Opinion

Riot Games shooter Valorant is accused of being pay to win after a player finds a skin that gives them an unfair gameplay advantage.

  • Riot Games shooter Valorant is hit with its first pay to win accusation.
  • Players say that one of the games purchasable skins provides an unfair gameplay advantage.
  • Riot confirmed early plans for Valorant sports last week, but this suggests that the game is far from ready.

There was a mild amount of controversy in the Valorant community today when players discovered what seems to be a pay to win skin. A Valorant player posting on the games Reddit revealed how a skin that theyd purchased gave them an unfair gameplay advantage.
Valorant Skin Criticized for Being Pay to Win
After buying the Valorant Prism skin pack, one of several paid-for cosmetics on sale in the game, they found that the Prism operator skin gave them a wider field of vision on scoped weapons. With the Prism skin, the sides of the scope are unobscured allowing players to see more of the game when looking down it compared to other skins available in the game.
The Reddit poster called the skin pay to win, a phrase used to mean that a game allows players to pay to get a gameplay advantage. The term has been used many times to criticize microtransactions sold in several EA games.
Riot though says that this is just a bug. In response to the Reddit post, a Valorant developer confirmed that this will be fixed in an upcoming patch and that the team does test to make sure things like this dont happen.
Valorant May Not Be Ready for Esports
The fact that it was missed, or somehow could not be fixed before the Prism cosmetics were made available, suggests that Valorant is not ready for sports primetime. In a post on the games official site last week, Riot confirmed that while it wont go into anything without seeing whats best, it is talking about Valorant esports.
Valorant esports could make a huge amount of money for Riot which could offer expensive league spots and brand sponsorships. However, this pay to win controversy suggests that while Valorant has an incredible number of fans, Riot may want to wait much longer before launching any esports competitions.
This article was edited by Samburaj Das.