The Starcraft II LAN Conspiracy or "How Blizzard Entertainment Has Lost It's Soul"

Blizzard Entertainment left out LAN (Local Area Network) multiplayer to force people to play over Battle Net 2.0. There, I said it! This has been admitted by the employees of Blizzard themselves, but the ulterior motives behind this decision are many. I've touched upon this controversial subject before, in my Starcraft II review, but I feel like I have to elaborate on it, especially since certain events have occurred related to the controversy at hand.

During the course of this article, I will be mentioning Blizzard's official reasoning behind the restrictions placed on their newest game. Along the way, I'll mention other cases where Blizzard has dropped the ball in recent months. Finally, I will illustrate why LAN play is such an integral part of Starcraft.

If you want to read something a bit less controversial related to Starcraft II, check out the links below this line. Otherwise, scroll past the Starcraft II logo and read on!

According to Blizzard, the two main reasons that LAN was cut from Starcraft II (and, subsequently, all Blizzard games that are to be released after this one) are:

• Software piracy.
• A wish to integrate the world's SC II player population into one online platform (the "new and improved Battle.net" aka. Battle.net 2.0).

They go on to mention the amount of "lost sales" from people who never paid for their copy of Starcraft and Starcraft: Brood War and the ability for up to 8 people to play from a single legitimate copy of the software. This is without mentioning the people who make illegal copies of the game and/or download it from peer-to-peer websites such as The Pirate Bay.

Of course, in saying all of this, Blizzard falls into a common logic fallacy by assuming that all people who pirate will never pay for what they've obtained illegally. This is not necessarily true as some pirates have a "try before you buy" attitude towards videogame downloads. In other words, if they enjoy the game, they get a legit copy some time down the road. If they don't enjoy it, they delete it from their system. In either case, the net effect is the same as someone who buys it legally from the start (or someone who refuses to buy the game at any point in time; this is still a lost sale).

There will always be hackers and pirates because there will always be people that refuse to pay the price of a certain product (in this case, a copy of Starcraft II). However, said people will continue to do so even if Blizzard tries to set up harsher DRM (Digital Rights Management) schemes. By removing features from the game, Blizzard is only hurting the honest payers.

There's also the consideration that Blizzard is trying to groom Starcraft II into the ultimate e-sport. Back in the days of Brood War, they had millions of dollars in potential profit losses due to the fact that LAN was abused by companies such as KeSPA to broadcast top level Starcraft tournaments without Blizzard's permission. Now, they're removing LAN to lock down all multiplayer activity in their game. Basically, if you play ANY multiplayer mode on Battle.net, Blizzard will know about it. If you're trying to make an illegal tournament, they will find out and you will be in trouble.

You probably remember a time when gameplay and story were considered integral to the videogame experience. God forbid a developer released a game with a glitchy interface and a poor story. Well, while Starcraft II is pretty stable (gotta give Blizzard credit; they have solid code and stable games), the story stinks. Of course, this is more a consequence of this game's emphasis on the multiplayer component (the whole e-sport thing) than anything else.

A lot of fans of Blizzard have said that this feels like a step backwards from the company of old. Mainly, the Blizzard Entertainment of a decade ago would've rather killed itself than cut LAN from one of their RTS games, and probably would have thrown a hissy fit at the thought of forcing their fanbase to connect to the Internet to play any of their non-MMO games (WoW is excluded since it's an MMO).

Of course, the Blizzard of now isn't the Blizzard of times past. Now, they merged with Activision and, while they refuse to admit it, are being leeched by the parasite that is Activison CEO, Bobby Kotick.

I didn't actively participate in this event (for lack of a better word), but it's pretty well known, so here's the gist of it: Real ID is a new system that allows you to add friends to your Battle.net friend list. The catch is that they get to see your real name. Your. Real. Name. I spelled that out so you can see the gravity of that. The anonymity of the Internet let out a death-cry the day Blizzard announced that. Blizz pushed too far though when they announced that they wanted to implement this on their public forums. Just sit back and think about that for a second. Granted, it'd probably cut down on the trolling because people wouldn't be able to hide behind a veil of secrecy, but the cons heavily outweigh the pros in this case.

However, in a brilliant display of how the consumers still have the power at the end of the day, a huge protest thread was created in the official forums, eventually forcing the Blizzard staff to back off from their latest attempt to violate player privacy.

Of course, they still get to see every game you've ever played, if they're so inclined, and they'll data mine you to Hades and back, especially if you decide to use Facebook integration. Whoever thought of that should've been taken to a dark alley and shot. Seriously. Facebook is the ultimate data miner. -_-

(Yes, I use Facebook. I can also attest to the fact that I get spam daily now, when my email address was essentially immaculate about a year ago. Such is life.)

Yes, that typo in the section title is intentional.

Blizzard Entertainment has hyped up their new online platform as the best thing since sliced bread and so good that you won't even have time to miss playing over LAN. However, it has failed terribly in that respect. Getting randomly disconnected is the status quo on most days and you can forget ever playing with multiple friends by using the same connection because all of your computers will be pinging the servers repeatedly while you play, sending data to Blizzard for them to data mine you AND ruining any semblance of lagless play (this is unless you have an uber fast connection, but not everyone is that fortunate).

Now, if it were only at the casual player level, one could argue that the emphasis isn't on the casual community anymore; it's on the top two to five percent of the player population and the e-sports scene. However, as recently as a few days ago, a MLG (Major League Gaming) Starcraft II tournament in Dallas was delayed (the Grand Final match no less!) for several hours because Battle.net crashed. There's speculation that this was a vengeful Digital Denial of Service (DDoS) attack by KeSPA for what Blizzard has done (took away their cash cow, but to be fair, it was Blizzard's to begin with). In any case, it would've been much harder to DDoS a LAN setup, since you could stay offline for the duration of the tournament. By having to be online on Battle.net to play multiplayer, you open up the doorway to such things as this.

This derives from what I said in the section above. You'd better not dare talk about the events surrounding MLG Dallas in the official forums. Failure to heed my advice will get the thread in question erased and you might get temporarily banned from the forums as well.

Seriously, Blizzard...how far have you fallen? This only shows disrespect to your fanbase AND makes it look like you have something to hide. Are you so scared that you may be wrong? That removing LAN did more harm than good? That your profit margins won't be as juicy as you and Bobby Kotick expected?

If all of the above turns out to be correct, then it might be a case of "the chicken and the egg": People boycotting the game for removal of features, which lowers sales. Some people that were on the line between piracy and legitimacy take the plunge to the dark side (which helps prove the piracy point, and is thus a bad way to combat a company if you want to hurt their pocketbooks).

I, for one, will not be purchasing any more Blizzard Entertainment games until they turn themselves around. They got 60 of my hard-earned dollars, but I'll be darned if they get a penny more.

Let's face the truth: LAN is what made Starcraft big. You can love or hate KeSPA for what it did with Blizzard's intellectual property, but KeSPA helped legitimatize the concept of the e-sport, at least when referring to Starcraft. In Korea, Brood War is a religion. Seriously. The best Korean players have groupies. Yes, groupies. You know, the type of people you'd normally associate with rock stars and celebrities. That's how serious Starcraft: Brood War is in Korea. So much for the tired stereotype of a single, girlfriend-less nerd. :P

But, the importance of LAN doesn't end there. There's nothing like getting together with several friends for a good old LAN party. You get to chat the night away about anything and everything while playing, or even trash-talk if you're into that. Also, being able to play while offline prevents your 4v4 team game from falling apart because the Battle.net servers decide to have a seizure seemingly at random.

I sincerely believe that the potential lost sales from including LAN would be offset by the amount of gained sales from people who are currently boycotting the game because of the lack of this feature.

I know that I would buy a second copy of this game to play with my dad over LAN, if only Blizzard would add it in.

In closing, I'd like to mention that Blizzard Entertainment is one of my favorite videogame companies. While it's really hard to see from how much I bashed them in my article, I'm not lying when I say that. Thus, it saddens me greatly that a company I grew up with (and played all of their games since Warcraft: Orcs and Humans), has become just another money-grubbing corporation that only cares about the bottom line. I miss the company that made games because they enjoyed doing so.

I call for a boycott of all Blizzard Entertainment games until they realize just how terrible they've become. Hopefully, they will survive. If not, then they will serve as an example to all other companies that lose their souls in the same way.

Until the next time, take care and have fun! ;)

-Winterfate