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Games

Too Much Multiplayer In Today's Games? 362

hornedrat writes "Gamepro discusses the idea that modern games put too much emphasis on multiplayer, and that players aren't as concerned about it as developers think. 'The current environment encourages developers to unnecessarily toss multiplayer into their games without caring about it — or even considering whether anyone will bother playing it. It’s like they're checking an invisible quota box that demands multiplayer's inclusion.' Personally I agree that too much emphasis is placed on competitive multiplayer. I play online, but only with my brother in games that allow co-operative modes, like Rainbow Six: Vegas and ARMA 2. 'My point isn't that developers shouldn't try and conquer Halo or Call of Duty. We'd never have any progress in this industry if developers didn't compete. Game companies, however, should think carefully about what they want their games to be, and more important, gamers should consider what they want. If a developer wants to eclipse Halo, then by all means, pour that effort into a multiplayer mode that's different.' I would be interested to know how many gamers really care about the multiplayer components of the games they buy."

Comment Teaching tool, not an investigative tool. (Score 1) 315

The institution where I work has been considering the Turnitin products lately. It has been an interesting process analyzing what it can and cannot do, and how to avoid a confrontational situation like that described in the article. First of all, Turnitin can't detect plagiarism. It is a text matching software suite, and can detect commonality between works. Plagiarism is a social phenomenon, and can't be dealt with by an automated tool.

Where the product really shines in my opinion is when it is used as a teaching tool. Students are permitted to submit their assignments to Turnitin before they submit to their instructor, and they get back their originality report from Turnitin. Then they have the ability to *learn* proper attribution and citation with the help of this tool. When a paragraph gets a low originality rating, they can look and verify whether they have correctly cited their source material, and if they have, then they're good to go. When used like this, Turnitin becomes a valuable teaching tool that is appreciated by the students rather than something they try to fight against. And what is the goal in the end? It's not to throw students out of college, it's to make sure they understand how to attribute things correctly, and make them better writers.

To answer the question about what happens if there is a match to a paper from another institution: In that case, an instructor account can request a copy from the other paper's instructor via Turnitin. If the request is granted, the appropriate sections are forwarded to the requesting instructor.

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