Gamepad vs. touchscreen: a comparison of action selection interfaces in computer games

In this paper, we compare gamepad and touchscreen interfaces for action selection tasks in computer games. Touchscreens are now widely used for computer games on tablets, smartphones and hand-held game consoles. However, in general, game players are considered to prefer a gamepad over a touchscreen. The motivation for this research is to compare gamepad and touchscreen interfaces. Our results show that the touchscreen interface achieved better than or similar results to the gamepad interface. We believe that our results can provide a guideline for choosing and designing interfaces for computer games.