Valorant is an FPS game that has been released since 2020. However, it was only in 2023 that Valorant was officially released in China and this has been confirmed by Tencent Holding. As we know, Tencent Holding itself is the largest game publisher in China and even the world today in terms of revenue.

Tencent Holding's move to release Valorant in China comes after three years since the launch of Riot Games' Valorant, in order to strengthen their position in the domestic market.

"This isn't the first time Riot Games and Tencent Games have teamed up. Previously, Riot Games, the developer of the MOBA game League of Legends (LOL), was acquired by Tencent in 2011. Tencent is now calling Valorant "the most important game of the year" and it will be available in China starting today (12/7/23).

As we revealed above, Valorant has actually been released globally since June 2020 and immediately became an "Instant hit" by reaching more than 14 million players in July 2020. This is of course also influenced by the lockdown conditions that occurred due to the spread of the covid-19 pandemic at that time.

Now, Valorant is listed as the most watched FPS game on Twitch in 2022. But they only got a license to circulate in China in December last year. This happened because the government in Beijing finally ended the 18-month embargo on foreign games.

"For a long time, the game industry believed that the PC game market was slowing down, but the presence of Valorant makes us all believe that PC games still have the potential to grow again," said Tencent VP (Vice President) Steven Ma Xiaoyi at a press conference reported by SCMP.

Now, Tencent ensures that it will be fully committed to the rare opportunity to bring Valorant to China by being ready to provide an investment of US$138 million (approximately Rp2 trillion) which will be used for promotion as well as esports development for the next three years.

The response to Valorant in China is reportedly positive. Even the Valorant competitive scene in China will become more interesting. Previously, in VCT Pacific 2023, the Chinese region was represented by Edward Gaming who performed quite brilliantly and advanced quite far.