Hacker News Reader

Comment by hgs3 | Hacker News Reader

This is a pedantic comment, but the terminology is confusing. Games have "players" so their sync systems are called "multiplayer," but regular software has "users" so their sync systems should be called "multiuser." The page reads strangely mixing the terms "user" with "multiplayer."

View on HN

Maybe. But user is like a consumer. So HN is multiuser, but seems weird to call HN multi-player. Live concurrent interactions feels like something more than multiuser. Just my 2-cents, but multiplayer as in multiple users acting and interacting is a good use of the term multiplayer.

Let me guess: you are not regularly playing multiplayer computer games?

I totally feel hgs3's confusion when reading the discussion here or that website. I always confuse the use cases - "are they now talking about computer games, or are they talking about the broader scope of any kind of software in which multiple users can act concurrently within a shared environment?".

I think this confusion would be much less severe if I hadn't been an avid gamer for decades and thus had a very specific idea of the meaning of the term "multiplayer".

Its logic is based on the logic that's been in "multiplayer games" for decades.

On the other hand all web software is "multiuser", which doesn't tell you anything.

That’s just the terminology these days. Multiplayer == “live” multi-user including visualizing what other users are doing at every moment.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com