LINK: https://dotesports.com/valorant/news/valorant-game-changers-championship-marks-new-viewership-milestone-for-womens-esports
The highly anticipated 2022 VALORANT Game Changers Championship, which concluded two days ago, has become the most-watched tournament for female esports, according to Esports Charts.
The tournament, which was the culmination of the female competitive circuit for the year, saw the best teams in the world face off against each other to finalize the top Game Changers squad.
The Game Changers Championship is ranked No. 1 for the most hours watched for female tournaments with over 5 million total. It is ranked second for peak viewership with almost 240,000, which is behind the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Women’s Invitational. This tournament peaked at 392,405 viewers, according to Esports Charts.
Mobile Legends and VALORANT are two games from completely different genres and are played on different hardware, however.
The Game Changers Championship was won by G2 Gozen, with Shopify Rebellion in second place. The grueling grand final saw G2 Gozen pull off an impressive comeback to successfully reverse sweep the North American representatives, winning 3-2.
The viewership for the event came across multiple different channels and co-streamers, such as Tarik and TenZ. But neither of them secured the top spot with the main VALORANT Twitch channel receiving the most viewers.
The future of Game Changers seems bright with the viewership reflecting the success of the tournament. Game Changers will run parallel to the main VALORANT Champions Tour circuit next year with another Championship tournament likely toward the end of the year.
Nov 22, 2022 by George Geddes
VALORANT pro denounces sexism and transphobia during GameChangers, calls for prominent figures to aid
Change is needed
George Geddes
Image via Riot Games
Former Version1 VALORANT player Alexander “Zander” Dituri has called for prominent community figures and professional players to denounce the sexist and transphobic comments made toward players during the Game Changers Championship, which concluded on Nov. 20.
The Game Changers Championship, which highlights the best women and players from marginalized genders in the world, led to a minority of viewers sending hateful messages in the stream chats. Others attacked the players through their social media accounts as well. As a result, Zander has called for more to be done to combat this toxicity, with the VALORANT community aiming to become fully inclusive.
He said prominent figures and professional players need to denounce the sexist and transphobic comments made toward the Game Changers players. “I hope to see change in the future because it’s truly disgusting,” he said on Twitter yesterday.
One community member compiled a list of hateful comments made in the stream chat during Game Changers. Most of the toxic comments were addressed to Cloud9 White player Bob Tran, who is a transgender woman.
On Twitter, Bob said she struggled to ignore the hateful messages and even felt like she deserved it.
Prominent streamer and content creator Jonas “AverageJonas” Navarsete said he had to ban several users because they made sexist or transphobic comments in his Twitch chat during the event. He also called for a change to be made and asked those responsible to “do better.”
The VALORANT Game Changers circuit, which peaked at over 230,000 viewers according to Esports Charts, saw G2 Esports take down Shopify Rebellion in the grand final.