Valorant
What is Valorant? The new shooter from “League of Legends” creators Riot launched into beta in early 2020 and officially released in June. Valorant combines timeless comic graphics with tactical gameplay.
It is heavily inspired by the shooter classic Counter-Strike. The similarity to Counter-Strike was planned from the beginning and is reflected in the standard mode where two teams try to plant or defuse a bomb (“Spike”) in multiple rounds.
However, a mechanic more common in hero shooters like Overwatch is also included. Valorant offers special heroes called Agents in addition to many weapons. These are unique characters with special abilities instead of identical player models for everyone.
Here on MeinMMO, Valorant is considered one of the top 10 free-to-play shooters of 2020.
What does Valorant have to do with Twitch? Valorant has been present on Twitch since its beta release and started with a few streamers who got access. There, the so-called “Twitch Drops” were utilized.
Every viewer who linked their Twitch account with their Riot account could win a beta invitation for their account while watching Valorant from certain streamers. However, there were accusations of scams and fraud:
The rules were changed shortly thereafter, so that watching any streamer could allow for Drops, not just specific ones.
How did it benefit from Twitch? Through the distribution of Drops, a sort of snowball system emerged:
- at first, only a few players had access
- the game was thus extremely exclusive and only those who watched had a chance to play
- those who then got access could also stream – A game that everyone wants to watch and hardly anyone can play
- this way, more streamers generate viewers, who in turn have the chance to play themselves
This way, Valorant quickly accumulated over a million viewers on Twitch, all eager to play the game. And most of these viewers likely became players, at least temporarily.
By now, the hype around the game has somewhat cooled off, but there is still interest in Valorant. The strong kickstart has allowed the game to expand its e-sports sector, where it also aims to succeed. Just in October, the organization Cloud 9 created a women’s team for Valorant.
