Why do Ubisoft's games not support LAN?

I find this strange how most (if not all) Ubisoft's games do not support LAN. I have slow Internet, so LAN is a biggy for me to play with friends, seeing as I can't join servers. So not being able to play AC or Far Cry 3 over LAN is a shame.

The cost to develop such a feature is considered too high for the relatively small number of people who would actually use LAN play. If only a tenth of one percent of people are ever going to use it, it doesn't make financial sense to spend time coding it...that goes for pretty much any feature. LAN play is more or less a thing of the past, I'm afraid.

@SexyToad said:

I find this strange how most (if not all) Ubisoft's games do not support LAN. I have slow Internet, so LAN is a biggy for me to play with friends, seeing as I can't join servers. So not being able to play AC or Far Cry 3 over LAN is a shame.

How slow is your connection speed anyway?

Allowing LAN makes it easier to for people to play online with pirated copies through programs like hamachi or tunngle.

@responsible_bear said:

Allowing LAN makes it easier to for people to play online with pirated copies through programs like hamachi or tunngle.

This is the only reason. They could have one of their experienced programmers code in the option to use a local host instead of going through a dedicated server in one afternoon, if they wanted to.

Yeah no @MB . This has nothing to do with costs of developing LAN support. As it is something a junior network coder could do. It has always been a question of piracy and wanting to force people onto platforms where they can suck more money from their customers.

Why Ubisoft only? 
Blizzard fucked it up too 
EA(with their games, not their published stuff), Activision, Paradox hell I could go on if you want me to :P 
 
It's expensive and a waste since not that many people(compared to those who just have internet not made in the stone age :P) who uses LAN anymore

@harinosho said:

@SexyToad said:

I find this strange how most (if not all) Ubisoft's games do not support LAN. I have slow Internet, so LAN is a biggy for me to play with friends, seeing as I can't join servers. So not being able to play AC or Far Cry 3 over LAN is a shame.

How slow is your connection speed anyway?

This. I played Call of Duty (a notoriously twitch based game) with down speed of just 50kB/s, and a ping of ~200 and still did well.

If you're getting worse than that you must be on dial up or some shit.

@ZeForgotten said:

Why Ubisoft only? Blizzard fucked it up too EA(with their games, not their published stuff), Activision, Paradox hell I could go on if you want me to :P It's expensive and a waste since not that many people(compared to those who just have internet not made in the stone age :P) who uses LAN anymore

@responsible_bear said:

Allowing LAN makes it easier to for people to play online with pirated copies through programs like hamachi or tunngle.

Both of these are the responses that came to mind.

@harinosho said:

@SexyToad said:

I find this strange how most (if not all) Ubisoft's games do not support LAN. I have slow Internet, so LAN is a biggy for me to play with friends, seeing as I can't join servers. So not being able to play AC or Far Cry 3 over LAN is a shame.

How slow is your connection speed anyway?

This. I played Call of Duty (a notoriously twitch based game) with down speed of just 50kB/s, and a ping of ~200 and still did well.

If you're getting worse than that you must be on dial up or some shit.

The snarky answer is that it's not 1998 anymore. The real answer is likely the piracy concern.

@MB said:

The cost to develop such a feature is considered too high for the relatively small number of people who would actually use LAN play. If only a tenth of one percent of people are ever going to use it, it doesn't make financial sense to spend time coding it...that goes for pretty much any feature. LAN play is more or less a thing of the past, I'm afraid.

Converting online MP to support a lan might take 2hours. If that. It's probably more about the cost of support then implementation.

Everyone in this topic saying "it is easy/only takes X hours/is cheap" have probably never developed software as a profession :P

@lazarenth said:

Everyone in this topic saying "it is easy/only takes X hours/is cheap" have probably never developed software as a profession :P

Nope, Only took 4 years of Cisco networking courses @ 10 hours a week (that's just the lectures and material not including 3-5 hours of required lab times).

You think there's a difference between connecting through 3000 routers to your friend in Australia and connecting across 1 to your buddy in the next room; end point wise (aka what the console sees)? It's all the same language.

Like I said, I'm fairly confident it's not a technical/dev cost. More so a support issue as in supporting old MP glitchs when they can be updated through software if you are required to play online.

I could be completely wrong, and I would be surprised. I'm just trying to give a slightly informed opinion on the tech side.