A new game title has skyrocketed in popularity on Twitch, surpassing main categories viewers usually watched like League of Legends or other new games like the Final Fantasy VII Remake. Valorant has seemingly captivated a broad audience in a short amount of time, featured on popular Twitch channels like "TimTheTatman" and "Myth" from TSM. The game appears to be a highly competitive cross between Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Overwatch, two of Twitch's most popular categories.
Valorant is set to release properly in the Summer of 2020 and is designed to be a graphical powerhouse with frame rates of at least 30 frames per second on most minimum spec computers. But if the game isn't out yet, why is Valorant suddenly blowing up on Twitch?
It is actually no surprise that Valorant would explode in popularity, considering that Riot Games developed it. Riot Games already had a massive fan base because of League of Legends, and they've leveraged it into Valorant's early success. Partnering with Twitch streamers, Riot made plans to drop a certain number of beta keys throughout Valorant's beta phase. To get these keys, viewers need to link their Riot Games account to their Twitch account. After doing that, watching certain Twitch streams featuring Valorant gives viewers a chance to receive a drop with the beta key code in their Twitch notifications.
Chances to get a key are random and very slim, with viewers having to watch Valorant on Twitch for at least two hours to be entered into the lottery pool. Watching for more hours does increase the chance of a drop, but with diminishing returns, so someone who has watched for ten hours will not have five times the chance of someone who has watched two hours. So a viewer's best bet to receive a drop is to keep watching. It is also not yet certain if the number of key drops are limited to a finite number throughout Valorant's beta streams, but rumor has it that it may be around 25,000.
Viewers are tuning in for the keys, but staying for the gameplay. Valorant is competitive, fun, aesthetically pleasing, and a perfect blend of action/strategy. Shooting has to be precise and can be consequential, meaning poor aim can cost you everything quickly. Different characters of the game perform different abilities similar to Overwatch's hero abilities, such as creating terrain or sending an explosion of fire anywhere on the map. Guns and equipment are also purchasable at the beginning of rounds to maximize strategic play, similar to Counter-Strike. Overall, unlike most first-person shooters, Valorant has a lot of variety, making every round feel unique and different. Best of all, the full release of the game will be completely free to play with purchasable cosmetics.
This may seem like Riot Games is the only benefactor, given Valorant is being played by skilled gamers and being viewed to a broad audience. This is effectively laying out the foundation for Valorant's community and player base. But Twitch Streamers are also benefiting a lot from the beta key drop system. The average Valorant viewership currently is over 10,000 viewers, with the highest reaching close to 200,000 viewers. Twitch itself is also benefiting much from the Valorant streams, giving Twitch huge amounts of business as more and more users are tuning in for a chance to win beta key drops. Some viewers even put in days worth of viewership. More viewership equates to more things like advertisements, stream donations, twitch bits being cheered and subscriptions. This means that money is definitely being made by Twitch.tv and Twitch Streamers alike. By comparison, Mixer Valorant streams, which do not feature the beta key drops, have, on average, a viewership of 1400 viewers.
Developed and published by Riot Games, Valorant releases for PC in Summer 2020.