Valve has announced the price of soundproof booths for The International

Valve has released a new installment of their "Between the Lines" series, shedding light on the development of soundproof booths for The International tournaments in Dota 2. Company representatives acknowledged that by the time of TI5, the cost of one such booth exceeded $200,000, but they were not designed for extended transportation.

As the scale of the Dota 2 tournament "The International" grew, an increasing number of problems arose, requiring a creative approach to solutions. Initially, for TI2-4, the booths had glass front walls. However, for the fifth tournament, held in a round arena, completely transparent booths were needed to allow spectators to see what was happening inside from any angle.

With the growing number of spectators, noise levels also increased, making soundproofing in booths with entirely glass walls a significant challenge. The new booth walls consisted of multiple layers of glass filled with argon gas. These layers had varying thicknesses and were not parallel to each other to maximize sound suppression. The glass itself was virtually perfect and nearly invisible, especially to camera equipment.

By TI5, the booth design had been perfected, with the cost of each booth exceeding $200,000 (argon gas, by the way, is not cheap). Ironically, it became clear that they were not suitable for international transportation.

How did we find out about this? In 2015, before the Frankfurt Major, only the wreckage of the booths arrived at the event location. We had to repair and assemble them on-site in Germany. It was not an easy task. So, our booths excel at many tasks but not at long-distance transportation.

Extracted from the "Between the Lines" series.

You can read the full text on the official Dota 2 website.