Valorant is a team-based FPS game published and developed by the well-known Riot Games, released in June 2020 for Windows. Recently, in 2024 it was ported to the Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, though crossplay between PC and console is not available. The primary target audience is young adults who vary in experience in FPS games, highlighted by their bright color palette and use of fantasy elements in-game. Though the game itself is free to play and the purchasing options available are purely for cosmetic and aesthetic purposes, it is incredibly common for players to make these purchases despite their high cost. This is likely due to Valorant’s live-service purchasing model, which incorporates a number of design choices that may encourage addictive spending through utilizing false scarcity tactics seen in their Featured Store, battle pass, and Night Market.
Featured Store
The Featured Store is the primary source for purchasing gun skins — which only provide cosmetic and aesthetic changes to the game. In the Store, there is a limited time ‘featured bundle’ typically containing brand new skins for five guns, a knife, as well as ‘buddies’, ‘Flex’, ‘player cards’, and ‘sprays’ — some of which are visible to other players, and others that remain in sight only of the individual. All of these elements are cosmetic and aesthetic only, and do not provide any in-game performance boosts. The featured bundle is available to players to purchase for 2-3 weeks upon its release, and typically never appears again — though there have been select bundles that featured old ones as part of a special deal. In addition to the featured bundle are four ‘Offers’: four random skins for random guns from older bundles, which are generated seemingly random, differ by individual account, and refresh every 24 hours. The featured bundle provides the players with a ‘bulk discount’ that varies based on assigned ‘rarity’ values, causing players to perceive items as being ‘free’ or heavily discounted when making the larger purchase. The offers tab does not offer discounts. In limiting the amount of time a player has access to bundles and offers, they both feel pressured to make a purchase before the time runs out, and to log back into the game frequently to check their refreshed stores.
Battle Pass
Valorant also offers a battle pass that includes new gun skins, buddies, flex, player cards, sprays, and more, available only through the battle pass. The battle pass updates every ‘Act’ (large game update with a new theme which resets player rankings), making it available for roughly two months. The battle pass progresses through ‘tiers’ that unlock with Kingdom Credits (experience points), allowing all players to redeem free items and those that purchased the battle pass to redeem premium ones. However, the battle pass differs in the limitations seen in the featured store, as players can decide to purchase the battle pass at any time and gain all the premium items at and below the tier they are currently on. This model incentivizes players to continue ruminating on whether they’d like to upgrade their battle pass, since there’s seemingly no penalty for waiting.
Night Market
The Night Market is a periodic store extension that provides players another way of purchasing skins for guns and knives for a limited amount of time. Night Market’s usually occur once per Act, and are then open for purchase for two weeks. Through the extension, players are granted a random selection of six skins from previous bundles, discounted anywhere from 10-49%. Upon opening their Night Market, players view the back of ten ‘cards’ with colors that indicate the rarity of the skin on the back. Then, players build anticipation for what lies beneath them — particularly when the colors of the cards indicate rarer skins. Perceived rarity may also be considered a pressure tactic that encourages players to spend money based on the belief they may not have the opportunity to buy this particular skin again.
Conclusion
Valorant’s employment of false scarcity tactics in their various purchasing options may predispose players to addiction by encouraging frequent refreshing of stores, anticipation for new releases, and impulsive purchases. Each Act, players are greeted with a new battle pass, featured bundle, and night market — all of which contain items the player has no previous knowledge of. Additionally, every 24 hours a player’s offers refresh, encouraging frequent logins and engagement with the game.
Valorant differs in other free-mium games, even within its own genre, in the cost of their items. Considering the only changes to player experience are aesthetic, the price range of each skin is incredibly high, with battle passes being ten dollars, individual skins ranging from eight to twenty-five dollars, and bundles costing roughly eighty to one hundred dollars. While it isn’t necessarily morally impermissible for a free-to-play game to choose its own pricing for elements within the game that don’t provide any in-game advantages, Valorant does employ a number of tactics that pressure players into making these purchases. Offering cheaper ways for players to obtain items — such as the battlepass and Night Market — are certainly a step in the right direction for making the game accessible and fun to players of all income levels. However, it would be commendable to offer a broader spectrum of items for players to exchange Kingdom Credits for. Currently, Valorant features an ‘accessory store’ that allows players to exchange Kingdom Credits for player cards, player titles, gun buddies, and other cosmetics from older bundles. This rewards players who play the game more often with the opportunity to gain items at no monetary cost. Expanding this option to be available for purchasing skins would decrease the number of players who feel embarrassment or shame for not spending money on the game, allowing for more people to have positive experiences through play!
