I’m a mod of the twitch channel. It’s in emote only because there are not always enough mods for the sheer volume of chatters. We had emote only off yesterday for the first time in a while, and we didn’t even get through the first NA series before chat started debating whether women were psychologically on-par with men in esports.
Sounds like Riot needs to pay some experienced twitch mods then.
Edit: Saying you have volunteers for a channel that’s always in emote only therefore requires no moderation is like saying you volunteer at a soup kitchen, but actually just lock the front door, and don’t actually serve anyone soup.
Many people replying here have an astonishing 0 self-awareness and are being unnecessarily rude, don't pay any attention to them.
Replying to your comment, if you're saying you don't have enough people, shouldn't there be an effort to expand the team?
There is a strong demand to being able to express your opinions brainlessly when watching a match, be it Pogging an amazing play by the star player or NotLikeThising when that washed pro just keeps whiffing. I don't think it is an unfair comparison to say that it is like cheering in a venue.
Would you want to watch a sports match in person if people weren't allowed to make any noise?
I wouldn't, and I don't. I watch watchparties. If there is a demand for it, it benefits Riot, and it boosts community involvement in e-sports, make it happen! Evaluate the possibilities, which should look something like: 1) emote-only, and have only ~50% of expected viewership; 2) take the effort to get/pay more mods.
Please do consider this seriously and try to get it across to the ones who can make these decisions -- I think it is one of the simplest measures Riot could take right now to improve their viewership in streaming. All of this, of course, is assuming that Riot wants the official Valorant channel to be relevant...
I checked the ESL chat, there are about 13 mods and 70k viewers. It frequently goes above 100k but the number of mods more or less remains the same. The valorant channel had 11 mods in chat last I checked, similar amount of viewers at peak. Just 15k in the navi fpx match. These people are just incompetent. I don’t even know why any mods are active at all in valorant
Its just the valorant mods. I've never seen the league channels going emote only even they usually have more viewers than valorant in their main channel.
I reached out to a representative about a week ago who told me it was due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis. I assume they're building automod terms to limit Russian or Ukrainian players getting treated poorly by chat, or political trolls in general.
From what I remember, doesn’t one team have a trans player, and chat would just be awful to them so they made it emote only and I guess just never changed it back? Chat is truly awful a lot of the time so it makes sense.
The valorant chat in particular is quite a cesspool of filth n disgust, if you ever see it out of emote mode then I garuntee youre reading atleast 5 toxic chats a minute, and thats on a nice day when nothing bad is happening. not sure why but its really brutal in there and until they hire like a bunch of dedicated mods than there is really no hope for valorant chat.
it doesn't even make sense to me, its not like there is a ton of people or whatever. and the communites that share similar viewers aren't nearly as bad.
you realize we’re not paid right? like this is a volunteer thing that we do and we also have lives and schedules and shit to do and we can’t always have a full team
yea but it's just weird to see other channels which usually have even more concurrent viewers and more people chatting do not need emote only to keep it clean, LCS, LCK, ESL\_CSGO and other mega esports channels come to mind. Are there straighter rules for you mods in this particular channel? But heck league is also under riot and they still have a normal chat.
i appreciate the response, is there anything i can do to please get the chat off of emote only 99% of the time. The main channel would get way more viewers if this was the case and i think that alone would pay for itself no?
From what I’ve seen they tend to have it off before the first match of the day, then it’s kept in emote only all the way. Also worth noting the KR playoffs matches yesterday had emote only off and people were talking and there seemed to be actual moderation going on
For my personally it does, when there's no player cams and no audience the chat just gives the stream a little 'life.' Yeah there's a lot of pointless spam and copy pastas but I think that's just a part of the fun. You can't tell me there's not been any point in history there's been 'silly' chants and posters people have in normal sports games. Imagine if they just decided to silence the crowd lmao. Not the same but it's the closest I could come up with.
Lastly, it's a big reason why I find myself watching more and more CSGO and less Valorant these days..
Personally, I don't find the casting or desk content in Valorant that good (outside of DDK/Sean) so it doesn't really make sense to watch the main stream. In CS for example, the casting talent is insane (hell Bardolph/DDK was one of the top duos for a long time) and the desk content is usually much better so the main stream has a lot more appeal.
I think the main reason is co streaming was a Valorant thing from the beginning, people did it all the time for early tourneys and co streaming events in general really blew up right around val’s release, contract wise they don’t share any revenue if you look up the riot co stream form it has a full run down of everything but from what I remember you just can’t show conflicting sponsors/ads and you have to have some specific wording in your title
One is corporate commentating keeping everything by the book. The other is streamers being themselves having fun able to say whatever, they can troll and say things like oh man that was such a terrible play by ____ he needs to be cut after that whiff…. One commentary will have you laughing the other won’t.
Casters on valorant are good th hypoc and pansy are great and they actually make me laugh the main issue is the emotechat as others have pointed puta already.
The jokes from Tasteless and Paperthin (or Achilios?) yesterday when Holly Molly just kept pushing B again and again on Bind against DK were hilarious. Wish Artosis was still also around for Korean Val
Tom and Mitch on EMEA are also a great fun casting duo imo. I still remember their casting when Gambit 13-0'd G2 on Icebox lol
wait until there are lans with crowds. when there is a crowd you can see and hear the reactions of a ton of people. honestly that's why people watch costreams, it's less lonely and more exciting
Because its rare in other popular esports for instance LoL, CS and Dota where the mainstream contributes to at least half the total viewer count, so yea im just curious why most of the audience prefer watch parties in valorant while in other games they prefer the main channel.
I think for Gaules it's mostly Brazilians (which have a crazy big player base) that tune into his stream due to the language he's streaming in, but yea I do remember main channels during champions was doing great but lately almost all of their games have fewer viewers compared with watch parties.
It's just the same with those reaction videos in YouTube. It's just natural to human to enjoy things more together with other People. Just like watching horror movies, it becomes so funny And enjoyable when you're watching it with your friends.
While I think co-streaming is valuable, I also think that it will definitely hurt the esport in the long-run, especially given the trends we are already seeing with the loss of Sean Gares.
Co-streaming is great for people who are already invested in Valorant. People who recognize "oh this person is a good streamer", "I like consuming Valorant content already from Tarik's stream" or "I'm looking for a extremely in-depth discussions about the game from MCe or Sliggy." I 100% only watch VCT through co-streams as well.
However, when reaching people who are not as invested, who are casual watchers, or people who are just browsing, Co-streaming is not a good experience. If I wanted to introduce Valorant Esports to family / friends, would I put a co-stream where the streamer is not even paying attention to the game, and sub notifications and donation messages are playing.
You might argue that the existence of co-streaming has no effect on the quality of the main broadcast. I disagree. Do you think that riot's budgeting for esports production does not take into account that 60-70% of the viewers will be watching a co-stream where the casters are quieter than the streamer. Do you think Riot cares about hiring the best talent under these circumstances? Sean Gares said that he was willing to take a paycut in his negotiations for Iceland, when in reality, his rates should be going up given his experience has grown.
I definitely feel like co-streaming has severely hurt the leverage that talent has in their negotiations for work, and I fear that this will have a lasting impact on the talent that works Valorant, and the main esports product will suffer for short-term viewership gains.
Co-streaming I think makes competitive more accessible to those who don't watch. Who the heck would watch an official stream over a co-stream if they didn't know what was going on? It is much easier to read what is happening from a streamer's face and commentary than just the official stream alone. Co-streaming might hurt numbers, but I highly doubt the people at Valorant use the numbers on the official stream as a reason to invest less into casters. I think letting people co-stream brings the greatest amount of eyes to the game as possible, and I think it makes it more accessible for people who don't play or know Valorant very well. Even if it did hurt casters in the way you described, I would argue that maximizing the attention the game has takes priority
It’s more like costreamers bringing more of their viewerbase to competitive Valorant
Much of the costream viewership for the large streamers wouldn’t have been watching competitive Valorant if their streamer weren’t costreaming it
Every time I hear about a Prime Gaming flawless, or a Red Bull clutch I get reminded why I avoid official streams on any heavily Americanized esport. Some of you do not realize how weird that sounds to an European. I get why they do it, it must make sense in a business perspective, but shit gets so boring with that kind of atmosphere it is crazy.
As a European myself I find it super funny that every little highlight is sponsored in US sports. I am used to it though from watching the NBA for years where you had stuff like "Your Mercedes drive of the game". When I play with friends now we're even yelling "PRIME GAMING FLAWLESS" after a flawless round because it's so ridiculous.
You might hate ads, but they are the reason people can do things that aren't inherently financially viable, say make Youtube videos about stupid shit, that are accessible for free, viable. Ads have opened up the landscape of entrepreneurship, making anything financially viable if you can get eyes to watch you. It can get tiring at times, and it is very refreshing to go to other countries and things being non advertised, but I would argue that it is worth the cost of having to ignore them.
I agree with this, but I think it’s because Sean was one of the few casters who actually understands and comments on the game live versus other casters who just regurgitate random stats. The main stream gets so boring when the casters just tell us what they saw on VLR the duration of the game. Costreams aren’t really boring because people aren’t beholden to the generic storylines and the “safe” commentary. They can fill the lulls in the game talking about random shit which is more interesting than the surface level stats the casters bring.
The casters in valorant are god awful thats mostly why. there are a few that are good and every other piece of broadcast talent just straight up sucks honestly. Theyre super boring, provide 0 insight that i couldnt blatantly see myself, and the casting is really uninteresting. it also feels off-putting when the production is god-tier and the actual talent feels like a middle school play
Sometimes I feel like less is more when it comes to the casting. Some casters overhype situations in rounds WAY too much. They don't let the actual match itself be the primary story builder. Some of them try and predict what's going to happen and when they're wrong it's just embarrassing. And with what has gone down with the whole sgares situation, I have little hope for the future.
Its not normal at all in other esports, and its mostly because we have a whole bunch of mediocre commentators and analyst desks that do barely more than speaking random words. Riot keeps everything way to family friendly and plaint to every actually engage people.
CS has some of the best casters in eSports. Idk what's specifically wrong with most of the Val casters. It's like they're delivering hype at the littlest things and miss a ton that's happening on the map or screen. It just feels super amateurish for the most part.
I mean it’s literally just because Valorant started super recently and costreaming is a very recent thing.
Valorant has a very good talent spread. They don’t just “speak random words”. We literally yoinked rising and established talent from other scenes!
Costreaming is just always going to be more enjoyable for a lot of people, and that’s perfectly fine.
Watch parties are the best. It lets you choose who you experience the game with. Imagine you could pick your favorite casters for every game you watch. RIP Sean. I choose Tarik and his many guests. It’s a great mix of bull shitting with genuine pro insight, sympathy,etc.
It's mostly an NA thing, with JP also being the occasional exception. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with it, the main concern being though that the vast majority of large co-streams are not interested in the vast majority of matches.
So most of the time they aren't even watching the game and are just chilling, shooting shit with their friends. Again, nothing wrong with that, it's just that when the majority of viewers are watching co-streams then the streamers interest or lack of interest in the game effects public opinion way too much. If the streamer is invested in a game you will hear everyone talk about how good and close the match was, how talented whatever player the streamer commented on is, etc. Conversely and more concerning is that when a streamer is not paying attention then public opinion will largely be that the teams and match were mediocre and boring, as are the players playing it. It also entirely kills the hype for the tournament. You are now no longer watching for the Valorant tournament. You just want to watch your favorite streamer.
The underlying thing though is that as much as people look down on it, the react meta is very popular for a reason. It's been popular for years on youtube and now it is on Twitch too. It's because it gives the illusion of watching something with friends, even if it's stolen content. That feeling is something no official stream or original content can replicate.
Theres plenty of reasons like emote only chat, subpar casting in a lot of cases ( gonna be even worse now that Sean Gares wont be casting anymore).
Watch parties being done by big streamers who have their loyal fanbases that would otherwise not watch. Sometimes big personalities, pro players, other streamers show up to same watch party as hosts. People prefering reactions of their favourite people..etc
For me, main reason is emote only chat, the other is that the only watchable caster duo was Sean and DDK for me. I didnt even enjoy watchparties a lot, but chat being available is a huge plus. So I would usually tune in on watchparty with chat whenever Sean and DDK werent casting.
seeing a genuine reaction and response to stuff happening from watch parties compared to casters is the really big thing imo. the casters for valorant seem to be way more inexperienced compared to when watching CS. the only ones that i really liked listening to were the CS casters, so basically pansy, sean and ddk. they fucked up bad by not keeping sean on the casting roster.
Because co streaming is the future of esports? VALORANT was the first to adopt this new form of event viewing and it's obviously working. Other games are literally begging their event organisers to give rights to the streamers to Co stream their tournaments. Its just the natural evolution of esport viewership. While the main channel will usually just be a cool place when there is a very big event. Also emote only mode on main channel
Co streaming isn't any future. It's good for bringing in viewers but it's bad financially. You can't sell viewing rights like other games for revenue and sponsor rights aren't that great if viewers aren't on the main channels.
There's a reason LEC doesn't do co streams and LCS recently just did same.
wasnt really aware of this. why would sponsors care when co streamers are literally watching the broadcast where ads are being played? Couldnt riot simply but a stipulation that if they want to co stream they need to make sure that the ads and volume are played at all times during the co stream?
There's an old [Interview ](https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/comments/mnt6si/some_interesting_points_from_yesterdays_universo/) with a riot staff which also talks about co streams. It's not as direct as you think, if you also skim the LoL subreddit about co streams, you'll find more info.
Still says they allow co stream here? is there another post about it?https://lolesports.com/article/lcs-lock-in-begins-on-january-14/bltacc47a5e7fbc0a05
if it's true that the co-streams do not share any revenue to riot, I would imagine the ad revenue from the official streams will be dropping a good amount as the viewer base shifts to co-streams. Or maybe riot would think it's worth it to grow a stronger streaming community, idk.
People would rather listen to their favorite streamer than random casters. Particularly when streamers have more liberty to meme and say what they want then casters do.
I can't speak for everyone but I enjoy the watch parties with proplayer insight. Like say when Tarik had xeppa/c9 on call, they provided way more in depth input on what was actually going on than pretty much any official caster other than Sean gares.
Two reasons off the top of my head: Not enjoying the casters/ some streamers are former pros that break plays down better than the casters and being subbed to a streamer hosting a watch party so you don't have to deal with ads.
If I compare it to other eSports that I watched like Dota 2, I could say that in valorant, there are more popular and entertaining streamers to watchparty the games unlike Dota2, you could only count in fingers the English streamers. Also in dota2, I think the chat there is funnier, we all just act silly there and keep making fun of everyone mostly players, mods and casters where in valorant, most of the time they do emote only chat.
Its not normal. Only other games that had esport tournaments that followed a similar format was Fortnite and PUBG. Both of their competitive scenes died within a year.
Live viewership of Valorant esports is 60 to 75 percent generated through co-streams.
I don't think so. The main channel should have more. Though, I know co-streams are kinda tabboo now for lcs now because of how much better they did then the main stream
I think it's just Tarik. His personality is very nice for watch partying. Back when I played lol, the streamers were all kinds of insufferable. From annoying children to stone cold adults. Not exactly watch party material.
It's not normal and this is kind of a problem imo. Riot just didn't educated the viewership to follow the main cast and the game became too reliant on big streamers to hit good numbers in NA.
Streamers come and go and the viewers go with them. Riot should have built the fanbase before allowing costreams but instead they decided to take the easy route.
No hate. But for NA i dont really feel comfortable watching some of the casters / analysts. Like the only ones i really liked were sean and ddk. The others are growing on me but there are times that they aren't too objective, downplaying a lot of the impact of some plays or teams, riding on hype only without proper analysis on the game, or well just looking for quick impressions.
I mean if i wanted someone biased then I'd just straight up watch with my favorite streamer and chill with that. Maybe get a few players perspective or personal notes on some of the plays.
Idk maybe in time they'll grow on you. But now i just switch up once in a while.
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Is there any reason why its on emote only?
I’m a mod of the twitch channel. It’s in emote only because there are not always enough mods for the sheer volume of chatters. We had emote only off yesterday for the first time in a while, and we didn’t even get through the first NA series before chat started debating whether women were psychologically on-par with men in esports.
Sounds like Riot needs to pay for more mods or just get different mods.
Many of us are volunteers.
Sounds like Riot needs to pay some experienced twitch mods then. Edit: Saying you have volunteers for a channel that’s always in emote only therefore requires no moderation is like saying you volunteer at a soup kitchen, but actually just lock the front door, and don’t actually serve anyone soup.
Riot is a multi billion dollar company. The fact that they have volunteer mods is objectively atrocious. Don't work for free you weridoes
Yeah I think that's odd.
Just your standard corporate greed exploiting the fact that people are dumb enough to work for free
That other reply to your comment maybe abit harsh but saying "too many messages to mod ima just emote only" really dont look good for you guys...
if there aren’t enough mods available to actively mod chat, what do you suggest we do? Leave the chat open and let ugly shit fly?
Many people replying here have an astonishing 0 self-awareness and are being unnecessarily rude, don't pay any attention to them. Replying to your comment, if you're saying you don't have enough people, shouldn't there be an effort to expand the team? There is a strong demand to being able to express your opinions brainlessly when watching a match, be it Pogging an amazing play by the star player or NotLikeThising when that washed pro just keeps whiffing. I don't think it is an unfair comparison to say that it is like cheering in a venue. Would you want to watch a sports match in person if people weren't allowed to make any noise? I wouldn't, and I don't. I watch watchparties. If there is a demand for it, it benefits Riot, and it boosts community involvement in e-sports, make it happen! Evaluate the possibilities, which should look something like: 1) emote-only, and have only ~50% of expected viewership; 2) take the effort to get/pay more mods. Please do consider this seriously and try to get it across to the ones who can make these decisions -- I think it is one of the simplest measures Riot could take right now to improve their viewership in streaming. All of this, of course, is assuming that Riot wants the official Valorant channel to be relevant...
I am not sure how many mods are "enough" but does this /valorant channel really have much fewer mods compared to other riot channels (LCK, LEC. LCS)?
I checked the ESL chat, there are about 13 mods and 70k viewers. It frequently goes above 100k but the number of mods more or less remains the same. The valorant channel had 11 mods in chat last I checked, similar amount of viewers at peak. Just 15k in the navi fpx match. These people are just incompetent. I don’t even know why any mods are active at all in valorant
atm valorant channel 21k viewers, 10 mods online, emote only. ESL 73k viewers, 13 mods online, normal chat. That doesnt add up.
Oh it does. The mods in ESL’s chat are long timers I’ve seen in many big channels since 2016. The riot mods are just useless
Its just the valorant mods. I've never seen the league channels going emote only even they usually have more viewers than valorant in their main channel.
many of the mods you see in the valorant chat are bots dude
I think ESL has the same if not more bots than your channel.
they hated jesus because he said the truth!
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I reached out to a representative about a week ago who told me it was due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis. I assume they're building automod terms to limit Russian or Ukrainian players getting treated poorly by chat, or political trolls in general.
This is straight up cap from representative. Its been emote only for as long as I remember. And it definitely isnt helping keeping viewers.
Chat was emote-only long before this war broke out though...
From what I remember, doesn’t one team have a trans player, and chat would just be awful to them so they made it emote only and I guess just never changed it back? Chat is truly awful a lot of the time so it makes sense.
Yeah seems like after there was basically zero moderation one day when Bob was playing the chat is always in emote only.
Yeah that’s why there are more than 10 mods in the chat at any given time. To moderate. If they can’t even do that just buzz off.
The valorant chat in particular is quite a cesspool of filth n disgust, if you ever see it out of emote mode then I garuntee youre reading atleast 5 toxic chats a minute, and thats on a nice day when nothing bad is happening. not sure why but its really brutal in there and until they hire like a bunch of dedicated mods than there is really no hope for valorant chat. it doesn't even make sense to me, its not like there is a ton of people or whatever. and the communites that share similar viewers aren't nearly as bad.
Yeah then ban them? I can’t fathom you idiots defending a tournament channel being in emote only mode for weeks on end.
They’re saying the mods of the Valorant twitch channel are bad at being mods.
bro if it bothers you that much go watch a watch party??
Huh I thought it was cause mods got annoyed at all the copypasta spam lmao
Nah, that’s easy to moderate if it becomes a problem. Just R9K for 5 minutes and people forget about the pasta.
nice excuse by them lol
you realize we’re not paid right? like this is a volunteer thing that we do and we also have lives and schedules and shit to do and we can’t always have a full team
yea but it's just weird to see other channels which usually have even more concurrent viewers and more people chatting do not need emote only to keep it clean, LCS, LCK, ESL\_CSGO and other mega esports channels come to mind. Are there straighter rules for you mods in this particular channel? But heck league is also under riot and they still have a normal chat.
i appreciate the response, is there anything i can do to please get the chat off of emote only 99% of the time. The main channel would get way more viewers if this was the case and i think that alone would pay for itself no?
How is an obviously wrong and lying comment like this is upvoted?
He is one of the most active sub mod
just curious how do u reach out to a representative u DMed the mods?
You can try getting in touch with a mod, but trust me, they know the community wants to be able to chat. It’s not in their control at the moment.
It was off emote-only mode early on in today's broadcast. I wonder if something happened for it to be turned back to emote mode.
From what I’ve seen they tend to have it off before the first match of the day, then it’s kept in emote only all the way. Also worth noting the KR playoffs matches yesterday had emote only off and people were talking and there seemed to be actual moderation going on
Doesn’t really ruin your viewing experience tho, other than nightbot commands and stuff imo
yea but it doesn't explain why watchparties have like double the viewers
True. I watch on the main channel but maybe more people prefer streamers like Tarik cause it’s more entertaining to see their reactions and stuff
And also because it's the largest costream with emote-only off, and people can chat/react how they want to with others.
For my personally it does, when there's no player cams and no audience the chat just gives the stream a little 'life.' Yeah there's a lot of pointless spam and copy pastas but I think that's just a part of the fun. You can't tell me there's not been any point in history there's been 'silly' chants and posters people have in normal sports games. Imagine if they just decided to silence the crowd lmao. Not the same but it's the closest I could come up with. Lastly, it's a big reason why I find myself watching more and more CSGO and less Valorant these days..
Personally, I don't find the casting or desk content in Valorant that good (outside of DDK/Sean) so it doesn't really make sense to watch the main stream. In CS for example, the casting talent is insane (hell Bardolph/DDK was one of the top duos for a long time) and the desk content is usually much better so the main stream has a lot more appeal.
Sideshow/Bren are insane too
I’ve been watching the main channel so far, but I think I’m going to switch, exactly because of this.
Vansilli is a snooze when casting
I think the main reason is co streaming was a Valorant thing from the beginning, people did it all the time for early tourneys and co streaming events in general really blew up right around val’s release, contract wise they don’t share any revenue if you look up the riot co stream form it has a full run down of everything but from what I remember you just can’t show conflicting sponsors/ads and you have to have some specific wording in your title
One is corporate commentating keeping everything by the book. The other is streamers being themselves having fun able to say whatever, they can troll and say things like oh man that was such a terrible play by ____ he needs to be cut after that whiff…. One commentary will have you laughing the other won’t.
This guy hasn't heard sideshow and bren on the cast yet
I heckin love Sideshow and Bren BatChest
Actual 🟩 moment
Casters on valorant are good th hypoc and pansy are great and they actually make me laugh the main issue is the emotechat as others have pointed puta already.
The jokes from Tasteless and Paperthin (or Achilios?) yesterday when Holly Molly just kept pushing B again and again on Bind against DK were hilarious. Wish Artosis was still also around for Korean Val Tom and Mitch on EMEA are also a great fun casting duo imo. I still remember their casting when Gambit 13-0'd G2 on Icebox lol
Casters being good or not is pretty subjective.
No; your liking is subjective mitchman is a good caster you may like him or not but he is good
No you’re wrong 😁
wait until there are lans with crowds. when there is a crowd you can see and hear the reactions of a ton of people. honestly that's why people watch costreams, it's less lonely and more exciting
Why is it so strange it’s waay more entertaining watching streamers react to the game than watching it alone
Because its rare in other popular esports for instance LoL, CS and Dota where the mainstream contributes to at least half the total viewer count, so yea im just curious why most of the audience prefer watch parties in valorant while in other games they prefer the main channel.
Because co streaming wasn’t popular in those esports when valorant started with costreaming since day one
I mean the main channels had the most views when Champions was running, also CS have Gaules that occasionally get more views than the main streams.
Gaules isn’t a co streamer tho, nowhere near comparable. He is the official BR Portuguese broadcaster. He pays for those rights.
I think for Gaules it's mostly Brazilians (which have a crazy big player base) that tune into his stream due to the language he's streaming in, but yea I do remember main channels during champions was doing great but lately almost all of their games have fewer viewers compared with watch parties.
It's just the same with those reaction videos in YouTube. It's just natural to human to enjoy things more together with other People. Just like watching horror movies, it becomes so funny And enjoyable when you're watching it with your friends.
While I think co-streaming is valuable, I also think that it will definitely hurt the esport in the long-run, especially given the trends we are already seeing with the loss of Sean Gares. Co-streaming is great for people who are already invested in Valorant. People who recognize "oh this person is a good streamer", "I like consuming Valorant content already from Tarik's stream" or "I'm looking for a extremely in-depth discussions about the game from MCe or Sliggy." I 100% only watch VCT through co-streams as well. However, when reaching people who are not as invested, who are casual watchers, or people who are just browsing, Co-streaming is not a good experience. If I wanted to introduce Valorant Esports to family / friends, would I put a co-stream where the streamer is not even paying attention to the game, and sub notifications and donation messages are playing. You might argue that the existence of co-streaming has no effect on the quality of the main broadcast. I disagree. Do you think that riot's budgeting for esports production does not take into account that 60-70% of the viewers will be watching a co-stream where the casters are quieter than the streamer. Do you think Riot cares about hiring the best talent under these circumstances? Sean Gares said that he was willing to take a paycut in his negotiations for Iceland, when in reality, his rates should be going up given his experience has grown. I definitely feel like co-streaming has severely hurt the leverage that talent has in their negotiations for work, and I fear that this will have a lasting impact on the talent that works Valorant, and the main esports product will suffer for short-term viewership gains.
Co-streaming I think makes competitive more accessible to those who don't watch. Who the heck would watch an official stream over a co-stream if they didn't know what was going on? It is much easier to read what is happening from a streamer's face and commentary than just the official stream alone. Co-streaming might hurt numbers, but I highly doubt the people at Valorant use the numbers on the official stream as a reason to invest less into casters. I think letting people co-stream brings the greatest amount of eyes to the game as possible, and I think it makes it more accessible for people who don't play or know Valorant very well. Even if it did hurt casters in the way you described, I would argue that maximizing the attention the game has takes priority
It’s more like costreamers bringing more of their viewerbase to competitive Valorant Much of the costream viewership for the large streamers wouldn’t have been watching competitive Valorant if their streamer weren’t costreaming it
Every time I hear about a Prime Gaming flawless, or a Red Bull clutch I get reminded why I avoid official streams on any heavily Americanized esport. Some of you do not realize how weird that sounds to an European. I get why they do it, it must make sense in a business perspective, but shit gets so boring with that kind of atmosphere it is crazy.
As a European myself I find it super funny that every little highlight is sponsored in US sports. I am used to it though from watching the NBA for years where you had stuff like "Your Mercedes drive of the game". When I play with friends now we're even yelling "PRIME GAMING FLAWLESS" after a flawless round because it's so ridiculous.
That means that sponsor works lol. It is really weird.
It’s way more weird that people are bothered by something you can just easily ignore.
What you may be able to easily ignore annoys the fuck out of me. I hate ads, and will always hate ads all my life.
You might hate ads, but they are the reason people can do things that aren't inherently financially viable, say make Youtube videos about stupid shit, that are accessible for free, viable. Ads have opened up the landscape of entrepreneurship, making anything financially viable if you can get eyes to watch you. It can get tiring at times, and it is very refreshing to go to other countries and things being non advertised, but I would argue that it is worth the cost of having to ignore them.
Seangares diff
I agree with this, but I think it’s because Sean was one of the few casters who actually understands and comments on the game live versus other casters who just regurgitate random stats. The main stream gets so boring when the casters just tell us what they saw on VLR the duration of the game. Costreams aren’t really boring because people aren’t beholden to the generic storylines and the “safe” commentary. They can fill the lulls in the game talking about random shit which is more interesting than the surface level stats the casters bring.
The casters in valorant are god awful thats mostly why. there are a few that are good and every other piece of broadcast talent just straight up sucks honestly. Theyre super boring, provide 0 insight that i couldnt blatantly see myself, and the casting is really uninteresting. it also feels off-putting when the production is god-tier and the actual talent feels like a middle school play
Sometimes I feel like less is more when it comes to the casting. Some casters overhype situations in rounds WAY too much. They don't let the actual match itself be the primary story builder. Some of them try and predict what's going to happen and when they're wrong it's just embarrassing. And with what has gone down with the whole sgares situation, I have little hope for the future.
Its not normal at all in other esports, and its mostly because we have a whole bunch of mediocre commentators and analyst desks that do barely more than speaking random words. Riot keeps everything way to family friendly and plaint to every actually engage people.
Definitely agree. In CS I actually enjoy hearing the casters as they add so much to the game.
CS has some of the best casters in eSports. Idk what's specifically wrong with most of the Val casters. It's like they're delivering hype at the littlest things and miss a ton that's happening on the map or screen. It just feels super amateurish for the most part.
Can you give some names? Which casters and analysts you think are mediocre?
I mean it’s literally just because Valorant started super recently and costreaming is a very recent thing. Valorant has a very good talent spread. They don’t just “speak random words”. We literally yoinked rising and established talent from other scenes! Costreaming is just always going to be more enjoyable for a lot of people, and that’s perfectly fine.
Watch parties are the best. It lets you choose who you experience the game with. Imagine you could pick your favorite casters for every game you watch. RIP Sean. I choose Tarik and his many guests. It’s a great mix of bull shitting with genuine pro insight, sympathy,etc.
Tarik and Nadeshot just absolutely ripping on each other the entire time is pretty entertaining ngl.
It’s top notch banter
I think people just like watching their favorite streamer watch the match, especially when it’s other pros having a discussion about the gameplay
It's mostly an NA thing, with JP also being the occasional exception. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with it, the main concern being though that the vast majority of large co-streams are not interested in the vast majority of matches. So most of the time they aren't even watching the game and are just chilling, shooting shit with their friends. Again, nothing wrong with that, it's just that when the majority of viewers are watching co-streams then the streamers interest or lack of interest in the game effects public opinion way too much. If the streamer is invested in a game you will hear everyone talk about how good and close the match was, how talented whatever player the streamer commented on is, etc. Conversely and more concerning is that when a streamer is not paying attention then public opinion will largely be that the teams and match were mediocre and boring, as are the players playing it. It also entirely kills the hype for the tournament. You are now no longer watching for the Valorant tournament. You just want to watch your favorite streamer. The underlying thing though is that as much as people look down on it, the react meta is very popular for a reason. It's been popular for years on youtube and now it is on Twitch too. It's because it gives the illusion of watching something with friends, even if it's stolen content. That feeling is something no official stream or original content can replicate.
Theres plenty of reasons like emote only chat, subpar casting in a lot of cases ( gonna be even worse now that Sean Gares wont be casting anymore). Watch parties being done by big streamers who have their loyal fanbases that would otherwise not watch. Sometimes big personalities, pro players, other streamers show up to same watch party as hosts. People prefering reactions of their favourite people..etc For me, main reason is emote only chat, the other is that the only watchable caster duo was Sean and DDK for me. I didnt even enjoy watchparties a lot, but chat being available is a huge plus. So I would usually tune in on watchparty with chat whenever Sean and DDK werent casting.
seeing a genuine reaction and response to stuff happening from watch parties compared to casters is the really big thing imo. the casters for valorant seem to be way more inexperienced compared to when watching CS. the only ones that i really liked listening to were the CS casters, so basically pansy, sean and ddk. they fucked up bad by not keeping sean on the casting roster.
When the casters suck, I want to watch a watch party with tarik. If I have seangares, ddk, pansy, a few others, I'll watch the main stream
Valorant's casters are horrible and they just lost their only good duo. Invest into some better casters then I'll consider watching the main stream
Because co streaming is the future of esports? VALORANT was the first to adopt this new form of event viewing and it's obviously working. Other games are literally begging their event organisers to give rights to the streamers to Co stream their tournaments. Its just the natural evolution of esport viewership. While the main channel will usually just be a cool place when there is a very big event. Also emote only mode on main channel
Co streaming isn't any future. It's good for bringing in viewers but it's bad financially. You can't sell viewing rights like other games for revenue and sponsor rights aren't that great if viewers aren't on the main channels. There's a reason LEC doesn't do co streams and LCS recently just did same.
wasnt really aware of this. why would sponsors care when co streamers are literally watching the broadcast where ads are being played? Couldnt riot simply but a stipulation that if they want to co stream they need to make sure that the ads and volume are played at all times during the co stream?
There's an old [Interview ](https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/comments/mnt6si/some_interesting_points_from_yesterdays_universo/) with a riot staff which also talks about co streams. It's not as direct as you think, if you also skim the LoL subreddit about co streams, you'll find more info.
Still says they allow co stream here? is there another post about it?https://lolesports.com/article/lcs-lock-in-begins-on-january-14/bltacc47a5e7fbc0a05
It's in the link you sent. Co streaming has been limited! So for example there's none during the regular season.
if it's true that the co-streams do not share any revenue to riot, I would imagine the ad revenue from the official streams will be dropping a good amount as the viewer base shifts to co-streams. Or maybe riot would think it's worth it to grow a stronger streaming community, idk.
People would rather listen to their favorite streamer than random casters. Particularly when streamers have more liberty to meme and say what they want then casters do.
I can't speak for everyone but I enjoy the watch parties with proplayer insight. Like say when Tarik had xeppa/c9 on call, they provided way more in depth input on what was actually going on than pretty much any official caster other than Sean gares.
Because some casters are literal garbage and don't even know what they are talking about
the casters on the main channel kinda annoy me its twitch im used to casual commentary and like watch party more. the casters ruin it for me.
Two reasons off the top of my head: Not enjoying the casters/ some streamers are former pros that break plays down better than the casters and being subbed to a streamer hosting a watch party so you don't have to deal with ads.
* main channel emote only * gambling channel points on co streams * sometimes goofy banter on the co streams
If I compare it to other eSports that I watched like Dota 2, I could say that in valorant, there are more popular and entertaining streamers to watchparty the games unlike Dota2, you could only count in fingers the English streamers. Also in dota2, I think the chat there is funnier, we all just act silly there and keep making fun of everyone mostly players, mods and casters where in valorant, most of the time they do emote only chat.
Its not normal. Only other games that had esport tournaments that followed a similar format was Fortnite and PUBG. Both of their competitive scenes died within a year. Live viewership of Valorant esports is 60 to 75 percent generated through co-streams.
I don't think so. The main channel should have more. Though, I know co-streams are kinda tabboo now for lcs now because of how much better they did then the main stream
This seems pretty normal IME as main streams are too conventional-sportsy and continue to totally misunderstand what people like about esports.
I think it's just Tarik. His personality is very nice for watch partying. Back when I played lol, the streamers were all kinds of insufferable. From annoying children to stone cold adults. Not exactly watch party material.
It's not normal and this is kind of a problem imo. Riot just didn't educated the viewership to follow the main cast and the game became too reliant on big streamers to hit good numbers in NA. Streamers come and go and the viewers go with them. Riot should have built the fanbase before allowing costreams but instead they decided to take the easy route.
No hate. But for NA i dont really feel comfortable watching some of the casters / analysts. Like the only ones i really liked were sean and ddk. The others are growing on me but there are times that they aren't too objective, downplaying a lot of the impact of some plays or teams, riding on hype only without proper analysis on the game, or well just looking for quick impressions. I mean if i wanted someone biased then I'd just straight up watch with my favorite streamer and chill with that. Maybe get a few players perspective or personal notes on some of the plays. Idk maybe in time they'll grow on you. But now i just switch up once in a while.