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Riot Games’ Valorant is the latest FPS game to hit the market. On Day 1 of its beta launch, the game broke new records on Twitch.

Valorant helped Twitch surpass its previous one-day concurrent viewership of 3.99 million viewers set in August 2018. Twitch’s new record is just over 4 million concurrent viewers with Valorant, accounting for 1.6 million of these numbers. Valorant still falls shy of League of Legends’ record of 1.75 million concurrent viewers.

Both Valorant and League of Legends are Riot Games’ Intellectual Properties. The success of the two games bodes well for Riot Games investors but also opens up the prospect of a new esports league in the works. Riot Games and Activision Blizzard are two of the most popular game developers in North America accounting for three of the biggest titles in the scene.

Is Valorant an Esport?

Any video game with a competitive scene is an esport. Different game companies have different approaches to establishing their esports scene. While Valve has had a hands-off approach to their games’ esports scenes, Activision Blizzard has tried to build one for itself with the Overwatch League. Riot Games has helped the community grow as well as exerted its control over the League of Legends Worlds ecosystem.

Riot developers want the Valorant’s esports scene to grow organically, allowing the community to dictate its pace and format.

Valorant Helps Twitch Break Record

Twitch crossed 4 million concurrent viewers helped mainly due to Valorant’s beta launch. On day 1 of its beta launch, Valorant recorded more than 1.6 million concurrent viewers. While it is still behind League of Legends’ 1.75 million record, it is still a significant step forward for the new game on the block.

VALORANT accounted for 1.6 million new concurrent viewers on Day 1 of its beta launch. Image Credit: Twitchtackers.com

League of Legends recorded 1.75 million viewers who tuned in to watch FunPlus Phoenix defeat G2 esports 3-0 in the 2019 League of Legends Worlds Championships.

Twitch had over 4 million concurrent viewers on April 7. Image Credit: Twitchtracker.com.

The only way to obtain beta keys for Valorant is through Twitch streams with the tag ‘drops enabled.’ The fact that players can get beta keys only via twitch streams might be a big reason for the large number of people tuning in to Valorant on Day 1 of its beta launch.

It is still too early to estimate VALORANT’s success as an esport; however early indications are positive for Riot Games. VALORANT aims to fill a gap between CSGO and Overwatch with a heavy focus on gameplay and anti-cheat.

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