Starcraft II LAN Missing In Action?

Blizzard's highly-anticipated RTS sequel, StarCraft II, may not ship with multiplayer LAN functionality - one of the features that made its predecessor so popular.

Blizzard Community Manager Kevin Yu took part in a Q&A session with StarCraft fans, including IncGamers' StarCraft network site, StarcraftWire, answering questions about the game's balance and individual unit statistics.

However, when it came to the LAN issue, Yu was unable to confirm or deny its inclusion in the RTS sequel. The reply does not exclude the possibility that network play will be included, but seeing as the company already decided to exclude the feature from its other anticipated sequel, Diablo III, it's likely that the StarCraft II development team will go the same route.

There are a number of possible reasons for Blizzard not to include LAN multiplayer; from piracy concerns to the fact that a game played on a Local Area Network would make Blizzard's Battle.net service miss out on ad revenue.

More on this topic, as well as the game balance questions, can be found on IncGamers' StarCraft network site, StarcraftWire.