Balkoth: I know I am necroing. Why would devs want to remove LAN from a game this old? It seems purely malicious. I'd think the opposite is what should be happening. Today few games ship with LAN and after support for the master server is cut I'd expect LAN play to be enabled because potential sales would be low and risk of piracy not that threatening (realistically there won't budget dedicated to it and the fans would need to do it, of course).
You will find that this is a sad reality for many many games sold on GOG. Two other examples off the top of my head are Forsaken and Dawn of War 2.
Local multiplayer functionality is removed, likely at request of the publisher. Control freak tendencies or misguided anti-piracy measures, who knows - but it happens frequently and deliberately.
GOG is at least somewhat complicit in this, by choosing to rather sell a neutered game than not to sell it at all.
