All Valorant Twitch streams now have beta invite drops

In context: Riot Games launched its new 5v5 shooter Valorant into closed beta last week. Several prominent Twitch personalities were tapped to show off the game in their streams. Viewers watching these specific broadcasts had the chance to get an invite to the beta.

Starting today, Riot Games is letting anyone streaming Valorant on Twitch to drop beta keys. The developer is clearly trying to increase hype around the new shooter by allowing more players into the beta and is confident enough that it has increased the load of its test servers by 25 percent. It is also expanding the beta to other regions, including Latin America, Brazil, and Korea, as soon as possible.

Last week’s push proved so successful that Valorant tied Fortnite’s record with 1.7 million concurrent viewers. It also generated some controversy when some streamers were insinuating that they had “drops enabled” in their stream titles to take advantage of the increased numbers of Valorant viewers.

Fragile, concerned little tattle teller. https://t.co/I5FFO7TPdy

— Dr Disrespect (@drdisrespect) April 9, 2020

Notorious Twitch personality Guy “Dr DisRespect” Beahm streamed the game running with the word “drops” in his title for two days before being called out on it. The Doctor responded in typical fashion, calling the person who outed him a “concerned little tattle teller” on Twitter. He also noted in a later live stream that he didn’t much care what people thought about his actions.

“I have a statement to say,” said Beahm. “There is a lot of people that were upset that I had ‘drops enabled’ in my stream title last weekend. I would like to put out an official response. I don’t give a [expletive]. You’re looking at the best in the business, baby. You think I give a [expletive]?”

The surge of streamers trying to be deceptive in this way may have also played a role in Riot’s decision to enable drops on all Valorant streams. After all, the last thing the company needs is the headache of hundreds of people misrepresenting the developer in their broadcasts.

No matter the case, for those interested in having a chance to get in on the Valorant beta, simply head over to Twitch and search for live broadcasts of the game and pick one. Be aware that drops are random, but Riot said it is not increasing the number of invites it is giving out. Therefore, chances of getting one on any particular channel are far less than they were, but at least you have a shot.

Also bear in mind that Riot’s cheat protection scheme uses a kernel-level driver. If you don’t like Valorant having Ring 0 access, don’t play it.