Fist Hair Sends a VCT 2023 Year-End Letter to the Player Community Esports world

Preamble:

On December 11, Riot Games announced the list of 10 teams in the China division of the Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) in alphabetical order: AG, BLG, EDG, FPX, JDG, NOVA, TE, TEC, TYL, WOL. The club is ready, which means that China is just one step away from being included in Valorant's global esports system.

meanwhile

Leo Faria, Global Head of Valorant Esports, also posted a review of Valorant Esports over the past year, following the full article:

VCT 2023 Year-End Letter to the Player Community

I'm Leo.

As 2023 draws to a close, I'd like to take this opportunity to reflect on and celebrate the amazing achievements the community has accomplished together this year on behalf of the VCT team.

Our most successful year to date

It's been a transformative year for Valorant Esports. After two years of building the foundation, we are launching the full version of the event in 2023. We've launched 3 brand new international leagues, 30 new partner teams, promoted teams from the Challenger League for the first time, hosted over 50 Changeers tournaments around the world, held 4 memorable global events, and brought Premier Mode to players. There's a lot to celebrate......

Our three international leagues have achieved a lot in their first year. The VCT Americas League became the largest and most watched esports league in the Americas, producing some of the best players and finally helping the North American region win the title in the esports field. The VCT EMEA League has had an amazing development since the start of the season, with exciting stories from the game, including All-Star team FNATIC, who came close to winning VCT's first three-in-a-row title. In the end, the VCT Pacific League exceeded expectations and became the most successful FPS league in the region, bringing fans memorable matches this year, including a spectacular final in Seoul.

This year has also been a record-breaking year for global events. At the beginning of 2023, we brought all of our partner teams to São Paulo, Brazil, for the pre-season invitational, the most teams ever participating in Riot's esports event, which broke records and became the most-watched VCT event at the time, with a peak audience of nearly 1.5 million. Since then, we traveled to Asia for the first time, hosting the Masters in Tokyo, and really felt the enthusiasm of the Japanese community. At the time, the number of fans set a record for the number of spectators in person, with more than 13,000 spectators coming to Makuhari Messe every day for the final two days of the game. Finally, we had the World Championship.

The Los Angeles World Championship is our most ambitious event yet. We went all out to polish the game, launching fan-favorite theme songs, traveling to some of the city's most iconic locations, and hosting an opening ceremony that brought Valorant games, esports, community, and culture together. The Los Angeles World Championship was the most-watched VCT event of all time, with a peak audience of over 1.8 million. We estimate that a total of 9.5 million unique registered viewers watched the Global Championship, which is very inspiring. It's great to see teams from four different regions, representing three international leagues, in the top four and bringing great competition to the table. There was a special feeling to witness the journey of Evil Geniuses, whose highlights included Demon1 winning the World Championship in his rookie year, and Potter making history as the first female coach to lead the team to a World Championship event.

We are proud to have demonstrated a love for the Valorant community throughout the event. The team shared some behind-the-scenes stories about how the World Championship was built, so take a sneak peek.

After the conclusion of the World Championship, we entered the off-season, during which teams and partners held more than 40 events around the world, but this year is not over. Just a few days ago, we welcomed a new Changemaker World Champion in Sao Paulo, Brazil. With MeL and Florescent playing well, the all-star team Shopify Rebellion defeated Team Liquid in one of Valorant's most competitive events. It also broke our record and became the most-watched women's esports event of all time.

We've made some mistakes this year, we've learned a lot, and we're grateful for your continued feedback. With that in mind, let's talk about what's next for VCT.

Future Plans

We are encouraged by the success of the Changemakers. In 2022, it was the most watched women's esports event of all time, and it did not disappoint in 2023 either. However, creating a stage for female players is only part of our job. Part of it was helping them compete in Challenger tournaments and international leagues, bringing us one step closer to our vision of having a tournament where men and women could compete on the same stage. So in 2024, we will start the next phase of this project. Bespoke Changemakers will continue to take place, but with more flexibility and less resistance for women to be drafted from a mixed-gender lineup. These will be reflected in the form of rules and policies, such as player borrowing, a two-way player system, and exceptions for players in the Changer's Tournament, such as making them not subject to regional introduction rules, as a way to facilitate and motivate teams to provide players with the opportunity to prove themselves.

In terms of player development, we'll also be rolling out a number of changes to the Challenger next year to make it more fun for fans and more sustainable for tournament organizers, teams, and pros. Due to the timing of the promotion tournaments, the Challenger League ended the year too early, thus creating a window in which the team lost the opportunity to play. In 2024, we're introducing a new schedule that covers the entire year, including a reasonable break before and after the promotion event, which is currently scheduled after the World Championship. Finally, teams will be able to advance directly to the Challenger Tournament in the Premier game mode, with the goal of paving the way for aspiring pros to stand out from the game. More details will be announced next year, so stay tuned!(The Premier mode national server is not yet available, and the challenger tournament plan for the CN region will be announced later)

As we said earlier this year, we will be expanding VCT in 2024 with the launch of our fourth international league: VCT CN. Over the past few months, we've been working hard to pick teams to work with, just as we did for the first three leagues in 2022. It's great to announce here the ten teams that will be joining the league next year. The league is made up of some of the biggest esports clubs in the CN region, some of which have a history of impressive results in the FPS space, as well as some new teams looking to establish themselves on the esports scene with Valorant. We're excited to see what new leagues are on the horizon and how these teams will impact the sport on a global scale!

Another goal for 2024 is to design a season with a more well-paced schedule, with more intensity and scale as the schedule progresses. We are very excited to kick off 2023 with an event and hope that kicking off the new year with events will become the norm for the sport. Starting February 16 (Americas), 17 (Pacific League), 20 (EMEA League) and 22 (CN League), each league will host an opening event where teams from their respective regions will compete against each other to determine the winner and the team that advances to the Madrid Masters.

We are very excited to be hosting a global event in Spain for the first time. From March 8 to 24, eight of the world's top teams will gather at the Madrid Stadium for the first international event of the 2024 season. The Masters will feature a new format, starting with the Swiss round and ending with the double-elimination round that everyone knows and loves. Tickets go on sale on December 14th!

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to share with you my plans for 2025. Normally we don't talk about this too early, but I want to give you something to look forward to. We're very focused on having a healthy offseason that gives the pros time to rest, the team time to rebuild their roster, and the fans a chance to relive the sport. Despite all this fact, we don't think the schedule has had the desired effect. The current schedule makes February-August a bit too tight and September-January too busy. Not quite suitable for the season and offseason. Without increasing the number of matches, we wanted to schedule them more rationally, start the new season earlier and end it later, so that we have plenty of rest time between stages of the league and international competitions. In 2024, we will still start the new season at a later time, mainly to give the new teams in the VCT CN League time to fully prepare, and the schedule changes will be launched in 2025. More details will be announced next year.

Create a sustainable event

There's been a lot of talk about the commercialization of esports this year, so I'd like to talk a little bit about the current development of VCT on this topic.

When designing Valorant esports, we made two fundamental decisions: focus on collaboration over ownership, and focus on quality over quantity. We've built some high-caliber leagues and partnered with a number of teams to bring this competitive sport to the best Valorant games for fans. We're excited to see those decisions pay off. The team has done a great job of helping us grow the sport and provide an unparalleled experience for our fans through their own input. There are plenty of examples to highlight, but my favorites are the ZETA lineup announcement video, BBL's in-person viewing party in Turkey, and Sentinels' recent offseason exhibition game.

This focus has also led Riot Games to invest heavily in esports content. It's because our fans share their love for esports and support their favorite teams and players that we are able to provide a very healthy business environment for the sport. Earlier this year, we launched our Pre-Season Invitational Bundle that was a hit with players, with 30 partner teams sharing more than $10 million in proceeds. The World Championship series of skins broke records to become the most successful esports bundle in Valorant history, with teams sharing more than $22 million in proceeds. Each team will receive a share of the benefits, and the teams that advance to the World Championship will receive additional benefits, as they will be further rewarded for participating in the biggest event of the season.

Overall, through these digital assets, fans have allowed us to share more than $33 million in revenue with 30 partner teams this year, which is more than in 2021 and 2022 combined, with each team earning an average of more than $1 million. This, combined with Riot's base allowance and additional incentives, allows the club to continue to be involved in the sport with us.

The pros have also gained a lot from this success. Of the $33 million shared this year, partner teams distributed nearly $12 million (an average of 35%) to players and coaches. Riot Games also paid out a total prize pool of $4.5 million, of which more than $3 million was distributed to players and coaches (an average of 70%). It's all built on a healthy base salary and benefits, and it also ensures a good prospect of becoming a Valorant pro.

That's why we're excited to launch new content next year: VCT Co-op Team Sets. For the first time, players will be able to support their favorite teams in the game by purchasing team-exclusive gun skins and items. It's a new field, but we're very optimistic. Bundles will be available for purchase at the opening event in February*, and players can purchase them throughout the Season. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the Valorant development team, I'm happy to report that every team in the International League will receive a set with a gun skin, including the teams that recently earned a tentative seat in the Promotion Tournament. This follows the philosophy of promotion tournaments, which provide the same benefits to all teams. (*VCT CN Co-op Team Sets will be available later in 2024)

On behalf of all of us at Riot, thank you for making this amazing community possible. We hope you enjoy the end of the year, spend some time with your loved ones, and get ready for an exciting 2024!

1. A certain salary and manuscript fee;

2. Opportunity to contact and interview big names and celebrities in the industry;

3. Opportunity to participate in and visit large-scale events at home and abroad;

4. Professional editors and reporters will be tutored, and they will be given priority to be hired as official editors under appropriate conditions;

5. Flexible working hours and relaxed working atmosphere. You can choose to work from home or come to the office to work together.

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