Valorant is being heavily criticized by Twitch streamer Ster. The former Team Fortress YouTuber believes that Riot’s new game is a soulless artifact that no one really wants to play. But is that really the case? We from MeinMMO have looked into it.
Who is Ster? Ster is considered one of the most influential YouTubers on the topic of Team Fortress 2. He primarily operates as a streamer on Twitch these days. There, he has over 300,000 followers and plays games such as Skyrim and the team shooter Paladins.
What did Ster say about Valorant? In a Twitch stream about Paladins (via Twitch), Ster expressed severe criticism of Riot’s team shooter Valorant:
Valorant was basically designed in a lab by a scientist and equipped with everything you can imagine for a successful game. But it has no soul and no one really wants to play it. But it had enough marketing from Riot that everyone was led to believe they should play it. And it’s just crap!
Is Valorant really just a PR hype without a soul?
Ster believes that Valorant was invented without passion and soul and that all the ingredients of a supposedly successful game were carelessly thrown together. The supposed popularity of the game – after all, Valorant broke Twitch records during beta – is attributed solely to Riot’s marketing power and the controversial Twitch drops.
What do the surveys say about Valorant?
But is that really the case? If Ster is right, there should be a flurry of negative statements about the game online, and surveys should reflect that poorly. Therefore, we from MeinMMO took a look at the opinions and surveys regarding the game:
This is what the readers of MeinMMO say: Our own survey about Valorant is quite clear. A survey on “Will you play Valorant after launch” was answered in some form with “Yes” or at least “I’ll check it out” by a majority. 60 percent of you spoke positively for the game, at least in terms of having interest in it and not being completely against it. 34% are even clearly in favor of Valorant, while 17% at least want to try it out. This shows a positive trend for Valorant on MeinMMO.
This is what the readers of GameStar say: Our colleagues from GameStar conducted a similar survey that initially appeared discouraging. There, 76.94 percent of readers clearly responded with “I’m not interested”.
This may initially come across as very negative, but consider that GameStar addresses a very broad audience of PC gamers, including fans of strategy games, single-player RPGs, and sports games. Many readers are therefore inherently uninterested in competitive online shooters.
Taking this into account, that means that almost 25 percent of this highly diverse group is in some way interested in Valorant.
What are the meta scores for Valorant?
This is how Valorant was rated: On Metacritic, Valorant receives a top rating of 81 points, but the user scores average out to 5.6 points. However, looking at the negative reviews, it often becomes apparent that the reviewers are often angry Counter-Strike players who criticize Valorant as a poorly made clone of “their game” and likely fear the relevance of CS:GO. More details on this Metacritic analysis of Valorant can be found at GameStar.
And although there is, among other things, legitimate criticism of Valorant due to the controversial anti-cheat protection Vanguard, many of the negative reviews seem to be review-bombing from players wanting to protect “their” beloved Counter-Strike from the “clone” Valorant.
What are the Twitch statistics for Valorant?
This is how often Valorant is still streamed on Twitch: At the start of the beta, Valorant broke records on Twitch, but the hype has noticeably cooled down. From an average of nearly 500,000 viewers during the beta month of April, only about 80,000 remain in June (as of June 18).
That’s quite a significant loss, but it’s due to the lack of Twitch drops. Back then, Valorant was streamed almost 24/7 by some streamers, and players were eager to gain access via randomly distributed and limited Twitch drops. Now that the release version is fully accessible and free, no one needs to watch streams around the clock anymore.
Nevertheless, Valorant still manages to rank eighth in the top ten most viewed Twitch games, just behind the major rival Counter-Strike.
What do the fans say?
Looking at the statements from fans, it does not present the image of a soulless artifact from the lab. The most prominent fan of Valorant is probably top streamer shroud, who plays Valorant very often and enjoys it and even predicts that Valorant, due to its better accessibility, will ultimately prevail over Counter-Strike.
Other fans on Metacritic praise the following aspects of Valorant:
- Pringled: As a hardcore Counter-Strike fan, I love this game. The developers addressed many issues during the beta and seemed to understand their community well, which, to be honest, I can’t say about CS. I think the game has a lot of potential.
- Respwn: Probably the best competitive game of 2020. It’s the long-needed renewal of tactical shooters with modern features like heroes instead of faceless soldiers. The character abilities add a lot of fun to the otherwise repetitive gameplay of older similar games. Everything in this game is optimized and finely tuned to be lean, fast, and competitive.
- Xydian: When I played the game yesterday, I had a blast, great characters, fantastic gunplay, the maps are kind of meh, but I still find them okay, the new map is fantastic and shows that Riot has listened to the complaints from the beta.
Valorant is not a game for everyone, but also not a game for no one
Summarizing all these insights, it becomes clear that this is a game that is definitely not “played by no one.” And even if Ster perceives it as a soulless creation, enough fans seem to be playing it and enjoying it a lot.
It is certainly a controversial game that doesn’t appeal to everyone, but rather targets a specific audience, leaving other players who do not belong to the target group completely indifferent.
Valorant is definitely not a game for every shooter fan, but for those who seek a “modern alternative” to shooters like CS:GO.
This is also true for me, Jürgen Horn from MeinMMO. When I first saw Valorant, I also thought it was a cheap China-clone of Overwatch or Counter-Strike. But just a few rounds in the beta completely changed my opinion. The game is fun and the gameplay is well thought out and entertaining.
I especially like the new game mode Spike Rush. And the cool, lovingly designed agents are, for me, anything but soulless placeholders with skills.
But what is your opinion on Valorant? Do you think like Ster or do you see it as a fun game with a future?
