Booths in the GSL continue to receive critisicm as Jung 'Rain' Yoon Jong claims the soundproofing is lacklustre

This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

After having been dished a fair dose of critisicm by Song 'Stork' Byung Goo a few weeks ago, SKT T1's star protoss player Rain claimed that two of his strategies which included hidden buildings, including a hidden pylon in game 1, and a proxy Dark Shrine in game 2, were scouted due to his opponent being able to hear the cheers from the fans and the casters.

Jong told fomos.kr that "I used proxy strategies in both my games, but honestly the soundproofing isn't that good. I heard a little bit of the crowd cheering, so I knew my proxy buildings had been discovered". He continued by saying that his opponent Kim 'herO' Joon Ho is naturally innocent until proven guilty, but feels that what transpired is pretty obvious. "I was forced to play as if I didn't know it had been discovered. I don't think that herO played by reacting to the sound, but it still left me feeling annoyed", he concluded.

Soundproofing in esports has always been an exceedingly tricky question to tackle and approach; tournaments such as Intel Extreme Masters and the League of Legends Championship Series have been very adamant about not utilizing booths in their competitions as they have considered it as an obstacle between the teams and the crowd.

Korean esports also went through a phase of not using booths for their competitions, but are today using soundproofed booths for all of their gaming-related competition. The most famous instance of outside influence in a game of Brood War was during the aforementioned period of time, as CJ Entus terran Seo 'XellOs' Ji Hoon altered his SCV's scouting path accordingly to find his opponent's proxy-barracks after a member of the crowd shouted "barracks!". Whether or not Hoon really did hear the crowdmember or not was never disclosed, but ultimately showed the pitfalls of not using soundproofed booths in esports competition.

Photo Credit: inven.co.kr, majorleaguegaming.net