My Steel Battalion footpedals gave it up today.

Details: Each footpedal set has three pedals, and each pedal comes from the factory with two torsion springs. Almost like clockwork, after every hundred hours of play I would break one of the springs in the accelerator. Since you only need one spring per pedal, I took the thing apart and redistributed the springs when the second accelerator spring broke, and then again two nights ago when a third spring in the accelerator pedal broke.

Today the spring holding up the "slidestep" pedal gave way.

It's not the end, really, because I can get a replacement footpedal assembly from Sammy USA for $40 (plus $10 shipping, at the least). It just seems like a waste when all I need is a couple dollars worth of springs. But the last time I tried to get Sammy to send me springs I was denied. Fascists.

I suppose I can't complain too much, since I've gotten somewhere over 300 hours of play out of the controller (holy crap--I'm down below the magic "$1 per hour" entertainment rate), but that doesn't mean I'm happy about things.

Which brings up my question. There have been other specialized controllers released from time to time. The Virtual On twinsticks come to mind, for example. How durable have they been for you? If they broke, were you able to fix them? And if not, were you able to replace them?

I'm going to go into the corner and whimper for a while now. I'll check back for responses later.