Call of Duty Esports Fans Need To Shut Up and Let Them Play

In the last few months, an irritating trend has emerged in the Call of Duty LAN space that’s seeing more people than ever ruin intense Search and Destroy moments by running their mouths. We’ve seen it quite literally cost some teams their matches, and it has contributed to the ruining of some critical gameplay sequences in the closing moments of the year’s biggest tournaments.

Once upon a time, Call of Duty pro players would compete in soundproofed booths, and it’s becoming increasingly obvious why. Today’s esports fans in the arenas are desperate to give away a defuse or a set piece in Search, and it’s becoming such a thing that players have started using the spectators as a tool in the fight.

Crowd Participation is Ruining Events, Ironically

Understandably, fans get excited when watching their favorite teams compete on the grandest stages in Call of Duty esports, but this isn’t that. This is often a malicious attempt by hundreds of arena attendees to help their team detect a play occurring behind their backs by screaming at the top of their lungs.

It has become such a common theme these days that the commentators, the desk, and the players themselves all draw attention to it when it happens.

During the Esports World Cup’s final stages this past weekend, it happened multiple times, and at one point, LA Thieves’ Scrap implored the crowd to get louder after a defuse was foiled.

At Major 4, which took place in Paris, France, OpTic Texas’s post-tournament comms video revealed an active plan to manipulate the crowd during a fake defuse scenario.

It’s called ‘crowd cheese’ these days, and while it has been around for years, it seems that this season, things really accelerated. Despite wearing IEMs and noise-cancelling headsets, we know that the pro players on the stage hear the crowd when it erupts during a critical moment.

Call of Duty isn’t alone in this, of course. Other games have the same thing happen, like Counter-Strike, VALORANT, and Rainbow Six Siege. In fact, any game that has a defuse element undergoes the same struggles, but Call of Duty has been blowing up of late because of just how broadly it’s being addressed even by tournament staff, but nothing is being done.

Three years ago, FaZe Vegas’s Zack ‘Drazah’ Jordan’s partner came under fire when she screamed from the front row that someone was defusing a bomb he was guarding during the Call of Duty League Championship. It’s still remembered today; that’s how volatile the community can react to this cheesing.

Ultimately, aside from making some drastic changes, there’s not much at all that can be done to prevent this.

The League could strip any visible elements from the screen once a plant is made to prevent the crowd from knowing if anyone is defusing it, but that cleans out a lot of the context from the game. They could revert to booths, but that’s a logistical nightmare. They could bring back an audio cue when bomb defusal is activated, but that changes a core gameplay paradigm and removes ninja defuses entirely.

If it happens, players are going to take advantage of it. What are they supposed to do? Pretend they don’t hear the crowd and let the defuse happen?

Do you think this is a deeper issue or a non-starter of a discussion? Let us know your thoughts on the Insider Gaming Discord server.

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