Time Will Tell: The changing face of LAN gaming

In Time Will Tell SquareGo looks into the history of videogaming and sees which elements have managed to stand the test of time.

This time Tom Hillman looks at LAN gaming from its basic roots to the present day. 

My earliest memory of Local Area Network (LAN) gaming is me carting a huge CRT monitor and PC around to my friends house - in order to have a 3 day Counter-strike marathon. Now imagine 10 smelly teenagers in a darkened room, huddled around makeshift desks with only the glow of the monitor for 3 days. Sounds slightly horrific, but those 3 days hosted some of my fondest gaming memories.

A LAN party is described on Wikipedia as "a temporary, sometimes spontaneous, gathering of people with computers, between which they establish a local area network (LAN) primarily for the purpose of playing multiplayer computer games."

One hub to rule them all

Now, back in the day of 56k modems sometimes the most reliable and cheapest way to get your multiplayer fix was through LAN parties. These parties involved taking your PC with you and everyone plugging into a hub/switch. You'd take some snacks and drinks as a way of thanks for the host and away you go. You'd all log into a host-run local server and be able to game with very low latency [that's techy talk for damn fast - Ed].

That was a huge benefit in a time of modems either freezing or causing you to drop out mid-match due to lag. Another glorious benefit was being able to see and hear your friend across the room scream with rage as you headshot him across the map with your sniper rifle.

Of course whilst there has always been multiplayer on home consoles such as the SNES, until the N64's release it was a strictly two player affair unless you purchased add-ons such as the NES Four Score or the 4 Play/Team player for the Mega Drive. Even in the days of the PS2 you could only have 8 players on a multi-tap without doing some serious tinkering.

At this time PC LAN parties offered the ability to have far larger numbers of people playing together than could ever be supported on consoles. In this golden era of LAN gaming large scale gaming centres popped up left, right and centre. Not only did the centres have top spec PC's, comfy chairs and the ability to have hundreds of people playing together in one place but there was a real sense of community with the familiar faces coming back week after week.

LAN gaming only went on to penetrate the console market through the original Xbox. By using the system link function and ensuring that each Xbox had its own TV and copy of the game such as Halo Combat Evolved you could have 16 players playing together. In a technical sense this mirrored PC LAN gaming down to a 'T' and whilst this was a triumph for LAN gaming on a console it would also prove to be its swan song.

Eastern Promise

Now, fast forward to the present day where broadband is engrained into everyday life and described as an essential service. The gaming industry has embraced the technology and moved away from LAN based multiplayer infrastructures to a system facilitated by the internet. Games as a result are also being designed differently. 5-10 years ago you might have had all of your friends in one room it's now more common to have each friend connect to a virtual "party" from the comfort of their own home, removing the need to lug heavy kit around. Whilst this is great for friends who may live hundreds of miles away it has somewhat taken away the social joys of having all your friends in one room and seeing the expressions on their faces.

In order to bring back some of the magic some developers have taken steps to try and bring this level of personality back to their online multiplayer. For example Burnout Paradise has a wonderful little feature which switches on your webcam just as you get rammed off the road; letting the aggressor see your snarled, twisted angry features as you bounce off into oblivion.

Whilst LAN parties have been decreasing in popularity in the West, they're currently as popular as ever in the East where StarCraft reigns supreme. Now whilst this is partly down to some unscrupulous practices such as cloning game disks in LAN centres, face to face community based gaming really takes precedence in the East. This can be seen from the continuing popularity of arcades and the reason why most Japanese games on the PSP only support ad hoc local multiplayer options. However Japanese gaming is now starting to move away from this approach to more of a Western middle ground. Here in the UK LAN gaming is starting to experience something of a renaissance.

Gamerbase

Music and Games retailer HMV has been trying a little experiment called Gamerbase. At present there are four centres in the country: London, Manchester, Reading and the newly opened Glasgow site. These centres are designed to impress not only with high tech furnishings but the Glasgow centre contains 50 Scan 3XS PCs, 10 Xbox 360's and 10 Playstation 3's all hooked up to a blisteringly fast local server and a 32mb internet connection.

Aside from the obligatory comfy leather chairs and top spec gaming keyboards and mice there is a vast library of games available to play. HMV seem very keen to instil the real community feel which was one of the main hooks in getting people to come back time and time again to the old LAN centres. One of the ways they're managing this is by hosting regular tournaments, leagues, cross-centre matches and developing a strong social networking community on facebook.

After visiting Glasgow Gamerbase a few times now I think HMV are nearly there in bringing gaming to the general public, by having these centres in retail stores it promotes the industry in a positive light, showing that gaming isn't just about sitting at home on your own anymore. If you want to get into hosting private LAN parties then it really couldn't be easier, you can pick the hardware up pretty cheaply nowadays at around £20 for a 8 port switch. Or why not take advantage of the Xbox 360 system link function and play games such as Call of Duty 4, Halo 3, Forza 2, Orange Box etc etc. The list goes on and on. Even if you don't fancy that why not just get some friends around and give the online party system a miss?

Gaming always has been such a social event and whilst it's been degraded somewhat by the myriad of online options available now why not get together face to face and play some games? It's really not that scary and you might even have some fun seeing each other's ugly mugs.