The Forgotten Art of the LAN Party (2023)

Summary

It is the year 2001. With a touch of Tetris-style wizardry, my friends and I manage to fit three 19-inch CRT monitors, three beige computer towers, a 24-port network switch, and a box full of network cables into the confines of a 1984 Ford Laser. The Ford car's small engine groans as it tries to move with the weight of three teenage boys and their desktop computers. A short time later, after a very bumpy ride in the tiny car with the fully compressed suspension, we arrive at my friend’s house. It’s a school holiday. There is the familiar crackling noise of a packet of Doritos opening, followed by the pop-hiss of a can of Coke. A couple of hours later, the host’s living room is like a blue spider web, the network cables linking all our computers together. In three days, we will emerge bleary-eyed from one of the best times of our lives. This is a LAN party.An Intimate Gaming ExperienceThere’s nothing that can quite compare to the magic of a LAN party. For those unfamiliar, the advantages may not be immediately apparent. With online matchmaking and voice chat through platforms like Discord, online multiplayer has become more accessible than ever. A LAN party might sound like multiplayer with extra steps, but as anyone experienced with these events will tell you, a good LAN party is about so much more than gaming.Strictly defined, a LAN party is a social gathering where a group of people will connect gaming devices over a local area network (LAN) to play multiplayer games. Traditionally, LAN parties focused on PC gaming, but the emergence of network-capable consoles in the 2000s saw the term broaden to include gatherings with multiple consoles connected to the same local network.LAN party, circa May 2019. Source: Author.The main advantage of a LAN party, especially in the era before widespread high-speed broadband, lay in nearly eradicating latency concerns. The shorter the distance data has to travel between users, the smoother the experience. Having a local network o...