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StraightFace column

by Mike Pell

Do iFeel like you do?

November 15, 2001

Force feedback mice and joysticks aren’t just for hardcore gamers anymore. In fact, there’s already a conspiracy to get all your input devices vibrating and your Microsoft Office apps humming.

 

It’s easy to dismiss force feedback devices as passing fads – I mean after all, they’re stupid, right? Just for teenagers you say. No one even has them. But, the fact is, that’s not true anymore. Let’s take a look at what your hand is doing right now. What’s in it? Uhhh…no, I meant the other hand Romeo. Plain old mouse, right? And what’s that mouse doing? Nothing, right? Well, not for long…

Force feedback input devices like Microsoft Sidewinder joysticks and Logitech iFeel mice are designed to vibrate or push back in a way that makes you think you’re “feeling” something physical, typically during a video game. The vibrating motion and tactile sensation you get from the mouse creates the desired effect because you are simultaneously looking at something on the screen that you want to believe has those properties. That combination and some clever software from Immersion actually fools you into thinking there is some type of resistance, texture or motion in whatever you are passing over or bumping into.

It’s a really impressive effect to show your friends, but there’s one little problem – see, despite the high wow factor for games, these devices hum annoyingly, loudly buzz and generally feel weird if you’re not in a caffeine-induced video gaming trance.

Despite that, the device manufacturers need to both drive adoption in the computer industry and spur sales to a wider audience than just gamers. Basic business. But given the novelty, how can they convince consumers that force feedback isn’t just for over-amped adolescent XBox players?

CAUTION: Desperate Marketing People at work ahead

You spent how much on what?

We know the input device manufacturers need force feedback to be adopted quickly, because they’ve got Wall Street in their shorts wanting to know why they spent any of their precious R&D dollars on this fringe gaming stuff. This was a big financial gamble for them, so guess what – you’re going to give that money back to them damn it, whether you want to or not.

So, get Marketing in here now. No problem. Plan A comes quickly–  get all this wacky force feedback stuff into the mainstream product line pronto so it will appear to be driving upsell to better models. To accomplish this, they’ll set the pricing force feedback mice equivalent to a standard optical mouse. And of course they’ll play up the fact that it will help the ordinary consumer navigate Windows and the Internet by bringing feeling to menus, toolbars, hyperlinks, dragging, text editing and Web browsing. Hey Biff, great idea. One down, one to go.

Big Business becomes Big Game

Hmmm. Now we’re getting to the insidious part.

As you recall, Marketing just intuited an incredible advancement in the field of User Experience – force feedback is way too cool to not be useful for everyone. My God, it’s not just for gamers – business users will love the new feeling they get from buzzing over menus and bumping into window edges. There’s a quantum leap here. We’re talking Comdex Best of Show for sure.

And they’re not completely off base. I’m sure you’ve noticed just about every set-top game console sold since the N64 rumble packs came out in the mid ‘90s pretty much require you to use force feedback to get the full effect the game designers intended. And trust me, when it’s done right, its damn cool in those games. And since PC Gamers want parity with Console Games, it’s only natural that they’d buy force feedback devices for both types of systems. So, lots of force feedback joysticks and driving wheels have already been sold, setting the stage for act two of our drama – taking force feedback into mainstream business apps.-

You know you want it

So, you’ve already got your force feedback joystick at home for the kids. In the universe of Marketing physics, it follows that next time you’re cruising the peripherals aisle at Fry’s and see that cool new mouse packaging blinking at you, you’ll realize that there’s absolutely no reason to not get the mouse with the cool new force feedback feature and Star Wars optical laser beam. And then, they’ve got you. Marketing’s plan just worked because those new drivers you need to download to make your awesome new mouse compatible with Windows XP contain the magic juju to turn Microsoft Office into a hand massager. And then it hits you – why are they doing this to me?

Too much of a good thing

The truth is that force feedback is an incredible technology for gaming, but we’re not all ready for our business desktop computing experience to get that physical just yet. There’s a real disconnect between what people are seeing as non-physical objects like menus, buttons and windows and the physical attributes the Immersion software is assigning to them. It’s cool as hell, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not natural enough just yet. Compounding the problem is the fact that the software ships with the feedback settings too high by default, turning your cool new mouse into a rumbling, bumbling, stumbling, buzzing nightmare. So, you know what happens next. Disable checkbox. End of story.

 

All this kidding aside, the sad fact is that the Desperate Marketing People are right. Force feedback will be integrated seamlessly in business apps someday soon.

They just need software designers to iFeel the Force.

M. Pell

[ Writer's note: Yes, I did write this entire column with Immersion Force Feedback assisted Microsoft applications and a Logitech iFeel mouse. I think it's cool.  -- M. Pell ]