The article opens by saying LAN's chief advantage was "nearly eliminating latency" and closes by saying revival is as easy as sharing your Wi-Fi password. Wi-Fi and a wired switch are not the same thing. The one thing that made LAN parties technically distinctive is the one thing the revival pitch quietly removes.

Our high school computer science team did a StarCraft LAN party on a flight coming back from a coding competition. We felt like the coolest kids in the world when we did that.

As kids me and my friends used to muse over the fact that growing old, eventually moving into a care home would be awesome. Pension, you say? Well, what's that if not an unending LAN party!

It turns out reality is different - the older I get, the less interested I have in computer games. It feels like I've seen it all at this point, and I'd rather see grass twice than a virtual anything.

When me, and my generation, are old enough where people start getting shipped into care homes, I suspect there won't be any interest at all, save perhaps a nostalgia trip every now and again.

Quake Arena and LAN parties during college created some of the best memories I have related to computer games.

In wired LAN mode you can play Mario Kart 8 deluxe with up to 12 players, or Mario Kart World with up to 24 players.

(picture of original/SNES Mario Kart reminded me of this; note you can also play it on the Switch)

LAN parties aren't dead! Some of us are keeping the magic alive. I throw LAN parties at my house about twice a year. The hardest part, as i've gotten older, has been scheduling. Now I need to send save-the-dates 2 months in advance, and the length is capped at about 12 hours. When I was a teenager we would go all night :)

I am moderately obsessed with LAN parties, so I built a file sharing tool for LAN parties specifically, if you want to check it out https://justinbecker.dev/blog/2026/05/16/why-i-built-lanbuck...