Reports suggest that Valorant First Strike EU will not permit co-streaming or community casts

Image via Sportskeeda
Image via Sportskeeda

According to recent reports, Valorant First Strike will not have co-streaming or community casting permission.

Image via Reddit

In a recent post on Reddit, u/MentallyStableMan revealed that the Valorant First Strike finals in Europe would not have permission for streams. For instance, only the official organizers will get to stream the event on Twitch.

While Riot Games did not officially protract these rules, they are instead made by the specific tournament organizers.

This comes on the back of the recent Valorant First Strike North America Closed Qualifiers, where fans reported how they were disappointed with the casting production.

Also read: Valorant - Skye's best flash angles and lineups to learn on Ascent


Sidestreams, co-streaming, and community casts not permitted at Valorant First Strike Europe

Image via Reddit

Riot has given streaming control to its partners conducting the qualifiers, like NSG and UMG, in North America. This allows the organizers to make specific rules like above, which bars streamers and content creators from streaming Valorant First Strike.

Furthermore, this rule is implemented so that the organizing channel gets the most views on Twitch. From a business perspective, it seems pretty straightforward and logical. For instance, if a popular streamer like Myth or Ninja streams the finals, then most definitely, they are going to compete with the organizing channel for views.

This is something the organizers want to eliminate. Liddlebitchboy also mentioned the following in his comment:

"And it makes sense too, of course they want people to tune into their stream and not have it fall below Myths in viewer numbers."

However, Valorant fans have a deeper concern. After the biased casting during the NA NSG Closed Qualifiers, they are a little worried. As Senboni mentioned, as long as the organizers have unbiased casters, fans wouldn't mind watching.

At the same time, several upcoming streamers want to broadcast Valorant First Strike with their own reactions. Commentator Ryan "RyanCentral" Horton added something intriguing to the mix:

"I think this is a Riot decision and not a Blast one, considering it's the exact same ruling Riot has for LEC? Also, if Blast are the TO, they've done community qualifier streams for CS before. They obviously wouldn't have a problem letting community casters cover games they weren't intending to broadcast."

This means that fans will not get to see popular streamers like Myth, TenZ, or Sgares streaming and commentating with their reactions. On the flip side, it comes with a ray of hope, as the tournament organizers will now make sure that the production quality is satisfying enough for the community.

Several fans have mentioned how they want this restricted only for the EU and do not want the same at the NA Valorant First Strike. Limiting viewership might be logical from the tournament organizer's perspective, primarily because if these events are not getting viewers, they don't get funding.

Hopefully, both Riot and the organizers will give their 100% to improve the production quality. For a Valorant First Strike tournament, the community wants nothing but the best.


Also read: Valorant Spike Nations of Twitch: schedule and teams

chedule and teams

Quick Links

Edited by Ravi Iyer