Riot Games is starting to promote Valorant Esports within the full Valorant video game, arming itself with another tool to amplify upcoming events for the growing first-person shooter title.
Starting Tuesday, Riot will insert branding for the Valorant Masters including the Valorant Champions Tour tournament at different locations across five different maps that will be seen by anyone playing the game globally. While exact numbers aren’t known, Valorant has a user base that is now into the tens of millions after debuting last year.
An image showing one of the scenes captured during an influencer beta test leaked onto Twitter over the weekend from a tweet by 404Haven Founder and former L.A. Valiant head coach Henry “Cuddles” Coxall.
Riot then confirmed the plans to SBJ/TEO on Monday.
“Finding ways to celebrate and recognize our esport within the game of Valorant has been one of our team’s highest priorities,” Kasra Jafroodi, Valorant Esports’ Strategy Lead, said in a statement to SBJ/TEO. “This is an exciting first step to drive awareness of tentpole VCT competitions to millions of Valorant players worldwide, and we’ll continue to explore ways to create a unified experience between the game and the esport in the future.”
Screen shots provided by Riot show a billboard and digital screen at different parts of a map advertising for the Valorant Masters action later this month. Players will start noticing the promotions Tuesday morning.
This is another step by Riot Games to continue to take the marketing and advertising around its esports efforts to the next level. It should help get the word out about its burgeoning Valorant Esports efforts to the game’s massive growing userbase.
The move builds off the L.A.-based publisher introducing in-game advertising to its League of Legends Esports events last year, though that was focused on making corporate sponsor ads viewable to fans watching games.
