They are yes, but in the past its played a big part why other esports titles even non-Mobile is having hard time growing - Excessive investment into the scene is put into these 2 over every other game else

we know respectfully India is a very huge country on Mobile Device

and given that their esports presence specially mobile is heavily thanked to two games : PUBGM (known as BGMI) and Free Fire.

They were both banned around the time VALORANT arrived.

Now that BGMI passes trial period, and likely now unbanned
and today Free FIre getting unbanned, even set to gave India a World Championship host next year

tough luck to every other game over there then? But I'm more curious whether

would VAL Scene in India getting hurt from these two games coming back?

a 2nd test after the first one last month, this one is Android Only and only in China

Because the mobile VALORANT game will required a separate approval they can't just use PC's licence to get away with

Tencent cant publicly say this is VALORANT Mobile yet (as unapproved games can be censored from even saying the name), Tencent currently called them just "Project C'

Official Weibo announcement was made just today after it was rumor for shortly

Cars are fast

unrelated

not always and this comes from an APAC citizen

Across every organization that has won both a Shooter and MOBA World Championships

EG has a chance to make it 2 Different Shooter World Championships across teams in that list
in which none in that list has achieved that feat yet (1 MOBA, 2 Shooters), should they won today

They had a lot of separate hall, like Wild Rift runs at same venue but they used a different hall

• The three monthlies are from Sep Oct Nov
• Probably yes and spot goes to only non partner team so the blend OFFSEASON and Challenger into one same event

3-Months series to determine teams that will played in Ascension China

• It's also confirmed the promotion tournament for VCT China is just the Ascension China

• Each month runs like FGC, Uncapped Open qualifier to determine 8 teams in closed qual

• Then closed qual determined 4 teams into a Monthly LAN Playoffs against Top 4 of previous act
  (for this one, BLG/EDG/FPX/TYLOO is invited. Doesn't mean they are out of partner tho, then Top 4 of Evo Moth 1 invites to next month)

• Three months in total to determine teams in December's Ascension China

• ALL LANs ARE NOW PLAYED AT THE LPL STADIUM

This one is real real fun, its hard but its rewarding (Also PS5 gang as well). ESPECIALLY if you played the previous games this one's for you

Better known as Oh My God, they are a team in the LPL, they just announced VALORANT Roster recruitment

Potential candidate for one of the 10 Partner Spots?

Comparison to the other 12 leagues that Mainland China has

Each ILs runs at $250K currently, CF at doubled of those

EDG
FPX
BLG

JDG

NIP
TOP
WBG

a notable PUBG org for engagement
either an org from KPL (most popular chinese league outside LPL) or CFPL (largest FPS league in China currently, larger than CS Perfect World league)

Announced on their weibo

• Has 10 teams, all partner teams they are not Buyins
• a Promotion tournament will be held in December, winner gets the 2-year seat so its literally Ascension CN
• to qualified for Promotion, they must gain points through a new "Evolution Series" tournaments running for the next 3 months

in China the term "VCL" is not used as Challenger or 2nd division but rather as the "College League" instead which 1 extra tier lower

Tencent esports usually have special leagues outside Top and 2nd Div, these often comes in form of:

• College
• High School
• Streamer
• Enterprise (Office Workers) Leagues

as for main league it is expected to be : National Competition >> Second League >> VCT China

Theres two type of coins

GC Qualifier China

This also introduces VALORANT being included into Tencent Game Arena or TGA, to summarize it is Tencent's own-created MLG/GameBattles equivalent

(TGA is an open platform for players of all level to compete both On-Offline with many games being hosted, sounds like MLG isnt it)

Qualifiers will be split into (the term track will be commonly used when it comes to announcing qualifier for the events in china)

• TGA Track (this often translated to TGA Volkswagen Track) - Open Qualifier using TGA
• TGA Provincial Track - Each Esports federation in each province are granted a qualifier to send teams to represent their province
• Platform Track - Streaming platforms hosts qualifiers
• 2 invite teams - the EDG Female team is probably in here

Format is then

• 16 Teams in four groups of BO3 Round Robin
• Group winner goes to playoffs, 2nd place all played for 2 remaining spots
• Top 6 is a LAN, 3 teams go to East Asia qualifier against JP KR teams

Has $20,000 prize which is pretty near top for GC prize pool (only BR NA EU had more prize) and is actually the first time a VAL CN tournament had actual prize pool lol

Fair
LLA didnt do much either

Waiting for this thread but for other region at League Worlds

^ This too, even tho when they had a lot of regions (11 countries at one point during 2013) they werent really close in investment effort

They need to really like outperform everyone, If we talking the same level of dominance as CF its unlikely

CF's level of dominance saw only VN, PH the only two country to beat them on a Masters Equivalent and that's like thrice
and Brazil only Twice during these 15 years at Worlds.

If anything we should likely get, DOTA level of closeness? Regions managed to beat each other out regularly without getting stomped even the smallest ones

Quite a lot (even more beyond the screen cap)
and 2-3M+ Heat is now the norm for VALORANT both Watch Parties and Main Stream, which is a good start

Again heat IS NOT the raw viewership for China streams, it does however determines that "High = that streams is popular"

At least in China its expected for Tencent reasons, Globally well CODM have one for 4 years so Its possible (I mean they did with Wlid Rift even though it didnt last long)

Mako

The game is unlikely paired together with Console btw

This will make the market have the following competitor

• Were going to excluded BRs because they are different genre than VAL, that is a round-based 5v5

• CODM as the current market leader in this genre

• VAL Mobile

• R6 Mobile (Launching this month)

• Standoff 2 (popular in Russia has no Asian scene)

• Critical Ops (very old game, they dont start esports until like 4 years after game released)

• Warzone Mobile (CODM but not developed by Tencent, has 6v6 modes)

• CHINA ONLY CrossFire Mobile (has twice CODM CN playerbase, has Franchised League << You read it correct)

Will Asia win this game?: The closest we can compared is CODM's World Championship last year saw it being... Get ready.
NA vs NA final

THE PROBLEM is we see what happen to Wild Rift, and its possible to happen again: Dividing fanbase of why play this when PC existed or why PC dont get this/that

Someone uploaded footage of VAL Mobile's newest test (Project C) tutorial mode
Part 1
Part 2

Apparently we are seeing the Tencent version, which may be different from actual release that Riot took it to work by their own

Out of nowhere, CrossFire announced they are reviving NA region by granting them a solo spot at World Championship
Something they haven't done in 4 years after NA stops being a separate region and merged into EUNA League in 2020

CF literally doing everything they could to not lose relevancy to CN VALORANT, especially how they do international events
even as far as reviving NA

a Week ago Tencent quietly began signups for a test of something called "PROJECT C" with this promo banner

The promo banner simply saying "Shooting Game from Riot"

He's now having the nickname "Big B" by the Chinese Weibo Netizens

This is from a post talking about Boaster's Interview (the one that says he's coming for EG) yesterday

Big B = Fnatic's Video on the Weibo featuring Boaster has him nicknamed Big B.
The video is about asking Boaster's favorite CN VAL player

but Boaster went on to mentioned a LoL player DoinB as well

If only performances deliver to match it, right now its a bit opposite from the Heat Number they have on their platforms which isnt bad actually.

The very least timezone did hurt CN Heat Index, by not much looks like
(2-3M Heat on 3AM, which is usually what LCK Stream over there regularly gets)

they already had Heat value, Just only need performance

fair trade since we get the opposite at League Worlds

I POSTED IT AT THE WRONG FORUM, Delete this

This picture has surfaced across the internet and some of 3rd party store apps

The text simply say "Mobile Shooting Game from Riot" under the working title PROJECT C but we know its clearly VALORANT Mobile

The test seems to be recruiting from today and began test sometime mid August, which just so happened to be right around VCT Champions going on

Previously theres a rumor that Riot did not like the Tencent-build version of VALM, and decides to rebuild VALM from scratch by gaving the project to Riot LA aka the Console Team.

Its possible we getting 2 VALM versions, The tencent build one belongs to the China Server

After they announced they are going to rework their Franchised Model suddenly after 5 years of no changes

They went on to announced complete rebrand of their esports department

Again, something they've never done since the brand started in 2013, they just suddenly think of it this year

While its because this is around the game's 15-year anniversary, pretty sure VALORANT launches in China has a lot of effect on their competitor

Both games are operated by Tencent in China, only the devs are different

Grand Finals of CN CrossFire League in 3 days, winner takes home $200K which is doubled of the amount from being VCT Pacific Champion.

Trophy looks really rad

Considering today APAC except KRJP is still quite a Mobile Game territory

In case someone missed out the teaser, which was 3 weeksago
The actual song comes out July 31

CS2 (Valve), VALORANT (Riot), CrossFire (SmileGate) trying to fight each other for China FPS Scene domination
each became reactive to each other, all it took was VALORANT to launch in China

• July 12: VALORANT launches in China

• July 14: During Tencent Summit, TJ Sports confirms bringing VCT International to China

• The same day: few minutes after that, CrossFire shows up to announced 2024 franchising rework for the first time in 5 years + Worlds back to China after 4 years

• July 23: Rumors of Valve targeting a China CS2 major in 2024 surfaced

• July 28: Riot undercuts this by announcing Masters Shanghai

• EDIT: The next expected move would be Valve to announced launch date, and Perfect World has to announced theirs as well

RE: Bundle
Yes, it will be on CN Server

They will, there was a blog post recently saying skins that released globally will come to CN at the same time. They have announced that CN will get the same drops as well on their platforms

You get CDL and OWL already fair ig

if this is true all because Valve projecting a major, As expected out of TX(tencent)

Ticking Away by Grabbitz FT. Canadian Rapper bbno$ on July 31

Experience champions directly on the game! were mentioned on the blogpost

Per the blogpost

Esports In-Client Hub

We’re making it easy to get all your VCT info without leaving the VALORANT client. Experience champions directly on the game!

In-Client here could mean just on the launcher or inside the game

(Not to be confused with the one on Chinese Server)

This, very true

Vtuber group

Hololive is creating a new gaming/esports-focused brand called Holizontal, they chose to partner with Riot to promote the brand through a VALORANT Showmatch

Probably the first actual time both brands come together in the form collab promo

Hololive is a Vtuber Agency

CrossFire has announced a new Seat System coming to the 2024 Chinese League

Coincidentally the Chinese League for VCT is gonna be next year as well, looks like the arrival of VCT CN does warrant CFPL to start moving

For starters CrossFire introduced franchising in 2019, a cost of $1.5M grants the owner entries to the PC and Mobile league together.
However since then they werent able to draw any new buyer and only two new buyer happens by replacing those who left

Considering VCT China has a Buy-in, but is surely much cheaper than CFPL + potential Temporary Seat, no wonder CrossFire has to made this change to try counter VALORANT

Specially CFPL has already loses out in Heat Number because VALORANT encourages Costreams

(Meanwhile CS still stuck with Perfect World's small scale league, which was the most of publisher effort coming out of PW)

TLDR: CS1.6 clone to improve their esports to try counter VALORANT Esports