VALORANT has taken Twitch by storm. Its closed beta fired up earlier this month, causing a massive surge in viewership on the platform. Although armies of VALORANT viewers may sound nice to Riot Games – the overwhelming response isn't as authentic as it seems.

Riot and Twitch partnered up to give fans a shot a gaining access to the beta via "drops." This was a fantastic marketing idea. It was so good, in fact, that it's now created negative side-effects. Yes, there were the masses of streamers who initially lied about having drops enabled on their channels, but that hasn't been the only issue. Things have gotten worse, even with drops enabled on all VALORANT streams.

As Devin Nash points out, enormous amounts of fake Twitch accounts have been created in order to farm beta drops. This has resulted in massively inflated viewership stats, clearly caused by bots and phony accounts. Additionally, fake streams and channels have popped up too, all trying to take advantage of the VALORANT beta craze.

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The platform feels ravaged by the waves of viewers/bots/fake accounts that have all swarmed streams for the sole purpose of trying to get into the game. Many individuals don't stop at just one drop – they try to get as many accounts as possible in order to sell them online for crazy prices.

Streamers have also become less-sincere since the beta, cashing-in on the ridiculous exposure that VALORANT brings in. Want to quintuple your normal viewership stats? Stream VALORANT with "drops enabled" in your title. Some have even used their newly-inflated stats to attempt to secure lofty sponsorship deals. Pokelawls was one of the first big streamers to candidly express his distaste in the environment brought about by the new beta.

The future of VALORANT is up in the air. The consensus is that it will likely succeed as a CS:GO alternative, providing that its developers stay up-to-date with player feedback. Shroud has been vocal about his optimism for the game's future, believing that it could surpass CS due to its light barrier to entry. Regardless of the game's esports potential, the beta drops on Twitch need to discontinue ASAP.

Source: Twitch

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