There's currently a bit of controversy in the world of esports right now regarding the crowd's influence over games, as Cloud9's Mike 'shroud' Grzesiek recently revealed he and his teammates use crowd noise to help find opponents, and back at the ESL Pro League Season 5 finals last weekend, the crowd was shouting the location of North players to G2 Esports to give them assistance. Now ESL has responded to this controversy via a statement to Dot Esports, saying that their priority is to maintain integrity while also making it the best possible atmosphere.
Their statement firstly said that they are continuing to improve technology to control the issue of crowd noises, but that soundproof booths won't be a part of that. What is a part of this, though, is the noise-suppression headsets which are tested in audio simulations before each event, making sure team speech is clear while unwanted noise is not.
One solution that has been suggested is to eject players who give away player positions, whether that be by shouting or by holding up signs, and ESL says they could do this. One solution they're not considering, however, is soundproof booths, which has been suggested by some.
"Soundproof booths do offer a solution for sound damping, but this in turn also dampens the energy of a LAN tournament and disconnects the players from the crowd, which is a critical dynamic for an engaging and exciting high-level sporting event," they say. "The feedback from players at events like IEM Katowice is testament to our current solution going in the right direction."
What do you think can be done to stop the crowd unfairly influencing matches?