It’s been 13 years since Nvidia hosted its last LAN party, inviting hundreds of people to physically haul their gaming PCs onto a decommissioned aircraft carrier and jack them in for networked gaming bliss. Now, the GeForce LAN is finally coming back — and you’re theoretically invited, should you manage to reserve one of the 400 available spaces right here on December 16th at 6AM PT / 9AM ET.

The GeForce LAN 50 will run January 4th through January 6th, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada, with satellite events in Berlin, Taipei, and Beijing, and it promises to be a “online & in-person 50 hour gaming marathon” with contests, tournaments, raffles, and swag.

It’ll kick off 4:30PM PT on January 4th, and you’ll need to provide a fully refundable $125 deposit to sign up. Nvidia tells me those 400 slots are for everyday gamers, and do not count the influencers who may also show up.

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If you can’t or don’t want to make it, Nvidia says it’ll offer one small set of rewards online — if you play Diablo IV, The Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout 76, The Finals, or WoW “continuously for 50 minutes,” while using the Nvidia app or GeForce Experience app, there’ll be some kind of in-game reward. Nvidia will also be offering prizes in a marketing celebration it’s calling “GeForce Greats”.

The LAN party is happening right before Nvidia’s CES 2025 keynote in Las Vegas, where we’re expecting the company to announce the RTX 5090, RTX 5080, and possibly the RTX 5070 as well, and the fact that this is the “GeForce LAN 50” is probably a tease for those 50-series cards — the last LAN that Nvidia hosted was the “GeForce LAN 6,” not “GeForce LAN 49” or anything like that.

Starting in 2004, the GPU company began to host major LAN parties almost every year until it stopped in 2011. Here’s one of my minor claims to nerd fame: I helped set a Guinness World Record for the largest, longest LAN party at one in 2008.

Record scratch, freeze frame, yep that’s me (on the left)… Image: Sean Hollister

That Nvidia LAN wasn’t held on an aircraft carrier, but rather the San Jose Convention Center, as part an event that Nvidia called “NVISION 08.” The company never held another NVISION, but it rebooted its event the very next year, at the very same location, as the GPU Technology Conference (GTC). There was a time Nvidia would sponsor third-party LANs as well.

Apparently Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has a soft spot for LANs, making a surprise visit to a small one in Vietnam last year. While gamers have largely moved online for multiplayer games, the LAN party subculture has been getting a bit of nostalgic attention as of late — there’s even a coffee table book now documenting the era.

Original Author: Sean Hollister | Source: The Verge