Laclede’s LAN 4 was our first major battle against an unwelcome new enemy – Valve’s new digital distribution platform, Steam. Steam required an internet connection to update, and Valve released an update for Counter-Strike the night before our event that made older versions incompatible. Committed to making our tournament happen, Dudsmack took a 56K PCI modem and systematically got every tournament entrant updated via a dial-up connection he owned. The release of Half-Life 2 was huge, but at the time, Steam was a nasty price to pay for it. For the first time we held a Counter-Strike 1.6 Tournament. We also had a tournament in Unreal Tournament 2004, which went much more smoothly, as it didn’t require steam.
At A Glance
Attendance: 25 and 4 event staff
Staff: John Dickerson, Tony DiPietri, Tim Dollarhide, James Dudley
Games Spotted: Doom 3, Half-Life 2
Tournaments: Counter-Strike: 1.6, Unreal Tournament 2004