Selex [#36]
What people don't understand is that riot is and has never been motivated by what is absolutely best for their esports scenes from a competitive perspective (Anyone who's followed league of legends for the last decade should know this). They're a large company with many priorities with the top of their hierarchy of priorities being $$$. They may(and always do) claim otherwise but this is the truth. I'm not gonna pretend to know exactly how riot is thinking at all times(no one can) but they've chosen to invest more in GC because they believe it will ultimately benefit them more as a company.
I don't even have to think very hard to see why they believe this to be true:
- Call it cynical thinking if you want, but the reality is that the health of the T2 ecosystem does not matter from a $$$ perspective. As long as the game remains popular enough, prospective talent will continue to enter and compete in the T2 scene with aspirations of one day reaching VCT
- The vast majority of fans can not differentiate in the levels of play/performance as the highest levels of play are approached(this is true in all esports) so even if the level of pro play declines, it will have almost 0 impact on viewership and not affect the game's popularity.
- Running and funding the GC circuit, the largest and best funded women's scene in all of esports, buys riot goodwill from the valorant audience and the wider gaming audience. This might not seem important but it is, it's the same logic/reasoning the rich use when engaging in/advertising their philanthropic endeavors. It's never completely selfless, that goodwill ultimately leads to a return on investment in other ways and eventually more $$$
- Bragging rights. Sounds dumb right? But that's the reality. In the last 10 years+ riot have shown that they want to be unique. They like being trend setters at the forefront when it comes to esports and that's exactly what a well run/funded global women/marginalized gender's circuit is in esports, which is extremely male dominated.
- Your definition of a healthy valorant eco-system may simply not align with their definition. They may just value eventually having women competing in the T1 scene to be the most healthy state of affairs and see prioritizing that as more important than T2.
It's probably mostly reasons 1-4. I'm sure there also plenty of individuals who feel 5 is true as well but with riot being riot, proud and profit oriented, those other points are probably the prevalent reasons as to why things are the way they are. Ultimately, companies and orgs will invest where they want to invest and there is no changing that.
Point 3 also ties in with anohter aspect. Women are an extremely small portion of the general tac shooter playerbase. For example This study from 2016 puts them at 4%, although I'm sure we are sitting at higher numbers in 2024. Valorant has somehow managed to tap into the female market a lot more (e.g. this article says 35% of Valorant players are women). Valorant does appeal to a more casual audience a lot more and I would wager that the average woman in Valorant is probably approaching the game from a more casual standpoint than the average man (e.g. the first link above also shows that women generally tend to play games that are less competitive, like simulation games, whereas men tend to prefer genres with more competition). I'd also wager that casual players spend less money on the game.
A successful women's esports scene, no matter how they compare to the open circuits, can help the game to market itself to a demographic that was previously completely inaccessible, which makes up half the population. Let's take the 65-35 split mentioned above. If Valorant has a steady male playerbase and just increases the number of women playing the game to equal the number of men playing the game, this would be a 30% increase in players. Also, again this is just speculation on my end, but I'm sure Riot has numbers on this internally, I'd wager that esports watchers are probably more likely to be less casual and potentially buy more skins, which is the highest priority for Riot as it's the main source of income related to Valorant.
In terms of competitive shooters, getting women to play your game would be huge, and I feel like Valorant in its early days, like no other comp shooter, managed to actually do that, so of course they are investing heavily to expand on that market. Just a handful of female pros in the open circuit would be huge.