Have you made a joystick from an Arduino? I need your expertise, please.

Hi!

I want my UNO to show up as a HID compliant joystick. I've already written the sketch to run on the microcontroller. I don't have the bootloader right. I've been told DFU can do it, but then people in arduino said "no, buy extra hardware to do the job right." I'd really really like to do the job without buying extra hardware. Please: Is there a way?

Thank you!