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Gaming companies contributed to the death of LAN parties too. They killed the "split-screen" gameplay that would support 2-4 players on the same machine. They w

Gaming companies contributed to the death of LAN parties too. They killed the "split-screen" gameplay that would support 2-4 players on the same machine. They wanted each player to require their own copy of the game. They killed LAN support, forcing you to play on their servers. Culturally we saw a shift towards social isolation. People are more comfortable talking over a mic.

giantg2 4y ago
"Gaming companies contributed to the death of LAN parties too. They killed the "split-screen" gameplay that would support 2-4 players on the same machine." Even consoles suck with this now. It seems like none of the big games support more than 2 players.
- Farbklex 4y ago
  Exactly. I wanted a coop split screen shooter for the PS 5. I checked out 4 games. None had coop splitt screen. 2 were alway online which would require me to get a PS Plus subscription. Games were: Back 4 Blood, Call of Duty Vanguard, Rainbow Six Extraction, Alien Fire Team Elite. I still invite friends for Xbox 360 LANs. Just connect two consoles and play with 8 players. It is super fun and the hardware is dirt cheap.
  - godzillabrennus 4y ago
    360 consoles are so cheap right now… Facebook market has them by me for as little as $20 with a controller.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    Even many of the 360 games only support 2 locally, especially the later ones.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
thrown_22 4y ago
Split screen was never a part of lan parties. The reason why lan parties stopped was because it was hard to move a tower around. Even during that period it was much easier to go to a lanshop and play there either as in lan or on the proto cloud servers they had. Many fond memories of early battle.net and much fewer of steam.
- pedrogpimenta 4y ago
  > The reason why lan parties stopped was because it was hard to move a tower around. No, no. The effort played itself. As OP said, it was a cultural change with companies piggy-backing on it. Split screen is not a major reason, no, I don't think so. But luggaging towers? That's not the reason.
  - thrown_22 4y ago
    Until you dropped your screen on the drive way into your friends house and heard the magic sound a CRT makes when it implodes.
    - giantg2 4y ago
      And now you have a story/memory that the new generation doesn't. Working for something arguably makes the experience more rewarding too.
    - krolden 4y ago
      This a good sound
- dudul 4y ago
  Agree with your 1st statement, I dont think split screen had anything to do with LAN parties. There was no network with split screen. However I don't think LAN died because of tower size. Maybe towers got a tad bigger at some point, but monitors got way thinner. I've done a few LAN parties on laptop even. I think they just died because it was easier to play over global network, and subsequently LAN mode disappear from games.
_the_inflator 4y ago
I disagree. My monitor's weight was around 20kg and it was a lot of work, to get it together with my large tower into the car. Even though we enjoyed the gatherings, we hated doing the grunt work before and afterwards.
- iso1631 4y ago
  Sure, but that made it all the more worthwhile. You put actual effort into it, and were rewarded with a weekend of fun.
- loloquwowndueo 4y ago
  There were plenty of us who didn’t mind the “grunt work”. Laziness was not the reason for The demise of LAN parties :)
jwie 4y ago
I definitley think it's on the product side that LAN parties died. The relationship between the player and the game, and the LAN community and the game were way different. Gradually the companies figured out how to inject themselves into the social structure. Your relationships became mediated by these products. Rather than a social lubricant they became the relationship itself. They monetized that social capital. You didn't play WoW with your friends anymore; you played WoW because that product allowed you access to your friends. Some superguilds figured out how to hop games and maintain that social structure, but only the most organized and intentional. Gradually these LAN groups eroded as people got jobs, families, etc. Perhaps that was why the MMO declined; those friendship structures became compromised by the product, and people also developed constraints on their time by things like, spouses, children, and careers.
- fxtentacle 4y ago
  Fully agree. I still regularly organize LAN parties with the same crew as back then. 24 years and counting... Family has made finding a suitable date much more difficult. But the biggest obstacle is finding LAN-capable games. 10 people joining Dota 2 from the same IP results in instant ban for everyone. StarCraft 2 is horribly laggy when 10 PCs compete for UDP traffic to the internet server. GTA 5 keeps load-balancing us into different lobbies. Most new games just cannot handle a LAN party anymore. And yeah, I remember the time when I paid for a WoW account despite not playing because the WoW guild chat was the quickest way to reach all of my real-life friends. Warcraft 3 fun-maps, Left 4 Dead 2, Flatout 2 are the games that reliably work well.
  - gdprrrr 4y ago
    And then there's Anno 2070 which fails at login (it requires an account and an internet connection) for a second player in the same home network.
  - DrSiemer 4y ago
    OpenRA is the only thing that really works for an ad hoc LAN party on whatever laptops we have with us when we get together with the old crew. We join over public servers, so we skip the classic LAN curse (spending an entire day getting it all connected properly, then only having time left for maybe 1 or 2 rounds of actual play).
tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
LAN parties used to be the only way to play together because playing over the Internet wasn't practical. Once that changed, it was so much more convenient to just play over the Internet, that the demand for LAN parties dropped quickly. From my memory, companies ending LAN support came long after LAN parties were mostly done for the experience and mostly by people who had done them before.
- LtWorf 4y ago
  Games explicitly allowed you to play in like 3-4 using the same CD code. Now you need all the friends to buy the same (usually expensive) game.
  - xivzgrev 4y ago
    Yah I remember some folks had all these pirated game installers, so you’d arrive at the LAN, access a shared folder and install whatever game everyone was playing. Then at some point we’d switch and repeat.
  - boomboomsubban 4y ago
    I don't know if they explicitly allowed it, it seems more likely the CD code was only checked locally so there wasn't much the game could do to stop code sharing.
    - dusted 4y ago
      For instance, the Diablo CD, it could be installed either as "full" or "multiplayer", if you had the multiplayer install, you could only join games, but not start a single or multiplayer yourself. It was very cool.
    - LtWorf 4y ago
      No it was even specified in the manual that above X players you needed 2 players with the game in the CD reader at the same time.
    - msmenardi 4y ago
no_time 4y ago
The fact that fucking AGE OF EMPIRES II/III DE doesn't have LAN is ridiculous. Atleast for AoE III DE there is a server emulator because MS servers only do matchmaking.
- evolve2k 4y ago
  Yeah that’s rubbish. Not exactly the same but I’ve had a few LAN parties with 0ad. It’s still in alpha and lags up during the mega battles , but that’s been pretty fun too, watching armies crash together is slow motion when u finally throw everything at each other. I’d definitely recommend 0ad for a small 3-4 player LAN party. 0ad.com
krolden 4y ago
I'm happy about the death of split screen gaming. It was just an awful experience. Especially when your friends were screenlookers
- godzillabrennus 4y ago
  We were all screen lookers… it’s not like any other player had more advantage… The death of split screen keeps me in retro games.
- giantg2 4y ago
  We'd run 2-4 consoles in separate areas, with each console being a team. As a kid split screen adversarial was common, and the screen looking was never really an issue. If someone was better, you'd play 1v2, 1v3, or 2v2 with the best and worst player on the same team. If you were at a LAN party and were too good, then it was you and the worst kid on one console vs 4-6 kids on the other 2 consoles. Haha good times.
grubbs 4y ago
Attended a LAN party in Manassas, VA back in early 2000s. It was literally in a barn with 100+ people. No Internet as it was pretty rural. I don't think this would even be possible now with no LAN option in modern games.
BananaaRepublik 4y ago
I believe there is a resurgence in LAN-like in-person social gaming when competitive multiplayer mobile gaming became a thing. It can take place literally anywhere, a quick few minutes during lunch, before classes.
jrnichols 4y ago
I also think that the rise of quality gaming consoles helped kill off LAN parties. the xbox/etc took over pretty fast.
- lelandfe 4y ago
  Xbox System link was a thing, for a time. Xbox Live and co. was probably the real death knell of LAN.
  - giobox 4y ago
    System linking IMO came of age even earlier, in the PS2. The original PS2 hardware could system link over 4 pin FireWire (I-Link in Sony speak or whatever they branded it). Late generation ps2 hardware dropped the FireWire port. Connecting two PS2s via FireWire/I link, two multi-taps and two big tvs for 8 player time splitters 2 is an all time favourite memory of mines. Memory is fuzzy, but I think Gran Turismo 3 also could do this.
robryan 4y ago
Probably after they were already dead but also Discord. Online communication is so easy and good now. My friends have talked about having some LANs again but it is so easy to just play online that it never happens.
_carbyau_ 4y ago
Only 10 years ago I had two people over to LAN game. Newly released Far Cry 3 had some co-op bits in it! Didn't work. Despite each machine being on the same network they tried to connect via the routers external IP and failed at the UPnP/NAT traversal stage. Honestly, a "direct connect" option solves many things.
wink 4y ago
I don't think I remember ever playing a single game via split screen on a LAN party (except that one year someone brought an... N64?). The server thing is true though, also just not paying for dialup by the minute.
kodt 4y ago
I don’t think split screen has anything to do with it unless you are talking about consoles. The biggest factor was companies removing LAN play as an option from games. Forcing you to be always online and not allowing you to run a local server. When you can play an offline LAN game you can also use pirated copies or reuse cd keys, which was always necessary to get everyone up and running.

giantg2 4y ago

"Gaming companies contributed to the death of LAN parties too. They killed the "split-screen" gameplay that would support 2-4 players on the same machine." Even consoles suck with this now. It seems like none of the big games support more than 2 players.

Farbklex 4y ago
Exactly. I wanted a coop split screen shooter for the PS 5. I checked out 4 games. None had coop splitt screen. 2 were alway online which would require me to get a PS Plus subscription. Games were: Back 4 Blood, Call of Duty Vanguard, Rainbow Six Extraction, Alien Fire Team Elite. I still invite friends for Xbox 360 LANs. Just connect two consoles and play with 8 players. It is super fun and the hardware is dirt cheap.
- godzillabrennus 4y ago
  360 consoles are so cheap right now… Facebook market has them by me for as little as $20 with a controller.
- giantg2 4y ago
  Even many of the 360 games only support 2 locally, especially the later ones.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

thrown_22 4y ago

Split screen was never a part of lan parties. The reason why lan parties stopped was because it was hard to move a tower around. Even during that period it was much easier to go to a lanshop and play there either as in lan or on the proto cloud servers they had. Many fond memories of early battle.net and much fewer of steam.

pedrogpimenta 4y ago
> The reason why lan parties stopped was because it was hard to move a tower around. No, no. The effort played itself. As OP said, it was a cultural change with companies piggy-backing on it. Split screen is not a major reason, no, I don't think so. But luggaging towers? That's not the reason.
- thrown_22 4y ago
  Until you dropped your screen on the drive way into your friends house and heard the magic sound a CRT makes when it implodes.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    And now you have a story/memory that the new generation doesn't. Working for something arguably makes the experience more rewarding too.
  - krolden 4y ago
    This a good sound
dudul 4y ago
Agree with your 1st statement, I dont think split screen had anything to do with LAN parties. There was no network with split screen. However I don't think LAN died because of tower size. Maybe towers got a tad bigger at some point, but monitors got way thinner. I've done a few LAN parties on laptop even. I think they just died because it was easier to play over global network, and subsequently LAN mode disappear from games.

_the_inflator 4y ago

I disagree. My monitor's weight was around 20kg and it was a lot of work, to get it together with my large tower into the car. Even though we enjoyed the gatherings, we hated doing the grunt work before and afterwards.

iso1631 4y ago
Sure, but that made it all the more worthwhile. You put actual effort into it, and were rewarded with a weekend of fun.
loloquwowndueo 4y ago
There were plenty of us who didn’t mind the “grunt work”. Laziness was not the reason for The demise of LAN parties :)

jwie 4y ago

I definitley think it's on the product side that LAN parties died. The relationship between the player and the game, and the LAN community and the game were way different. Gradually the companies figured out how to inject themselves into the social structure. Your relationships became mediated by these products. Rather than a social lubricant they became the relationship itself. They monetized that social capital. You didn't play WoW with your friends anymore; you played WoW because that product allowed you access to your friends. Some superguilds figured out how to hop games and maintain that social structure, but only the most organized and intentional. Gradually these LAN groups eroded as people got jobs, families, etc. Perhaps that was why the MMO declined; those friendship structures became compromised by the product, and people also developed constraints on their time by things like, spouses, children, and careers.

fxtentacle 4y ago
Fully agree. I still regularly organize LAN parties with the same crew as back then. 24 years and counting... Family has made finding a suitable date much more difficult. But the biggest obstacle is finding LAN-capable games. 10 people joining Dota 2 from the same IP results in instant ban for everyone. StarCraft 2 is horribly laggy when 10 PCs compete for UDP traffic to the internet server. GTA 5 keeps load-balancing us into different lobbies. Most new games just cannot handle a LAN party anymore. And yeah, I remember the time when I paid for a WoW account despite not playing because the WoW guild chat was the quickest way to reach all of my real-life friends. Warcraft 3 fun-maps, Left 4 Dead 2, Flatout 2 are the games that reliably work well.
- gdprrrr 4y ago
  And then there's Anno 2070 which fails at login (it requires an account and an internet connection) for a second player in the same home network.
- DrSiemer 4y ago
  OpenRA is the only thing that really works for an ad hoc LAN party on whatever laptops we have with us when we get together with the old crew. We join over public servers, so we skip the classic LAN curse (spending an entire day getting it all connected properly, then only having time left for maybe 1 or 2 rounds of actual play).

tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago

LAN parties used to be the only way to play together because playing over the Internet wasn't practical. Once that changed, it was so much more convenient to just play over the Internet, that the demand for LAN parties dropped quickly. From my memory, companies ending LAN support came long after LAN parties were mostly done for the experience and mostly by people who had done them before.

LtWorf 4y ago
Games explicitly allowed you to play in like 3-4 using the same CD code. Now you need all the friends to buy the same (usually expensive) game.
- xivzgrev 4y ago
  Yah I remember some folks had all these pirated game installers, so you’d arrive at the LAN, access a shared folder and install whatever game everyone was playing. Then at some point we’d switch and repeat.
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  I don't know if they explicitly allowed it, it seems more likely the CD code was only checked locally so there wasn't much the game could do to stop code sharing.
  - dusted 4y ago
    For instance, the Diablo CD, it could be installed either as "full" or "multiplayer", if you had the multiplayer install, you could only join games, but not start a single or multiplayer yourself. It was very cool.
  - LtWorf 4y ago
    No it was even specified in the manual that above X players you needed 2 players with the game in the CD reader at the same time.
  - msmenardi 4y ago

no_time 4y ago

The fact that fucking AGE OF EMPIRES II/III DE doesn't have LAN is ridiculous. Atleast for AoE III DE there is a server emulator because MS servers only do matchmaking.

evolve2k 4y ago
Yeah that’s rubbish. Not exactly the same but I’ve had a few LAN parties with 0ad. It’s still in alpha and lags up during the mega battles , but that’s been pretty fun too, watching armies crash together is slow motion when u finally throw everything at each other. I’d definitely recommend 0ad for a small 3-4 player LAN party. 0ad.com

krolden 4y ago

I'm happy about the death of split screen gaming. It was just an awful experience. Especially when your friends were screenlookers

godzillabrennus 4y ago
We were all screen lookers… it’s not like any other player had more advantage… The death of split screen keeps me in retro games.
giantg2 4y ago
We'd run 2-4 consoles in separate areas, with each console being a team. As a kid split screen adversarial was common, and the screen looking was never really an issue. If someone was better, you'd play 1v2, 1v3, or 2v2 with the best and worst player on the same team. If you were at a LAN party and were too good, then it was you and the worst kid on one console vs 4-6 kids on the other 2 consoles. Haha good times.

grubbs 4y ago

Attended a LAN party in Manassas, VA back in early 2000s. It was literally in a barn with 100+ people. No Internet as it was pretty rural. I don't think this would even be possible now with no LAN option in modern games.

BananaaRepublik 4y ago

I believe there is a resurgence in LAN-like in-person social gaming when competitive multiplayer mobile gaming became a thing. It can take place literally anywhere, a quick few minutes during lunch, before classes.

jrnichols 4y ago

I also think that the rise of quality gaming consoles helped kill off LAN parties. the xbox/etc took over pretty fast.

lelandfe 4y ago
Xbox System link was a thing, for a time. Xbox Live and co. was probably the real death knell of LAN.
- giobox 4y ago
  System linking IMO came of age even earlier, in the PS2. The original PS2 hardware could system link over 4 pin FireWire (I-Link in Sony speak or whatever they branded it). Late generation ps2 hardware dropped the FireWire port. Connecting two PS2s via FireWire/I link, two multi-taps and two big tvs for 8 player time splitters 2 is an all time favourite memory of mines. Memory is fuzzy, but I think Gran Turismo 3 also could do this.

robryan 4y ago

Probably after they were already dead but also Discord. Online communication is so easy and good now. My friends have talked about having some LANs again but it is so easy to just play online that it never happens.

_carbyau_ 4y ago

Only 10 years ago I had two people over to LAN game. Newly released Far Cry 3 had some co-op bits in it! Didn't work. Despite each machine being on the same network they tried to connect via the routers external IP and failed at the UPnP/NAT traversal stage. Honestly, a "direct connect" option solves many things.

wink 4y ago

I don't think I remember ever playing a single game via split screen on a LAN party (except that one year someone brought an... N64?). The server thing is true though, also just not paying for dialup by the minute.

kodt 4y ago

I don’t think split screen has anything to do with it unless you are talking about consoles. The biggest factor was companies removing LAN play as an option from games. Forcing you to be always online and not allowing you to run a local server. When you can play an offline LAN game you can also use pirated copies or reuse cd keys, which was always necessary to get everyone up and running.