No LAN for StarCraft II
June 30, 2009 by Ingrid Diaz
Filed under Gaming
It’s official: Blizzard killed off LAN support for StarCraft II. No SCII LAN parties for you! Instead, Blizzard wants you to sign up to Battle.net and stay there. They hope that this move helps protect users against piracy, by offering a one-stop shop for all multiplayer needs. Mostly, it just sounds like Blizzard really, really wants you to sign up to Battle.net and will not rest until everyone has done so.
The official word from Blizzard PR’s team member, Bob Colayco is as follows:
“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 II and future Blizzard Entertainment games. 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 II and safeguard against piracy.
Several 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.”
Undoubtedly, this will likely cause some bitterness and resentment among gamers, but I’m somewhat certain it won’t hurt SCII’s sales any when the game finally comes out. Of course, there’s always Diablo III – which will also lack LAN support.
Via | Joystiq
Image: Blizzard
