With the recent revelation that Blizzard is going to remove LAN support from Starcraft II, I'm beginning to see a trend. Not a good trend, a trend that perhaps Activision is influencing Blizzard's decisions much more than we would like. In other words, the corporation is putting profit margins before the consumers, just like every other video game publisher out there, and it's hurting us bad. Let's look back on the different decisions Blizzard has made since Activision bought it out...
- They've dropped hints about a "next generation MMO" which sounds like Activision got big dollar signs in their eyes from WoW and wants to capitalize
- They announced Starcraft II then announced it's going to be 3 games instead of 1, thus costing the gamer at least 150$ for the full experience (the news about each campaign being 30 hours long takes the sting out of this one though, as almost 100 hours of Starcraft is totally worth 150$ in my opinion)
- They announced Diablo III, but from the early looks, it's going the route of God of War and the other action titles of recent years (orbs instead of potions, much less intricacy/strategy involved, character development dumbed down, etc.) I actually wouldn't be surprised to see this announced as a console title in addition to PC.
- "1 game a year" idea. Come on, dont release a game until it's done. We expect nothing less of you.
- And finally, removal of LAN support from Starcraft II.
Anyone with lame excuses about "combatting piracy" and "LAN is so last decade" should have their posting rights removed, be baned from GB for eternity, and have a squad of trained penguins sent after them to break their kneecaps and their computer, because anyone who supports this boneheaded move is going to give Activision-Blizzard reason to continue on their merry way stomping all over the things we love. To start, the argument about combatting piracy is complete and utter bullshit, because pirates don't pirate games to play the multiplayer, they pirate it to play the singleplayer. It is impossible for pirated copies to get onto Battle.net even as it stands today, it was impossible back when Battle.net was even created, because Battle.net requires a legit CD key for you to access it, which pirated copies of Blizzard games do not have. If you're that worried about pirates LANning together, then make the LAN require a legit CD key to use as well, or if you must make internet access mandatory, like Half Life 2 did, then just use the internet to authorize the game, then allow people to LAN as normal. Also, for those who say LAN is outdated with today's internet speeds, even the fastest connections will have 10-20ms worth of latency. For the average person, this may be workable, but for professionals and tournament players, this is simply unacceptable. LAN remains the only zero-latency way for two or more people to play together. Taking LAN out is stupid, unnecessary, and it will fuel rampant speculation that Activision-Blizzard is gearing up to make Battle.net a pay-to-play service (which, if they do, I'm done. Never buying any Blizzard game again. That will be the final straw for me).
LAN isn't dead, it's alive and well. I consider myself a fairly casual gamer, I rarely spend in excess of an hour or so a day playing games, since I have other things to do (work, school, commitments, band, friends, etc.) However, every 3-4 weeks, a group of friends and I get together in one guy's basement, network our PCs together, and play some Starcraft, DOTA, Left 4 Dead, or some other game over LAN. It's still relevant today, and until they invent a zero-latency way to play over the internet (which admittedly might be possible in the near future), LAN will be my favorite way to play with people. Not only for the lack of lag, but also for the ability to take off the headset and talk with people right next to me, revel in their anguish as I destroy them, groan as they train me with a zergling rush and laugh in my face about it... I could go on, but the point is made. LAN brings people together to play, the internet erects a barrier between them - which can never, and will never, replicate the closeness of playing a game in the same room as your friends.
Part of the reason this pisses me off so much is because this is Blizzard. Along with Valve, I considered Blizzard above the machinations and evil scheming the other corporations get into (EA's attempt to take over the market a couple years ago, Sony and their stupid "Playstation Exclusives", etc. etc.) When Activision bought them out I was really worried that something like this would happen, although I was more worried that the quality of games would drop. Fortunately, this doesn't look to be the case (can't say for sure until we actually get Starcraft, but it's looking to be every bit as awesome as Starcraft 1 was). Unfortunately, Blizzard is losing it's place on the pedestal of developers who not only make quality games, but make them while remaining ethically pure and actually caring about the customers. Unless there's a fairly major turnaround, I might have to hang up my hat as a Blizzard fanboy, and rely on Valve as the one last remaining bastion of "good" developing companies.
I predict, however, that within the next 48 hours, the outcry from the Starcraft faithful, professional videogame leagues, and South Korea will be enough to get Blizzard's attention. If Blizzard remains at it's core a company that cares about it's faithful, no matter how much Activision has warped it, it might still listen, and we might see LAN support in Starcraft II. If not... well, there's always the internet. A hack will become available in time.
But let me say this: Blizzard, if you make Battle.net pay-to-play or have a subscription fee, not only will there be a LAN hack almost immediately, but the number of people using that and hamachi/garena will soar, as will the number of pirated copies out there. You'll only end up hurting yourself and the paying customers.
/rant
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