In my eyes, it’s one thing to be a gamer and another to be a LANner.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that broadband would have all but trampled the LAN scene into dust. Better gaming services and big, fat trunks have helped gamers all over the hood/country/world to connect to others and blow giblets out of each other in the comfort of their lounge rooms. There hardly seemed to be any incentive to pack up one’s rig and peripherals, lug it over to the local community hall and connect with other pale, sweaty nerds in order to share Linux ISOs and overrun bases with Zerglings.

But the scene was still there. It became this culture where gamers could convene and admire other people’s hardware, meet online personalities face to face and build new friendships. Sure, broadband might have taken away the need to leech files off other LANners, but that was never the point of LANning. It was, and always will be, about the games - the sick, perverse joy you can only get from knifing the last terrorist on the map and hearing a cry of anguish from the other side of the room.

Just recently, a prominent LAN in the Sydney metro area was up for sale. Its admins had been retrenched. After being around for 10+ years, it became clear that it was no longer operating as a profitable venture to the media company that owned it.

The noise surrounding its departure was fairly muted, with some of the old guard reminiscing about the “good ol’ days”. I noticed that hardly any current gamers made any comment, and I had a feeling it was because the current attendees had turned a gaming LAN into a leeching ground. Given that sponsors were advertising games at the very events where they were being illegally distributed, it was bound to end badly.

But that couldn’t have been the only reason. My theory is that the gamers, the truly hardcore gamers…they are a dying breed. Where I said in my earlier post that the entry barrier to gaming was greatly lowered, the quality of opponent has dwindled. Masters of the trade became complacent. They grew up, they took jobs, they found wives, they had kids. The number of people that actually want to play games fell, and the number of people that attended simply to P2P took their place. LANs turned into places were DC++ gets more bandwidth than the latest FPS.

What can be done? Bring the focus back to gaming. It’d be folly to try and eliminate file-sharing entirely; rather, give the gamers a reason to keep forking over money per visit. Hold worthwhile competitions; get decent prizes in; hardware tech demos; game beta sessions…gamers can play with other players from their living rooms. They need incentive to get them out of the house and into the scene.

LANners are those that take their gaming seriously. It’s evident that LAN events need to follow suit and give them a reason to keep coming back, as well as encouraging their friends to join in.