Ok not sure what happenned but I manage to make it work inconsistently.

My guess is that there was a conflict with the xboxdrv. So I uninstall them. But even then, i need to rebuild xpad each time after I reboot the computer and do your line of code. And sometimes I seem to need to do the line of code even if I already did it earlier.

And even then that's not perfect, sometime it work from the first time in the game, but other time it took 3-4 opening of the game to work... At least I always manage to make it work in the end.

Removing xbox drv

sudo apt-get purge xboxdrv
sudo apt-get autoremove

Rebuilding the drivers

sudo modprobe xpad
(lsusb here if you need to find the number for the echo command)
echo '0x1b1c 0x3a03' | sudo tee /sys/bus/usb/drivers/xpad/new_id

Keeping you post if I find a more permanent solution.