Riot Games announced that its esports plan for Valorant will take a different route from League of Legends – its major league-sized circuit that is organized in-house. Despite a massive display of interest from fans, Riot said that it wants to the Valorant competitive gaming scene to develop naturally. To support this vision, Riot has decided to leave the running of Valorant esports tournaments to the community.
“VALORANT has the ingredients to be a successful esport and we have big dreams for what this can be, but we want to be thoughtful in how we put it all together. We want VALORANT esports to grow with this community as well as discover its own voice, talent, and stars.” Riot senior director of global esports Whalen Rozelle said in a statement. “As part of our Authenticity principle, we want to let VALORANT grow naturally; we’re not looking to force anything too quickly without knowing what’s best for esports fans,” Rozelle added.
Rozelle further explained that Riot wants to focus on forming partnerships with content creators, players, developers and tournament organizers first, which means it will leave competition planning to third parties. However, the publisher will partner with third party organizers and sanction tournaments so that competitive players still have a cohesive experience. As for potential tournament organizers, Riot released the VALORANT Community Competition Guidelines to serve as guide and help them understand Riot’s approach.
