Research on Riot Games' Content Marketing Approach for VALORANT Champions 2022
Updated: Aug 2
As part of my final-year project at Staffordshire University, I wrote a research paper detailing content marketing for the VALORANT Champions 2022 esports event. This research got a mark of 80% (considered first-class) and, on July 15, 2025, was published in the peer-reviewed scholarly journal Press Start.
The paper went through multiple iterations over two years, improving its content, formatting, and structure. This article is a summary of my research, with key points discussed and takeaways.
For any citations or references:
Strazd, E. (2025). Riot Games’ content marketing approach for VALORANT Champions 2022. Press Start, 11(1), 47-73. Retrieved from: https://press-start.gla.ac.uk/press-start/article/view/306
Press Start publication:
Original document:
Summary
Riot Games focused on building an inclusive environment to involve players across the globe. Its design/marketing choices create immersive experiences that incentivize a wide range of players to be a part of esports events in one form or another.
The results suggest that other games with an esports scene could implement and expand content marketing, creating more themed experiences, similar to how Riot Games does with anthems, in-game content, and more, to grow and maintain interest in their competitive events.
What is content marketing?
My first objective was to define content marketing. From multiple research papers and books, I've found the definition that best describes what I will be looking at:
Process of creating personalized valuable content to an interactive, engaged, and targeted audience
Theoretically, content is anything created and uploaded to the website. Things like blog posts, videos, and podcasts. But we'll soon find out that in the case of video games, content goes beyond that scope.
Breakdown of VALORANT Champions 2022
I learned that Riot Games uses the Customer Experience Designer digital marketing model. This means it prioritizes segmentation, needs assessment, and omnichannel presence through innovative content.
I used League of Legends as a comparison and defined three main platforms for VALORANT Champions' content: social media, website, and the game itself.
Social media
These days, the use of social media is quite self-explanatory. It connects you with people. And not only your audience but also partners, journalists, employees, etc. I looked at Twitter in this example and analyzed multiple social media profiles and their subsidiaries.
I first looked at the event's most interacted content. While most posts were spectacular game highlights, there were a few original posts, including merchandise announcements, anthem reveals, and in-game reward announcements. This highlights the importance of dedicated content created around the event with the goal of expanding it.
The content was optimized for the region/country. For example, on Japanese accounts, things were posted early. For Brazil, Riot had a dedicated TikTok account, and for Vietnam, a dedicated Facebook account.
The inclusivity and importance of every region within the community play a major role in Riot Games' strategy. This is also shown through the abundance of UGC on regional accounts.
Website
After a brief SEO analysis, I found out that the event hasn't generated a traffic spike, and it was not made to bring new visitors using a search engine.
However, valorantesports.com brings in much more consistent traffic than similar websites for other games like Intel Extreme Masters or Overwatch League. The reason for that is likely that Riot Games tries to involve its community in esports much more than other games.
Because there's no obvious transaction happening on the site, apart from watching the broadcast (which is huge but barely ever works through the website; everyone uses Twitch.tv directly), when looking at it through the Web Design Preference Framework, the website looks more like a content storage.
While it is still user-friendly and has useful features (some of the localized versions are better maintained than others, though), the website is here only to have more detailed information should you need it. And many players don't.
In-game content
During VALORANT Champions 2022, the game had a makeover. There was a welcome screen following the event's design, a background cinematic featuring the event's trophy with the remixed event anthem playing in the background.
In the shop, players could spend real money on a limited-time bundle with in-game cosmetics. Those were only available during the event and will never be available after. Cosmetics followed the visual style of VALORANT Champions 2022 and also played the anthem. These cosmetics create a feel like you're playing at the event when using them. The rest of the in-game content included free playtime rewards and Twitch Drops.
All of that contributed to an immersive, competitive experience and aesthetic in VALORANT during the event for players who may not follow esports as much. This strengthens the connection between casual players and the esports scene, which is something not many games and developers do.
Outlook on content marketing within esports
The final part is an outlook on possible developments within content marketing in esports. With many esports organizations tapping into UGC and community involvement, the area is only bound to grow.
Looking at the VALORANT Champions 2022, other game developers may become more involved in their esports scenes and events. Currently, many developers outsource a company to run events (like Valve) or do not invest as much in the esports scene (like Blizzard).
On the other side, there are brands and esports organizations. There were many attempts at fan engagement platforms, including the one I was a part of - espo.io. LOUD, a team that won VALORANT Champions 2022, also announced the launch of a fan engagement platform.
Many such projects feature Web3 elements. But the catch is that gamers are skeptical of Web3. Mainly because it's associated with cryptocurrency, and it has been through its fair share of downfalls over the last few years.
It has potential, though, especially because in the Web3 space, companies will have to collaborate with their customers, employees, partners, and investors, and incorporate business in society to successfully market.
A road to immersion
Riot Games has created quite an immersive experience for VALORANT Champions 2022 as far as the competitive game can go. The approach showed many intricate aspects that target specific audience groups to bring them all together.
It will be interesting to see if other game developers and event organizers will try to follow in Riot's footsteps and level up their esports experiences.
From university research to a scholarly article
The article had undergone more than five rounds of edits, including peer reviews and editorial feedback, with each offering multiple major suggestions for improvement. I implemented that feedback alongside my own proposed improvements.
Industry developments
Throughout the months I was working on the article, the industry has been rapidly moving forward. While I never intended to keep the paper up to date with the current day to avoid falling into the never-ending rabbit hole of updates, certain clarifications and updated sources were added to add context and introduce more in-depth sources.
Here are a few examples of improved information:
One of the games I used in the comparison was Overwatch, and it got its main esports league (OWL) shut down in 2023.
In 2023, a paper by Yin, C., Huang, Y., Kim, D., and Kim, K about the effects of esports content on viewing flow was published, which mentioned how players who are less involved in the game's esports are important potential viewers, reinforcing the discussion in my article about content marketing.
Key findings
The published version has more emphasis on key findings throughout the body. It now features sections for each key finding, including the peak of user interactions with Twitter content, sets of regional VALORANT accounts, fear of missing out on in-game content and rewards, and more.
Style
The article had to follow the journal's style. This included using the provided template for fonts, sizes, sections, headings, and references. The updated format introduced dedicated sections for methodology, providing a summary of analytical methods used for each content medium (social media, website, in-game), and the author's positionality, explaining my background and how it may introduce a certain level of bias, as well as how it will be mitigated.
Esports (and games in general) never stop, and some things have certainly changed since 2022 for both VALORANT and other titles. For example, the VCT structure has been adjusted, and the Valorant Esports website also had a makeover.
Still, I hope this breakdown serves as a useful insight for anyone interested in content delivery for esports events. VALORANT Champions 2022 left an everlasting impression on me, even as I followed it from the comfort of my home.