Gaming
Gaming
Pro gamers chime in on the soundproof booth debate
After the controversial ESL Pro League Finals we chat to pros across games about crowd noise.
The ESL Pro League Season 5 finals were one of the most entertaining LAN events we’ve seen for a while in the world of CS:GO. With arguably the two best teams in the world failing to qualify it really was open to anyone to go on and win it. There were a ton of tense matchups and some crazy tie breakers in the groups, which showed just how close the competition was.
As we started to move through the different stages of the tournament it became clear the G2 and North were two of the teams to beat. And they clearly realised this too, which resulted in a war of words between the two teams. While neither side was giving out hugs and kisses to the other, it was North who seemed to come off worse in the exchanges, and as a result the crowd turned on them.
By the time the two teams met in the final the NA fans were firmly behind the French team of G2. This resulted in an electric atmosphere that for the most part was welcomed by everyone. But as the series started to go on the crowd got more and more involved, and started trying to help G2 out. Fans began to yell out which area of the map players should go to, while others in the crowd tried to gesture to the players to give them information.
This sparked up the old debate of how to stop the crowd impacting on the matches, and as ESL do not use soundproof booths anymore that was instantly the first target of people's anger. Booths make it a lot more difficult to hear anything in the arena. But there are some organisations, including ESL, who don’t like to use booths. So to settle it once and for all we reached out to players from multiple games, to find out if they prefer to play in a booth or just with noise cancelling headsets, and if they have ever used the crowd to their advantage.
Do you prefer to play in a soundproof booth or out in the open with noise cancelling headphones?
Eugene ‘Pobelter’ Park – Immortals – League of Legends: For a while, I preferred to play in a booth because the headphones would catch a lot of crowd noise and be distracting. Since last year though, Riot introduced some sort of crowd noise nullifying software that mutes out the crowd noise and makes playing with noise cancelling headphones out in the open preferable.
Mikail ‘Maikelele’ Bill – Red Reserve – Counter-Strike: Global Offensive: I always prefer to play in a soundproof booth – even if there’s no crowd I prefer it. The environment inside is much better for the team spirit. It might make you think you're on a bootcamp with the team or just at home playing, since it’s much quieter than without booth. I've been to a lot of tournaments where there is a soundproof booth and without. Of course it's pretty cool to not have one since you're feeling more connection to the crowd and it might hype you up a little bit, but in general I just think it's better for the gameplay to have a booth.
Max ‘qojqva’ Bröcker – Formerly Ninjas in Pyjamas – Dota 2: I prefer to play out in the open with noise cancelling headphones. I experienced that the air in the booth becomes stale very fast, thus making it sometimes hard to fully concentrate. When playing out in the open you also feel the reaction of the crowd much better. When you’re winning and they cheer on you it boosts the team morale, but when you’re on the losing team you have to try to ignore the chants
Rhys ‘Rated’ Price – Red Reserve – Call of Duty: Personally when at an event I prefer to play inside a soundproof booth, because I feel like it looks and feels a lot more professional and it most certainly is a lot more comfortable.
Stefano ‘Verbo’ Disalvo – Immortals – Overwatch: At an event, I can confidently say I prefer a soundproof booth over noise cancelling headphones due to the noise from the crowd being distracting while I play. Also, being in a booth allows me to use headphones of my choice which creates comfort and results in better gameplay on stage.
Chres ‘Sencux’ Laursen – Splyce – League of Legends: I would prefer the soundproof booth because you can still hear stuff through the noise cancelling headphones, especially at big events for playoffs and international tournaments where there's usually a lot more noise.
Lucas ‘steel’ Lopes – Immortals – Counter-Strike:Global Offensive: I prefer to play in a soundproof booth, because the crowd can indicate a lot of things while they’re cheering for someone and this can change an entire match.
The LCS requires headphones instead of a booth
© Riot Games
When you’ve played on stage and not been in a booth, have you been able to hear the crowd, casters or game sound and did that affect the way you played?
Pobelter: Yes, before Riot introduced the new software the crowd noises would be rather distracting.
Maikelele: The first memory that comes to my mind is at DreamHack Summer 2015. We played our first group play game against NaVi and I remember the speakers for the crowd were behind us so it made everything much "clearer" to hear casters, footsteps et cetera. In that game we had a couple of situations where I'm pretty sure NaVi took advantage of this and a lot of times did the perfect move. With that said, yes it's very common to hear different things from casters and just the game. It affects the game in someway but maybe not too much since it's not reliable to play for the speaker sound. Soundproof booths are very much needed in all tournaments.
Qojqva: I‘ve played several LANs on stage that weren't in booths and I couldn't hear anything. Rarely in teamfights when the casters get hyped up you can hear some syllables, but nothing concrete or anything that helps you in the game.
Sencux is not a fan of playing without booths
© Riot Games
Rated: You can hear the casters and crowd from time to time whilst playing on stage, but you are that focused on playing it doesn't really make much difference to what you are doing.
Verbo: Yes, I’ve been to an event where the casters and crowd could be easily heard. It definitely affects gameplay, since hearing people get excited or casters talking about the game live can take you out of focus.
Sencux: In LCS it's hard to hear what's being said, but you can hear a lot of noise when something is happening and I think at bigger events it can be really difficult to hear each other in extended fights. I've been to a lot of LAN events before where it was impossible to communicate with each other because of the stage being so loud and the headsets we were forced to use were really bad, but that was not LCS.
Steel: It's totally possible to hear the crowd, but not the casters or game sound. Yes, it has changed the way I played in some circumstances.
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