Before the advent of cable high-speed internet, getting a bunch of friends together and hooking up your computers together in a local area network (LAN) to play games like Counter-Strike or Red Alert was easily one of the most popular way for PC gamers to compete against one another.
In fact, even with Internet connections as fast and prevalent as they are today, most gaming conventions and tournaments still prefer to host events via a wired, LAN setup, instead of online servers to avoid unnecessary bandwidth and latency issues.
However, the days of hanging out in your friends basement and playing LAN PC games could begin coming to an end. Game developer Blizzard announced in an interview with IncGamers that the highly-anticipated StarCraft 2 will not support LAN multiplayer when it ships sometime later this year.
“We don’t have any plans to support LAN,” said Blizzard’s VP of Game Design, Rob Pardo
Later, according to Joystiq, the development company behind smash hits, including World of Warcraft and Diablo, elaborated on Pardo’s statement.
“We don’t currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft 2 and future Blizzard Entertainment games,” said Bob Colayco, a member of Blizzard’s Public Relations.
Colayco: “While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft 2 and safeguard against piracy.”
Colayco further continued by saying that “[s]everal Battle.net features like advanced communication options, achievements, stat-tracking, and more, require players to be connected to the service, so we’re encouraging everyone to use Battle.net as much as possible to get the most out of StarCraft II. We’re looking forward to sharing more details about Battle.net and online functionality for StarCraft II in the near future.”
Battle.net is Blizzard’s private online multiplayer service that launched in 1997 to accommodate the game Diablo. Though absolutely free to use, Battle.net requires gamers to register a unique registration key in order to take advantage of that game’s multi-player function.
For instance, gamers can still play the original StarCraft offline, but they would have to enter in the game’s authentic serial number with Blizzard if they wanted to play online and compete against gamers from around the world.
However, because playing games through a LAN connection does not require any sort of CD-Key registration, it is possible that Blizzard is not supporting LAN multiplayer in StarCraft 2 in an attempt to combat illegal piracy of the game. Though anyone who either makes a copy of the disc, or downloads a disc image through torrents would still potentially be able to play StarCraft 2’s offline campaign mode, they would be unable to play with others unless a workaround, or a hack, is created.
Though killing LAN support in StarCraft 2 might prevent it from being as widely pirated, such a move definitely has its share of drawbacks, and could hurt overall sales.
The original StarCraft is a favorite in professional gaming circuits, particularly in South Korea, and it is unknown how Blizzard’s decision will impact the chances of StarCraft 2 achieving the same degree of success.
Additionally, while high-speed Internet is becoming more affordable and available, not everyone has it yet. By choosing to not feature any form of offline multiplayer, Blizzard could be effectively isolating a part of their fan base.
Mark Fujii: I'm your typical college student who plays too much video games. I also work as an electronic sales associate, meaning I sell Ipods and violent video games to your children when not trying to sneak off and play Super Smash Bros while the boss isn't looking. Oh, and I'm totally awesome. True fact.
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Mark Fujii
I'm your typical college student who plays too much video games. I also work as an electronic sales associate, meaning I sell Ipods and violent video games to your children when not trying to sneak off and play Super Smash Bros while the boss isn't looking. Oh, and I'm totally awesome. True fact.