Starcraft 2 Drops LAN Support, Battle.net Only

Kemeno writes: Blizzard has announced that they will be dropping LAN support for Starcraft II, citing piracy and quality concerns. Instead, ALL multiplayer games will be hosted through their new Battle.net service. I suppose I shouldn't be suprised by this move, but wasn't LAN play how the original Starcraft became popular? It's the only way I ever played it, and I don't see why Blizzard would alienate casual LAN gamers in favor of forcing their new service upon everyone (well, except for more profit, of course).

that's their way to "stop piracy"

[crazybit]

Having the game without a valid key (aka pirated versions) will be of practically no use (except for playing the story). From a point of view it is a smart way of making people buy the original (specially young people that play it for the first time), but I don't think majority will be happy with this.

Only time will tell if this was a shot on the foot.

Re:

[SirAdelaide]

I lot of young teenagers can't afford 8 copies of a game (close to $800) just to have an afternoon's entertainment together. Having one guy own it still being able to play with his friends at home when they come to visit is a much better idea. The way Warcraft 2 and Starcraft allowed 'spawn' copies to join a Lan game without a CD so long as one or two players had the CD was a great idea. 2 purchases meant 8 players could play lan, much more affordable. Maybe we'll just have to go play monopoly instead...