> how come nobody is playing them with their thumb on their laptop's touchpad?
Touchpads (and mice) don't work like thumbsticks.
Touchpads/mice measure a vector with the size equal to distance traveled. Thumbsticks measure a vector with a size equal to the deflection from center.
Thumbsticks are terrible for mousing tasks (e.g., moving a virtual cursor [rts games]), and mice/touchpads are terrible for thumbstick tasks (e.g., playing a racing/flying game).
Actually raw touchpad output does work like that, it's just adapted to drive a mouse cursor. Imagine a touchpad mode where the position of the mouse cursor on screen gets mapped to the position of the finger on the pad.
Touchpads (and mice) don't work like thumbsticks.
Touchpads/mice measure a vector with the size equal to distance traveled. Thumbsticks measure a vector with a size equal to the deflection from center.
Thumbsticks are terrible for mousing tasks (e.g., moving a virtual cursor [rts games]), and mice/touchpads are terrible for thumbstick tasks (e.g., playing a racing/flying game).