VALORANT Episode 3 Act 3 is now in its second week, and the new Agent Chamber is scheduled to arrive globally on 17th November 2021. The developers informed earlier that this delay is to make sure that Chamber fits properly in his role with all his high-damage utilities. However, Chamber was released a week ago in the Public Beta Environment which is only available for North America.
Incidentally, Riot Games did not organize early access this time around for Chamber's introduction. Content creators and press members only received a handful of images, and a couple of videos including the official Agent trailer, and Chamber's gameplay.
The new Agent arriving in the PBE first caused a lot of problems for the creator economy. It created an unnecessary disparity in the VALORANT creator community which was quite disappointing for fans. Currently, players who are situated only in North America can get access to the PBE. This inevitably shuts off the rest of the world from what's new and upcoming in VALORANT.
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VALORANT: Chamber Arrives Globally One Week After PBE Release
In just over a year, VALORANT has become a popular global phenomenon. It is undoubtedly one of the most played and viewed games of 2021. However, its global popularity demands new content to be available for everyone worldwide.
Chamber arriving in the PBE first was definitely a step back for several content creators who are not based in North America. The majority of the creator community was deprived of the unique content that comes with a new Agent release.
In light of this recent event, we asked popular content creator ZakkyZu about Chamber's delayed global release. Here's what he had to say about the VALORANT's global popularity and Riot's responsibility towards its worldwide creator community:
Zakky: "Due to the nature of VALORANT updates rolling out globally, VALORANT preview events are instrumental for the creator economy. VALORANT at the time of comment is ~32% of its launch day interest rate per data publicly available on Google Trends. This means that since launch VALORANT has struggled to grow Year on Year, falling in interest due to multiple factors that Riot should be aware of.
VALORANT relies on its creators for organic marketing - which means influencers are not paid by Riot to make content; instead, Riot generally provides creators who invest their live-service content into their IP, early access to new content to sustain those who monetize through YouTube advertising, sponsors etc.
As an example of influencer marketing, VALORANT Hub, after promoting Chamber on YouTube, reached over 15% of the entire monthly active playerbase at $0 cost to Riot. Riot have made some great investments towards influencer relations over the past 15 months and the team are brilliant.
Unfortunately for Episode 3 Act 3, the most important material including Chamber's contract, new lore material, exclusive gameplay and agent voicelines were monopolised to the NA region for release. This has left a vast disconnect between VALORANT and international regions - leaving the majority of part-time and full-time content creators in an incredibly difficult and unsustainable position. I'm hopeful that Riot will invest more into VALORANT over 2022."
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