Pancakes
hot, steaming, as melted butter slips into the cracks, drizzled with sticky sweet syrup OH GOD
Here are some comments from a HON developer on why his game doesn't, and never will, have LAN. I figured this could probably apply to SC2 as well.
TL Thread
Reddit Thread
TLDR: Pirates ruin everything...
TL Thread
Reddit Thread
Dev said:in today's world putting a LAN feature on a game is the direct equivalent of giving it away for free.
Dev said:Not my shot to call. But as an Economist, it's easy for me to see why any company making an RTS-style game will never put LAN in it ever again. Pirates ruined LAN, not us. I don't see why everybody is trying to convince companies to put LAN into games- you're convincing the wrong people. As long as piracy is on the rise, LAN will be on the way out. Simple as that. Put yourself in any business' shoes and try to weigh the advantages against the disadvantages and you will understand why, even on the biggest competitive games like Starcraft 2, there will never be LAN.
Goodwill is nice to have but it doesn't pay the bills and any gaming company out there is out there to make money first and make good games second. I'm sorry if this truth offends you but the video game market is an industry and people make games to make money the same way a guy who sells Ice-cream does his job to make money and not to put smiles on people's faces (although I'm sure he does enjoy putting smiles on people's faces).
Here's an example of how "goodwill" is received in the gaming community: http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/i0otl/pirates_are_scumbags/
The majority of the gaming community has a whole has proven to be indifferent about "goodwill". So don't knock on our door, or Blizzard's, or anybody else who doesn't put a LAN feature in their game- it's simple Economics. If I have a choice to add a feature to a game that will reduce revenue by a significant percentage and yield almost nothing in return (money wise) than any smart business wont implement it.
And you better bet piracy is on the rise. I'm not blaming anybody, though- just the same way that the smart Business is drawn to removing LAN because of piracy, the smart Consumer is drawn to piracy because it is rational to not buy a game for 30 dollars when I can download almost the same game for free.
It's a simple case of two Homo Economicus doing what they do best- being rational in a market. LAN is an unfortunate bystander and is going to vanish in the future as long as it's part of a game that can be abused by piracy.
So yeah, I'm listening if you have any good arguments. Let me state for the record that I love LAN, that I wish HoN had LAN, that I think it's lame that tournaments have to be played on-line and not on LAN. But I still accept the inevitability that LAN is going to die.
TLDR: Pirates ruin everything...