Riot Games delivered an ingenious marketing campaign following the release of their Valorant closed beta, by using Twitch Drops to generate interest, and get more people playing the game. While Valorant was still closed to the general public, simply tuning into popular Valorant streamers’ Twitch channels could earn you a beta-key and gain early access to the game yourself. Fans were encouraged to watch and engage with the title in return for a chance to play it before the open beta. Riot generated hype, viewership and engagement with Valorant, by recognising that if people wanted to play the game early they had to watch Valorant content.
Valorant’s record breaking viewership numbers during closed beta can attest to the success of this marketing strategy, with over 34M hours watched on Twitch in a single day. The game also enjoyed a staggering 1.7M concurrent viewers, all while the game hadn’t even reached open beta.
Establishing itself as a strong streaming game, Valorant is still regularly in the top 10 most streamed games on Twitch.
