For Ben Heck, it started as a kindness. He was an engineer doing cool things, and a veteran reached out to see if he could make him an Xbox controller that would let him play video games with one hand. Twenty years later, he still makes controllers for people with limb differences. But he is not the only one.
In the two decades since Heck began modifying Xbox controllers for accessibility, a community of controller modders has emerged. The challenge of making hardware available is that everyone has different needs, and often these needs can conflict with each other. One person may need a super-sensitive joystick, while another may need a joystick that responds to the most intense inputs. It is almost impossible to change a controller to meet both of these needs at once.
So some modders can modify controllers to do the first, while others do the last. There’s a whole community of modders out there tweaking existing controllers to make them a little more usable for people with a wider range of needs – and that’s thanks to people like Heck who posted their own mods on his website, Twitter and his popular YouTube channels. He showed in small detail what was possible with a factory fresh Xbox controller.
But things changed in 2018. That was when Microsoft introduced its Adaptive Controller, a super-customizable controller designed to cater to as many different input needs as possible. Since then, some other controller manufacturers have made their own attempts to build more accessible products. Logitech created a range of accessories for the adaptive controller, and Hori made a third-party available controller for the switch. It’s a huge step in the right direction for an industry that can struggle with inclusivity.
In the last few weeks, I’ve been talking to creators who built entire communities around cool gadgets that the big tech companies have ignored or let go. I talked to lovers of mechanical keyboards who want to see the mechanical keyboard become mainstream and open source gadget enthusiasts who want everyone to take part in a gadget revolution. In this final episode, I wanted to explore a community where the big companies actually captured and instead of challenging the creators of space, actually worked with them. So, of course, I talked to Heck about the game controller mod community. And then I talked to Bryce Johnson, one of the inventors of Microsoft’s Adaptive Controller.