another controller or input scheme at this point in our gaming lives when we have thousands of hours of experience with keyboards and mice and a variety of controllers that fill all other necessary gaming needs. I appreciate Valve trying something new but I see no reason to rewire your brain and tweak and reconfigure yet another input device to feel acceptable when it will most likely just feel forced and not really add anything overall to your gaming experience. Only way I'd buy a Steam controller is if I could get it super cheap and even then it would probably just be to satisfy the tech junkie inside me that likes fucking around with new devices and not because I'd actually use it.
Having said all that, I will however totally buy something stupid purely for vanity reasons. Case in point my recent purchase of the Corsair Gaming Strafe RGB Mechanical Keyboard. I've only ever used whatever shitty keyboards I could find lying around for my PCs so I was curious what a quality keyboard would feel like for gaming and everyday use compared to the packed in one I always get when I buy a new PC. To be perfectly honestly, from what I can tell at the end of the day a keyboard is a keyboard but I will say that this one feels like a proper serious user peripheral, even if overall its not that different from anything else. I do like the feel of the keys since they have a slight resistance to them making it so that you rarely push keys completely by accident and this particular model is a bit more silent than most high end mechanical gaming keyboards so while I still get that satisfying clicking sound it isn't so loud that its annoying. When playing games where you aren't necessarily hammering on keys like you are when typing it seems even less audible.
But let's be truthful here, when you add in all the fully customize-able RBG lights which can be programmed and tweaked to a stupid level of detail, then you've sold me on it. After all, I like feeling like I have a boss set up, and I take pride in how my setup looks overall as I slowly make it better piece by piece, so when I can customize and program complex color scheme profiles to fit my mood, match my desktop or set up, or just look fucking dope, then I'm willing to spend a bit more for cool peripherals like this.
So far the software is pretty easy to use but it is a bit overwhelming trying to program and create your own personal keyboard light shows. Thankfully, like anything else in life, there are other people out there putting in the hard work and so you can download other people's profiles and import them into your keyboard. I haven't gotten too deep into this yet as right off the bat I found a Star Wars one that is pretty rad. Here is what it looks like as an example of what is possible with this device:
Honestly between the 150 I spent on the Xbox Elite and about the same for the Corsair keyboard I feel like I'll get more enjoyment and use out of the keyboard. If you go for some less extravagant lighting effects while playing games its honestly not as distracting as I thought it would be and can actually help you spot those random keys that you need to hit sometimes since all the keys are backlit.
Next up will be a vanity gaming mouse because why not. I'm curious to see what a mouse designed for gaming could feel like...as long as there are shiny flashing lights to go along with the other flashing lights I own.