It's becoming clear that the humble LAN party is becoming an outdated concept in the modern world of gaming.

A LAN (local area network) party is an event where any number of people come together with their gaming PCs to play games in the same physical space. It's a more intimate way to hang out with your friends, enjoy games and talk trash or work together.

Watching people physically react to every kill, or become frustrated when you dominate them in the scoreboards, is a delight you don't get with online play.

But the act of playing this way comes from a world that doesn't really exist anymore. The LAN party is a relic from the days of skill-based arena shooters such as Quake and Unreal Tournament. Connecting the computers together directly means that there was no lag to worry about, and these sorts of games were easy to pick up and play, even if a little practice and knowledge of the maps went a long way.

Many games even included the ability to install the multiplayer component across multiple systems for LAN parties. You could play with a big group of people with only one or two copies of the game to share between them. It was an amazing time to play in the same room.

LAN parties come from a world that doesn't really exist anymore

Those days are long gone. You can't really find games that offer LAN modes, since damned near every multiplayer game on the market offers a progression system that requires a constant connection to the home servers. So even if you get together in the same room to play, you need to loop in their servers and matchmaking services for the game to function.

You can't get together with your friends and cut off the outside world, because the outside world is necessary for the game to run at all. Forget cloning the game using the publisher-provided discs you pass around the room, you're lucky if you can find a game that doesn't require a phone home as you play online.

My friends and I get together once every few months to play this way. The last game in the rotation that allows a true LAN connection is Counter-Strike: GO, and even that is done through console commands. It's unlikely many casual players even know it's an option.

Progression and why it sucks for LAN parties

Modern online games are shot through with progression systems. You do well, level up, unlock weapons and abilities, and go on from there. It's not a terrible thing, bringing bragging rights and a sense of accomplishment while giving people a reason to play daily. It also inserts hooks into the game for future for-pay content.

Progression isn't going away, and it's not a bad thing in general. It matches how the majority of us play.

It just sucks for local play. Some players show up with everything unlocked, while others have to wait a match or two before they upgrade from the starting pistol. The arena-based game starts everyone off on the same foot, and the progression system is all internal: You "level up" by practicing the maps and learning how to read your opponents.

These days some people are going to walk into the LAN party with weapons that are more powerful from the jump, and there's nothing everyone else can do to catch up in a single evening.

The obsession with progression, which again isn't bad in most ways and is aimed at a play style that happens online, at home, for a few hours every night, makes finding the right games for your LAN party a bit trickier. A bit of progression isn't bad, but it can be miserable to jump into a game of Call of Duty when everyone else has everything unlocked. These games are still skill-based, but they're also equipment-based. The pure skill-based games are an anachronism, and they're unlikely to return any time soon.

I'm an old, grumpy player

After the last LAN party my friend hosted I packed up my equipment with a bit of a slump in my step.

My stomach was a bit sour from the fried food and soda. My back hurt from sitting in a folding chair for 10 hours, and my eyes were a bit watery from staring at the screen for so long. My physical tolerance for this kid of marathon game session had lessened significantly.

The slow march towards the ground made me grumpy enough, but it was the first LAN that really drove home how far the gaming world had moved from this style of gaming. Even though that style is how many of us grew up playing.

This used to be the only way to play with or against other people, and readily available high-speed Internet has changed that reality. Now LAN parties, especially smaller-scale ones held by friends, are a holdover from an industry that's moved on. It's fun to keep the torch burning, but I doubt it will stay lit for much longer.