I have this paranoia that if I leave the controller plugged in, it'll burn out or something. Am I being silly? Is it alright to leave it plugged in at all times?

I actually have a 360 controller specifically for my PC, but I don't think I've ever really used it. The most I've gotten out of it so far is playing two minutes of BioShock because there was a controller option for some reason.

Yes you're being silly, I don't have to think about that though cuz mine is wireless.

I have mine plugged in for over a year now and I haven't had any issues with it so far. I'd imagine it wouldn't cause any problems.

Have one plugged in since September 2011, did not experience any meltdowns whatsoever.

I don't have mine plugged in. Just use rechargeable AA batteries instead.

I unplug it every once and a while, but that's just because it looks more neat with my controller elsewhere rather than sticking out of my PC. I haven't experienced or heard of controller mishaps, and I'm using one I've had since launch.

I haven't unplugged mine in days. I unplugged it whenever I played The Darkness II though, because it would display controls on screen such as "Press B to crouch" if I had the controller connected, which was confusing and annoying.

It works fine.

I leave my PS3 controller plugged in cause if I unplug it it will turn my ps3 on, and I never remember when it is off.

They say that at midnight of December 21, 2012 the fusion reactors at the center of each XBox controller will go off, causing nuclear explosions all over the country, but only if they're plugged into a pc (inferior xboxes don't give enough juice)

I leave mine plugged in pretty much the whole time. Most annoying thing is sometimes I just leave it on the floor and it's face down and the analog stick is actually being pushed up by how's it sitting on the floor, so I turn on a game and all of a sudden I'm staring at the ceiling. First time it happened I thought there was a problem with my mouse or keyboard moving the map in XCOM, so I disconnected and blew in the connectors and stuff. Was quite embarrassed when I realised what was actually causing it.

I'd never considered that it might "burn out" from being left in all the time.

Nope. Mine is always in.

The Walking Dead and Windows 8 don't play nice when the 360 controller is connected. It's the first time I've disconnected it in ~3 years.

I'm a controller guy. Mice have advantages in gaming, but keyboards are terrible gaming inputs, IMHO.

I only play PC games with controller support

Nope. I had to to get Walking Dead to work and that just made me not want to play it. Now I have to fiddle with .dlls. If people weren't calling it their game of the year it would be long uninstalled by now. Maybe I'll play it one day.

Only when I'm using it on the 360. The worst that'll happen is the light burning out (not likely... your sticks will go loose long before that happens), and that's an inconvenience if anything.

@MikkaQ said:

Nope. I had to to get Walking Dead to work and that just made me not want to play it. Now I have to fiddle with .dlls. If people weren't calling it their game of the year it would be long uninstalled by now. Maybe I'll play it one day.

Maybe I'm reading that wrong, but are you seriously not playing Walking Dead because you can't use a stupid controller? Jesus man. There's like nothing to that game but using WASD to move around and the mouse to click on an option from time to time. There is zero reason to use one.

Anyway, I bought one a few months back thinking a bunch of these 2D games people praise and blow their load over how awesome they are with a controller would finally click with me, but after a few hours I realized they were still no fun with a controller and in fact I preferred the WASD to them. I just left it plugged in until a couple days ago when I came across two games that had a weird bug where they would not run properly if started with a controller plugged into your PC. Walking Dead was one of them, but I can't recall the name of the other one.

I got a wired 360 controller hooked-up to my PC at all times. At this point, I'm doing all my multiplatform gaming on PC, and if available and sensible, on the gamepad. Can't really do it any other way anymore -the current crop of consoles just don't cut it right now. I'm so ready for the next generation of consoles.

No mishaps to report either. Don't think a gamepad can have a catastrophic malfuncion, outside of some battery-acid leakage or whatever holds the charge in them wireless controllers.

@crusader8463: No it's more that I really want to play The Walking Dead as a living room cinematic experience (Since I keep hearing it's barely a game) and I feel like being hunched over my monitor all PC game style is not a great way to go for that. I want the best experience, so I want to be able to play it on my TV in the living room, the controller is the only way that's gonna happen. I also hate fiddling with computer files to get games to work, reminds me of the old days of PC gaming in a bad way.

I'll play it, just... when Hitman is a click away and works perfectly, TWD loses it's top slot in my list of priority gaming. Still, I gotta crush that before the GOTY podcasts or I won't understand anything they talk about since they'll probably talk around spoilers in a very obscure way.

The Walking Dead is worth the lack of controller.

Yes, always.

(fine, now I have to post this, regardless of its relevance...):

And... the original:

@MikkaQ: To each there own, but I find being close to a PC with headphones on far more engrossing then sitting in a living room watching it on a TV.

If past GOTY podcasts are any rule of thumb though you will want to play it before listening to it as they are always full of spoilers so you take them at your own risk. Patrick spoiled the ending of Catherine on me during last years because I wasn't quick enough to reach for the skip button when he started talking about it. So if you go in know that games you have not played will be ruined if you are not careful.

I leave it unplugged most of the time. There are a few games that don't have a Controller toggle in the options, so if you plug one in the controller will just take priority over KB&M. Either that or the controller will rumble on my desk as I'm playing with the KB&M.

@Beforet said:

They say that at midnight of December 21, 2012 the fusion reactors at the center of each XBox controller will go off, causing nuclear explosions all over the country, but only if they're plugged into a pc (inferior xboxes don't give enough juice)

Of course! Microsoft used outdated parts to build the controller that still had the Y2K bug, and all the abuse it heard on XBox Live has taught the bug to hate humanity! Hopefully The MasterCode Project can complete is work in time to stop it...

I never leave it connected, if I leave it plugged in a lot of games try to default the 360 controller. Why would I want to use that when I am in front of my keyboard and mouse?

I unplug it pretty frequently. Some games default to it when I'd rather be playing with a mouse and keyboard, it also sometimes conflicts with joysticks/HOTAS setups when those are plugged in.

I don't always use it, but I only ever really unplug my controller if a given game has difficulty with it. Recently Walking Dead and Planetside 2 on Windows 8 both have little freakouts if you try to boot them up with a controller plugged in.

Mine's always plugged in. Unless I'm using it to play some Xbox 360 (if my wireless dies.) Mine hasn't burned out or had problems, but my PC isn't always on. I have it on when I need it, which is when I'm doing computer stuff (browsing the web, or using a program, and so on) or when gaming. So at most the controller is plugged in for around 5 hours. (I'm not saying that's how long I use the computer for, but that's how long the computer usually stays on for daily.)

Mine's always plugged in. I use my 360 headset as a dedicated skype headset since it's the most comfortable and sounds better than any chat headset I have.

My wireless receiver's fuse blew up so I just soldered across the fuse. It works but I don't leave it plugged in just in case.

I've had my wired one connected for years and years, but I had to disconnect it because some games won't work with controller 2 or 3 and I generally want to play with the wireless one. Pretty silly you can't reassign controller number.

@abomunist: Really? I had zero issues with playing the last episode with a controller on Win8. Some games have these issues and they are usually solved by adding some dll to the game directory, dxinput or something (pulled that name out of my ass). Can't remember if I did this before playing the game, maybe I did and that's why it worked.

EDIT: Actually this is how I fixed the issue, check it out if you ever wanna re-play the game with a 360pad. http://www.telltalegames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=697804

Does it count if I say yes when I use a wireless controller?