Starcraft II and the lack of LAN play
The fact that StarCraft II won’t feature LAN play isn’t exactly a new story if you follow the usual online gaming outlets. I read about it last week and certainly thought it was extraordinary but haven’t had the time to collect my thoughts until now. Ars has followed up with a good piece about the lack of LAN support and I thought I might as well say a few words.
StarCraft was probably the game I played more than any other non-MMO PC title ever designed. It was also a game that I rarely, if ever, played alone. Most of my games were played on a LAN at Dresden’s house. If not there than somewhere else with friends. We sat together, laughed together and played together. In all honesty those are some of my fondest memories my nerdy childhood. That LAN saw home to basically every Blizzard title and now it is apparently not good enough. I am truly disappointed.
Now, before I get too misty eyed or cranky, I realize that I can do the exact same thing with “the new Battle.net.” The point is pretty simple though: Why should I have to? To play with my friends I now have to be sure that my internet connection is indeed running and that the service on the distant end is functioning? If either is in a state of disarray I will sit powerless, staring at my friends as we poke our computers like a primate might a monolith. Does anyone else see a problem here?
Blizzard is trying to try to sell this to us as a good thing of course. To quote them on the subject:
“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.”
I can respect the piracy argument as I truly believe you should have to pay for your entertainment. At the same time though Blizzard did invent the idea of the “spawn install” and won a lot of credibility with gamers because of it. The rest of that statement is all just PR spin I’m afraid. You will never have a higher quality multi-player experience than a LAN game. How do I know? I do this for a living (and it is pretty simply logic). A few hosts connected to a single network device in a single locality will always have a faster connection than hosts that have to go through a network device, out to the internet, hit some sort of authentication server (and a bunch of network equipment on their end) and then return to another device. It might not add a lot of latency but I can assure you, it is not a quality multi-player experience when compared to the LAN. We know what this is really about, advertising and money. I can assure you that Battle.net will feature advertising and now they have a captivated audience. It was brought up not to long ago and I will have to find the articles over at Ars about it. I still don’t even have a problem with that and least I didn’t! I thought there would be an option. There is no altruistic goal here to create something better for the customer. This is just a big company doing what they do and I actually feel shame for Blizzard.
This “tough decision” by Blizzard just shows their slow transformation from a player focused company to just your standard company. Another step in the wrong direction since they were purchased. I will be buying the title regardless. I won’t let this stand in the way of recapturing some of the magic that this serious had but I do so with a bit of sadness. While it may not put one dent in their pocket one way or the other I feel like the reputation of a once great titan has been tarnished and, at least to me, reputation is what is most important. You can’t buy it. It must be earned.
Tags: Blizzard, StarCraft II
It seems to me that many games are dropping LAN type support and saying it is for piracy and other reasons. I understand programs like Steam make sure the company gets paid (which I am all for, in the case of well made games). However, it seems to me that these various anti-LAN, anti-piracy tools are just offshoots of the MMO craze that has infested PC gaming.
Don’t get me wrong, I love MMOs just like everyone else. However, now that they are basically the only massively successful PC games out there, every PC game designer wants their game to have the MMO touch. In other words, a proprietary server to play on, some required software to install it, or a monthly fee of some type. Sure, these things do limit piracy. But, I have seen plenty of cracked steam games floating around out there.
What this is really about is controling the end user and having a captive market base. You have to play on their server, they can advertise to you. They can collect data on you and sell that data. Basically, from now on, PC game designers are expecting some income other than the initial sale of the software. It used to be that 60 bucks up front was enough. Now, they want you to pay monthly either in cash or in attendance.
I accepted that the StarCraft franchise had been completely coopted into the money grubbing, player-be-damned attitued of the AcitiBlizzard partnership the second I heard they announced that SC2 would be sold in three different boxes,one for each race. Like you, I have deep-rooted fond memories of LAN play on this game with friends from highschool days, and this is just another nail in the firmly sealed coffin of my respect for this company. I don’t want to skip out on SC2, but it’s looking like I won’t be buying it till either all 3 are bundled together, or the cost of them is dropped so far that it’s equal to buying one game.
I first heard about this here:
http://www.gucomics.com/comic/?cdate=20090630
I think it’s blatantly idiotic. LAN play for SC was one of the things that stood out in an otherwise EA-like braindead antipiracy trainwreck of an industry. The “spawn install” was brilliant. Tossing that out of the window insures I won’t be buying the game… and I was already going to wait for the package deal on deep discount because of the dumb split decision.
I detest any company that makes me connect to the internet without giving me extremely good reasons to do so. I don’t always have internet access.
(Insert mini rant about my local university who doesn’t even have papers for the application process any more, where going in to apply just garners you a flunkie telling you to go to the internet. *toothgrind* It made my little brother’s application a month-long nightmare when it should have taken two days at most.)