Beta Keys, Broken Records and Fake Live Streams: How Valorant Took over Twitch

First person shooters are some of the most high octane, edge of your seat games in all of esports. Whether it be the synchronized dance of an Overwatch League team fight, or a 360 no scope in Call of Duty, the FPS genre has something to offer for everyone. But for those with a desire for more precise mechanical gameplay there has really only been one option: Counter-strike. For the better part of two decades the Counter-Strike series held a virtual monopoly on the subgenre of tactical shooters. But in the spring of 2020, Riot games introduced Valorant, the tactical shooter that the world didn’t even realize it was waiting for. Over the following month Valorant would take the world, and twitch by storm. With near record viewership and insane levels of fan engagement, the Valorant Closed Beta became one of the biggest events in twitch history, while also becoming one of the platforms biggest targets for scams and view farming. But how did this all happen? For that, we have to rewind back to the beginni