Dropping StarCraft II's LAN support was "difficult decision"

Blizzard's confirmed to VG247 that StarCraft II will indeed lack LAN support, saying the decision to drop the feature was "difficult".

Last night's reports that no local multiplay is to be included in the game were met with general disbelief.

Said Blizzard in a statement:

We don't currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games. While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft II and safeguard against piracy.

Several Battle.net features like advanced communication options, achievements, stat-tracking, and more, require players to be connected to the service, so we're encouraging everyone to use Battle.net as much as possible to get the most out of StarCraft II. We're looking forward to sharing more details about Battle.net and online functionality for StarCraft II in the near future.

Beta, please.