On Friday, Riot Games put on a master class of a marketing move by tying a chance for access to their tactical multiplayer FPS, VALORANT’s beta to watching live streams on twitch.tv. By connecting your Twitch to your Riot Games account and watching VALORANT streams, some viewers were able to have their accounts whitelisted for access on April 7th. Those lucky enough to receive an invite were notified by the bell on their user interface flashing a bright red dot in the top right corner.



This is the story of how I didn’t receive an invite and became the hunchback of VALORANT beta.

For whom the bell tolls

I had been entirely too cocky. For no apparent reason, the universe had granted me Overwatch beta access in the first wave in 2015. Effortlessly, I had walked into the experience past my begging peers and friends. Worse yet, I cracked jokes at their non-beta-having expense on occasion. Destiny had tallied up my violations against these beta orbiters and decided it was time for payback.

Under the illusion that I had been eternally smooched by lady luck, I connected my Twitch account and started watching as soon as the streams went live, feeling untouchable and likely to get in again. Subconsciously, I saw myself as chosen royalty. I was excited when I saw the first tweets going up, saying that they had received the beta, proving that the system was working and, of course, close to delivering the digital ambrosia to my notification bell.

Soon my discord DMs burst aflame, the white number in the red circle quickly counting up as my first friend splurged their excitement into the chatbox. They had gotten access by merely watching an hour. Expecting an elaborate ruse due to them only showing a screenshot of the game’s download and spamming various profanities, I asked for irrefutable proof. Jumping on a screen share call, I was met by a giddy panting voice whose owner had obviously just performed a celebratory dance. They interacted with the download window and reopened the client at my request. There was no doubting their story anymore. I was emotionally thrown out of a plane.

Read more: Full Details of Valorant Characters and Abilities

Riot Games’ global communications lead for VALORANT, Chris “Pwyff” Tom shared that the whitelisting wells had not yet run dry, soothing me temporarily. In a reply to the tweet, a friend prayed to RNGesus (a portmanteau of RNG, for Random Number Generator and Jesus). Exactly 3 minutes later, he replied again with a screenshot of having received it.