Wouldn't it be cool to be able to go back in time, and see how LAN parties were in the past?
Perhaps recall fond memories of LANs that you have been to many years ago?
Interested in doing a research project into the history of LAN parties in Australia?
Want to see where LAN parties are headed into the future?
The collection of material from the past, including basic details and photos, is is just one concept that LAN Link will be looking at in the near future. We have already been collecting basic data from LANs over the last 9 months, and we intend to augment this data with future research.
While the majority of this will consist of data mining over the Internet, we invite administrators from Australian LAN parties in both the past and present to provide us with *photos, videos, logos, tournament results, and anything else* that they can think of to help us with this ambitious project.
So, what exactly can we do with this information? Well, it can give us an insight into LAN party trends, such as how costs of events may have varied over time, and the frequency of events in general. It can tell us the kinds of places event administrators use for hosting events in, which gaming platforms were used, and which games were often played. It can help us form a big picture of our history of LAN parties, which we can then use to work out where LANs are going in the future. Are LANs still relevant? Are they still as fun as they were many years ago? These questions, and many more, could well be answered.
If you are thinking that it will take quite a long time to build up the collection, sort through it, and then display it in a useful format, you would be correct. Consequently, this project will not go into fine details, but we are determined that the project will still be fairly comprehensive, interesting and useful.
Feel free to comment on this project below.
*Please Note: We will respect the copyrights of the owners of this material. We will do this by seeking permission whenever and wherever necessary. In cases where permission cannot be obtained, but material is accessible online, we will link to the material, rather than host it on our website.