Tencent named Valorant the most important Chinese release this year

The Chinese launch of the cooperative shooter Valorant from Riot Games is scheduled for this Wednesday. Tencent is responsible for the local release, which plans to spend more than a billion yuan ($138 million) over the next three years to promote and develop the title as an esports discipline. She also calls Valorant “the most important game published this year.”

Recall that the global launch of Valorant took place three years ago, in June 2020. The project is considered successful. According to Tracker Network, its monthly audience by the end of June 2023 was 20 million people. By the way, the official server of the project in Discord is the second largest game server on the platform.

Despite the success in the world, the game could not be released in China for a long time. The local Ministry of National Press and Publications in general rarely issues permission for publishing in China. It issues licenses to foreign games even less frequently.

Until December 2022, when 44 imported games received exit permits at once, including Valorant, the Ministry did not issue licenses to such projects for 18 months. In addition to Valorant, Tencent has received permission to publish five more foreign games in China, including the Korean MMO Lost Ark.