Riot Games announced on Wednesday its initial vision to build an esports ecosystem for VALORANT, the 5-on-5 tactical shooter game that released into a closed beta last week.
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The video game developer's inaugural plan centers around three core pillars -- competitive integrity, accessibility and authenticity -- with the hope of ensuring that aspiring pro players will have a fair shot to reach the highest level of play through merit-based competition. To support this endeavor, Riot has released the VALORANT Community Competition Guidelines, a blueprint to assist third-party organizers to coordinate and create events for amateur stars to rise during the early days of the game's life span.
In the lead-up to the beta launch, the VALORANT esports team -- led by Riot senior director of global esports Whalen Rozelle -- met with more than 100 esports organizations to share its initial vision for esports and collect feedback.
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"We're overwhelmed by the initial interest and excitement in VALORANT. We have massive dreams for what this game can be as an esport, and we're excited to embark on this long esports journey with our players," Rozelle said. "Our primary focus early on will be forming partnerships with players, content creators, tournament organizers and developers -- unlocking them to help us to build the VALORANT ecosystem."
On Tuesday, Riot said all Twitch streamers with access to the beta will give their viewers a chance at getting into VALORANT's beta. In its initial week, millions watched online to view the game's beta launch on Twitch, with some streamers giving their audience a chance to win access to VALORANT. On its first day, April 7, the game broke Twitch's record for most hours watched in a single game category with 34 million with a peak concurrent viewership of 1.7 million.