LAN parties fuels gamers' need for competition
By Greg Wright
Gannett News Service
Geeks know how to party, too.
Just ask the thousands of young video-game aficionados worldwide who hold and participate in LAN parties.
LANs are local area networks, computers that are linked with cables and network interface cards. LAN parties are events where gamers play "Doom," "Quake" and other popular titles until the wee hours across impromptu PC networks.
Odds are you can find a LAN party this weekend in your vicinity or as far away as Alaska or Singapore. That's because more than 250 regular party hosts have emerged in the United States and another 350 abroad, according to Andrew Gearhart, director of LANParty.com (lanparty.com), one of several Web sites that list upcoming parties.
The parties' rise has been attributed to the popularity of inexpensive, easy-to-install home network equipment as well as the overwhelming popularity of computer games, said Jason Della Rocca, program director of the International Game Developers Association.
"In the past two or three years, the popularity has been growing and growing," he said.
LAN parties are mostly popular with teens, twenty- and thirtysomething men, according to Gearhart and other LAN party gurus, but there are also hardcore female gamers, too.
Dawn Greene of Bellmawr, N.J., said she relishes the competitive, charged atmosphere of LAN parties. "It's like game day for the (Philadelphia) Eagles," she said.
And the predominantly male crowd doesn't hurt either, she said. "Do I think the LAN party is a good place to pick up men?" Greene said. "Well, yes it is."
While many LAN parties are in homes, bigger ones often take place in rented halls, which are decorated to resemble a dance club, complete with pulsating disco lights and driving techno or rap music, Gearhart said.
But instead of a dance floor, there are rows of computers and lots of pizzas and paper plates. And the party fridge often is crammed with Jolt cola, Bawls guarana berry juice and other high-caffeine drinks that keep gamers' eyelids open and reflexes sharp during marathon LAN parties.
A recent Salon.com article reported that drugs such as Ecstasy also fuel the festivity at some LAN parties. Some participants said on Internet message boards that drugs and alcohol do creep into some parties, but they indicated that the majority of LAN party participants eschew any substance that dulls game reflexes.
"Fun for most LAN partiers, who previously were the freaks and geeks who hung out in the library, doesn't involve getting high, stoned, strung out or drunk," Gearhart said.
Camaraderie is key
LAN parties attract gamers because they shave valuable milliseconds off reaction time by playing each other on a LAN instead of over the Internet. And there's also the camaraderie.
When you pit yourself in a death match against another player over the Internet you can't shout, "In your face," when you win because you're sitting alone in front of the computer, said Toby Cherasaro, 23.
Despite his age Cherasaro is a LAN party veteran. He and his brothers threw their first LAN party in their parents' basement eight years ago. Cherasaro and his buddies at the LAN2k1.com Web site (lan2k1.com) have been throwing mega LAN parties in New Jersey for the past two years.
At a LAN party, you can stand up and cheer when you win while other players clap and congratulate you, Cherasaro said. And it's easier to pick up gaming and computer networking tips at LAN parties, he said.
"The adrenaline rush that gamers get from this is absolutely priceless," Cherasaro added.
Computer gamers have long fought for the right to party. Almost two decades ago when only text-based games were available, tech heads got together and fiddled with dialup modems to link up terminals and play one another, Gearhart said.
But the release of more sophisticated, graphically intense multi-player games such as "Doom" from Id Software in Mesquite, Texas (www.idsoftware.com) in 1994 fueled a boom in LAN parties that has not stopped, Gearhart said.
Id games pitted gamers against each other over the Internet or local area networks for the first time. Company officials are not surprised their games spawned the global LAN party scene.
"People are always looking for ways to compete with each other," said Marty Stratton, director of business development at Id. "For people who compete it's a natural thing to want to compete with a human opponent."
Not a moneymaker
Staging your own party is hard work and can be expensive. And although many LAN parties charge $5 to $20 for admission, don't expect to make money by holding one. In fact, many LAN party hosts say they lose money because of the cost of renting a space, buying network cables, network switches, pizza, snacks and drinks.
"A big joke with my circle of LAN party hosts that I hung out with in Southern California in 1999 was that the better a LAN party was, the more money it lost," Gearhart said.
But if you want to hop into the LAN party scene or hold one yourself, see above for a guide on essential equipment, the most popular LAN party games, and party etiquette and tips.
The advice comes from Cherasaro at LAN2K1, Gearhart from LANParty.com, Christopher Wong, a Toronto tech writer who has attended 10 LAN parties and held several himself, Nathan Elliott, who helps run an Alaskan LAN party network (lanparty.jupiter-io.net), and Olivier Adam, a Canadian software engineering student who holds parties in Montreal (polybash.org).
