LAN Solo

“CD key already in use”...by the guy sitting right next to you

“Okay, I need you to run this in that magazine dealie that you write.”
Trevor hands me a piece of paper. It’s a list of games with RavenShield at the top.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“Hall of Shame. Read it.”
Command & Conquer Generals and Yuri’s Revenge, Neverwinter Nights, Global Operations, Kohan, Gore.
“Gore?”
“That’s a game.”
“It is?”
“Yep. A first-person shooter. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.” He’s eating peanut M&Ms. He pops one into his mouth.
“And why are these in the Hall of Shame?”
“You don’t know?” He’s picking out the red ones to eat them first.
What could be bugging Trevor this time? Last month he thought I should run a Hall of Shame for games that tried to default install to a subdirectory with the publisher’s name. The month before that, it was games that asked if you were sure when you tried to quit. “Am I sure I want to quit?” he would ask out loud. “Let me think...gosh, maybe I shouldn’t.…” Then he would quickly click on the yes button. “Psyche!”
I take a wild guess. “They play music during the install?”
“How petty do you think I am?”
“They play bad music during the install?”
“No, although that is a good one. These games are in the Hall of Shame because they don’t work on LANs.”
I look at the list again. I tell him I’m pretty sure he’s wrong.
“Each player needs his own CD key,” Trevor explains. “They force you to buy more copies.”
“Well, they don’t force you.”
“No, but they do. We can’t play RavenShield at your house unless each of us buys the game. You should be able to play on a LAN with just one copy, right?”
“It depends on the EULA.”
“The what?”
“End User Licensing Agreement. That think you’re supposed to agree to it when you install a game, or open the box or the shrink wrap.”
“I thought that was the warranty.”
“Nope. It’s all these rules you have to obey. I think it’s stuff like not making extra copies, not using cheat codes to skip hard levels, not turning the music off, not saying anything bad about the game, stuff like that.”
“That’s not in there.”
“For all I know it is. Do you read them? I don’t. There’s probably all sorts of hardcore legal stuff about how if you have a LAN, you have to buy extra copies to play. They could, theoretically, insist that you play in your underwear.”
“But I already do that. Here, do you want these?” He gives me a handful of partially melted M&Ms. The brown ones.
“There are very specific rules you have to follow,” I tell him. “It’s their world. We just play in it.” I give him back the brown M&Ms.
“I can’t eat the brown ones, they give me a headache. Look, this is a serious problem. Global Operations? It’s dead. It’s the Pluto Nash of online first person shooters. Kohan? Everyone’s playing WarCraft instead. Gore? It never stood a chance. I mean, if these games would let people play on a LAN, maybe they’d have more fans. And Neverwinter Nights? That one’s all about the multiplayer.”
“BioWare is very specific about this. One copy per computer.”
“No, no, it’s one copy per household. I know I’ve seen that somewhere.”
“You’re thinking of the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes.”
“But this is D&D. That’s like saying every player has to buy his own Monster Manual.”
“That used to be one of your rules.” Trevor was our dungeonmaster when we were in junior high.
“This is different. It’s getting out of hand. It’s fascism. We should start a petition.”
“We could just play something else.”
“Yeah, we probably should. So what can we play instead of Neverwinter Nights? Do you need multiple CD keys for Morrowind.”
“No, because it doesn’t have multiplayer.”
“Ah. Well, that’s one way around the whole thing. Wait a minute? Morrowind doesn’t have multiplayer?” I can see the wheels turning in his head and I already know what’s going to be on the list he’ll want me to run next month.

This article originally appeared in Computer Games Magazine #150