New Figures Show Valorant Enjoyed a Major Resurgence in January
Ever since its original release, Valorant has generally enjoyed significant attention from gamers, cementing its place as one of the current top battle royale titles. However, in the latter months of 2020, the game’s active player count had begun to wane. Now, new figures from SuperData show that the new season launch in January led to a major resurgence for both Valorant’s active players and earnings.
Valorant’s January Resurgence and What it Shows
In their January 2021 report on the digital games market, which was recently published by SuperData, the company revealed the scale of Valorant’s rebound. From December to January, the game’s average player numbers rose by 29%; indicating that players were tempted back by the launch of a new Agent and new seasonal content. Importantly, some 72% of those people were returning players who had moved on from Valorant at some stage prior. Riot’s earnings from Valorant grew even more than the average player count, with a 39% increase over December.
What this indicates is that Valorant was bleeding players to other titles in late 2020. After all, 72% of the January influx were existing players who had lapsed from playing Valorant; most likely because they had turned their attentions to other things. However, with the launch of a new season and a new Agent, Riot was able to bring many people back. Of course, it remains unknown whether it was able to sustain these numbers in February.
SuperData concludes on Valorant that; “the game’s long-term success will likely depend on the ability of developer Riot Games to consistently launch content in order to entice players to keep coming back”. Indeed, this is true for all of the top battle royale titles. Between Apex Legends, Call of Duty: Warzone, Fortnite, and Valorant, etc., developers are all fighting fiercely to keep players engaged by releasing new content as frequently as possible. Whether Valorant will be able to keep competing as we progress through 2021 remains to be seen. However, Riot has indicated that it plans to be “take more risks” with new Agents this year.