Not alot of people do LAN parties anymore. So there is not as much of a reason to support it. About the only major reason LAN was ever needed was for things like MLG or GB or tournaments. In todays age where the idea is to get sales from the biggest consumer base that being online gaming, there is less reason to support offline gaming as there once used to be.
Online they can monitor if you cheat, hack, mod, glitch, and use exploits and give out punishmetns as they see fit. Offline they can not really do that. So what better way to find these out then to make it harder to do them by not providing offline support in the game, nearly as much as it once was used.
Is it fair to those that liked offline LAN play, probably not. Do they have to be fair and support the game in every way it could possibly be played? Not at all.
I am actually surprised they even still have private matches or system link games at all in the series. Those area's could be dropped and other things could use that space on the disk instead, like more maps, or a longer story. Would they loose some sales from it, probably so. Would it really matter that much, probably not.
