To this day, many are still experiencing withdrawal symptoms from the *Valorant* Championship held a week ago—a three-week-long tournament extravaganza that took the entire city by storm.At the Qiantan Player Party, a 10-meter-tall statue of the Sage stood in the center of a sea of flowers, with crowds lining up along the walkway to take photos.On the other side, music and cheers echoed from the stage as players dressed as game characters weaved through the crowd. “Wa has really made it big,” “Why is Wa so popular?”—thoughts like these took root in the minds of those in attendance.
And just today, *Valorant* officially announced that the number of registered users for its Chinese PC version has surpassed 100 million. These figures lay bare the game’s immense popularity—which had previously been perceived intuitively—in a clear and rational way for everyone to see.
After all, how long has it been since the industry last saw an officially announced milestone of a pure PC game surpassing 100 million in revenue? For a long time following the early days of the mobile gaming era, many industry insiders had grown accustomed to a narrative in which large numbers of PC gamers were being siphoned off to mobile platforms, and traditional PC games had plateaued or even begun to decline.Industry data shows that the number of brick-and-mortar internet cafes in China has plummeted from 152,000 in 2016 to just 77,000 in 2023—nearly a 50 percent decline.According to the *China Game Industry Report*, while the overall domestic gaming market expanded rapidly, the output value and market share of the domestic PC game sector continued to decline for several years after 2015.
It took *Overwatch* eight years and two game iterations to reach 100 million users; *Rainbow Six: Siege* took the same eight years to reach 85 million users.It has become the norm for user acquisition on PC to lag far behind that on mobile, and this overarching trend applies equally to these globally popular, phenomenon-level FPS titles. Almost everyone agrees that cross-platform play is the answer, while the potential for purely PC-based games is dwindling.
This also highlights just how valuable *Valorant* is as a “maverick” that bucks the trend.It emerged in 2023, at a time when the outlook for PC gaming was at its bleakest, and subsequently achieved a stable daily concurrent user count of over 1 million in its Chinese servers in 2024, doubling to a stable figure of over 2 million by April of the following year.By comparison, *CS2*’s all-time global peak concurrent users stood at only about 1.8 million. In its latest earnings report released in August of this year, Tencent revealed that *Valorant*’s active player count had just hit a new high—and it continues to grow.
On top of that, just three months ago, *Valorant: Origin* for mobile officially announced that it had surpassed 100 million users, achieving the milestone of “100 million users across both platforms.” The entire Valorant IP has firmly established itself in the highly competitive FPS market.
On an even broader level, over the past three years, we’ve watched Wa gradually become a trend in its own right.Starting as a “latecomer” in the competitive, fair-play genre of battle royale games, it has gradually evolved into a “meme factory” and a trendsetter among young gamers. While Va has no shortage of competitors, the challenging market conditions haven’t prevented it from becoming a one-of-a-kind presence in the shooter game market, which has seen a resurgence in popularity in recent years.
01
When Tiles Are Everywhere
As the user base grows, the product’s influence naturally spreads beyond its core community. A friend recently told me that one day, out of the blue, he realized that Wa is everywhere in his daily life.
Many people have experienced this. For example, if you walk into a brick-and-mortar internet café these days, there’s a good chance you’ll see rows of screens all displaying scenes from *Valorant*.
This aligns with statistics from Shunwang Technology’s “Internet Cafe Game Popularity Chart.” During this year’s summer season, *Valorant* ranked second in popularity among all games in internet cafes and first in the FPS category; the report also singled it out as a representative of the new generation of FPS games.This serves as strong evidence that in internet cafes—an offline entertainment setting particularly important to college students and young gamers—*Valorant* has long been one of the top choices for this generation of young people when it comes to first-person shooters.
Shunwang Technology’s “2025–2026 Report on the Development of Physical Esports Consumption Scenarios in China”
In this era of rising prices for hardware like RAM and graphics cards, you still see many gamers posting on video platforms and PC DIY forums asking for “PC builds capable of playing *Wa*.” That alone shows just how compelling *Wa* is. It is precisely the sheer fun of the gaming experience itself that tightly binds the 100 million *Wa* players together.
And these energetic young players are naturally eager to share the emotions they experience in the game with the world in all sorts of ways.
Looking back at the internet ecosystem over the past few years, the various memes and fan-created content originating from “Wa Li” have practically made up “half the landscape” of internet memes.Even if you don’t play “Wa Li,” you’ve probably heard that “KSKBL” stands for “Kang Shen is live”; this year, after the U-23 national soccer team won their Asian Cup semifinal, the entire squad celebrated by striking the “Below Fan, Above” gesture made famous by “Wa Li”;The phrase “Ke Miao!”—which originated from creator “Wa Wa’s” short skits—has completely transformed how players celebrate headshots in various FPS games, and has even been adopted by major official accounts like Aerospace Observer and the National Defense, Military Industry, and Cultural Heritage Expo as material for their short videos.
Guides, highlight reels, fan-made animations, AI-generated comics, “genius” skits… Just about any content with the best memes appears in Wa’s ecosystem almost immediately.The “Mystery Core Gesture Dance,” which went viral in the middle of this year, helped many non-gamer streamers who remade it rack up two to three million likes on massive hits; many jokingly said, “Streamers are cashing in on Wa.”And in the recent wave of short-form drama popularity, many *Valorant*-themed short dramas have garnered tens of millions of views on platforms like Hongguo, truly earning their status as “top-tier” hits.
Overall, on Douyin’s gaming popularity chart, *Valorant* ranks third among all games and is the only title that is exclusively a PC game.Currently, the main #Valorant hashtag on Douyin has surpassed 380 billion views—this number might not mean much on its own, but spread out over the three years since its open beta, that averages to more than 300 million views per day, equivalent to the combined views of 300 “million-view viral hits” every day.
Batch after batch of specific individuals have also risen to fame alongside Wa. For example, there’s WaWa, the streamer who reached 10 million followers the fastest in the gaming community, as well as million-follower streamers like Hanghang and Tang Qihua. Former professional FPS players and streamers, such as DANK1NG, have experienced a second spring in their careers after “switching to Wa.”There are also a new generation of star professional players, such as ZmjjKK and nephh, who have emerged from the Wa ecosystem and garnered attention across the internet, even amassing a large following in the overseas esports community.
Discussions, viral trends, and breaking into new markets—these are scenes that have repeatedly unfolded across the entire Wa ecosystem over the past three years. You’ll find that this powerful ability to break into new markets naturally spreads and spills over in all directions. From online virtual content to offline physical experiences, sales of Wa’s merchandise have continued to rise on platforms like JD.com and Tmall, sparking the “Gu Zi Economy.”
Some players have spontaneously organized offline “Wa-Only” events, while the various official offline events have been a huge hit every time. At ChinaJoy in 2024 and 2025, the Wa exhibition area saw such high attendance that the venue had to be closed off—a rare occurrence that happened two years in a row.
Take the Shanghai Championship mentioned earlier, for example: tickets for both the group stage and the knockout rounds, held at the Jing’an Sports Center, sold out immediately upon going on sale. By the time the final rolled around, the Mercedes-Benz Arena—with a capacity of nearly 20,000—was packed to capacity. According to post-event statistics, the entire championship attracted more than 100,000 visitors over its 16 days of competition.
More than 70 percent of ticket-buying attendees came from cities outside Shanghai—thanks to *Valorant*, people from all corners of the country gathered for a single reason. They attended a player party in Qiantan and visited the Balenciaga-themed internet café in Jing’an.Their participation left its mark on Shanghai, briefly transforming the entire city into a cultural space that truly belonged to *Valorant*.
With 100 million “Wa” users present in every aspect of life, how should we define the characteristics of “Wa”? It can be said that within the “Wa” ecosystem, young people have their own trendy lifestyle. These young people aren’t just active in games—when 100 million of them come together, they create a craze wherever they go, generating an immense, indescribable dynamic energy within the ecosystem.
02
From Sharing the Fun to Achieving a Win-Win Ecosystem
Ecosystem. In the opinion of Tea House Jun, this is also the biggest difference between *Valorant* and other hit games in terms of their rise to popularity.
A common thread running through the successive waves of popularity surrounding *Valorant* is that the game’s developers and players are usually not the only ones to benefit.If we look beyond the spotlight, everyone from streamers and content creators to internet cafes, merchants at offline events, and cultural and tourist landmarks has been continuously empowered by the *Valorant* ecosystem through each wave of popularity.And the ecosystem formed by these empowered parties, in turn, provides players with a positive experience and fosters longer-term retention—essentially creating a win-win situation for all involved.
Behind all of this, however, lies a philosophy of open, shared, and empowering ecosystems that *Valorant* has long upheld.
As early as the launch event for the Chinese server of *Valorant*, Huang Lingdong, Head of *Valorant* China, announced the launch of a “comprehensive ecosystem strategy.”Unlike its older counterpart, *League of Legends*, which first launched the game and then built its ecosystem, *Valorant* plans to invest 1 billion yuan over three years to simultaneously develop the game’s ecosystem alongside its iterative updates. In subsequent interviews, Huang Lingdong stated that the official investment in *Valorant* has long since exceeded 1 billion yuan.
If it were simply a matter of “throwing money at the problem,” that would be easy enough—top-tier products never lack a budget. However, financial incentives alone are unlikely to foster long-term trust and loyalty among players. The challenge lies in ensuring that the money invested creates ripples that translate into experiences players can truly feel.
And *Valorant* has a very clear approach to achieving this: if we think of the ecosystem as a theater, then we open up the entrances to both the front and backstage areas, establishing partnerships with internet cafes, live-streaming and content platforms, streamers, cosplayers, content creators, and others. We make our ecosystem resources—which reach hundreds of millions of users—available to them, ensuring that our product resources and momentum empower our partners.
The partnership with brick-and-mortar internet cafes is a particularly telling example—*Valorant* began establishing a system of exclusive perks for internet cafes as early as 2023.From the early stages, the game offered limited-edition items, provided internet fee subsidies, supplied marketing materials to internet cafes, and offered tournament venues and resources to drive traffic. Later, the initiative expanded significantly: in 2025, *Valorant* announced the launch of 100 branded flagship internet cafes nationwide and helped these establishments roll out AI business assistants.The nationwide tournament system centered around internet cafes was upgraded this year to the *Valorant* Internet Cafe Championship Tour—effectively positioning the entire internet cafe ecosystem to shoulder the role of the “grassroots” within the broader esports landscape.
On the one hand, this series of initiatives provides players who visit internet cafes to play *Valorant* with extra surprises and rewards; on the other hand, it allows the official team to share *Valorant*’s traffic reach, thereby helping brick-and-mortar internet cafes attract customers and run promotional activities.At last year’s Internet Cafe Ecosystem Conference, *Valorant* revealed that more than 5,000 Diamond-level internet cafes and over 40,000 Gold-level internet cafes nationwide had joined the program and were benefiting from the official traffic support policies.Data from the China Internet Access Service Industry Association shows that the turning point for the internet café industry’s recovery occurred in 2023, with the number of internet cafés nationwide increasing by more than 4,000 the following year. *Valorant* was the only major new PC game released that year. The support provided by Wa was undoubtedly one of the key drivers behind this round of recovery in the internet café industry.
Streamers and creators are, of course, an integral part of the ecosystem, and the two sides have maintained close collaboration from the very beginning. Through official support programs such as the “Spotlight Creator Million Plan” and the “Mentor Support Program,” the platform provides incentives for content creation and early access to new versions, inviting creators to participate deeply in official events.They provide professional clubs with revenue shares from the sale of VCT team bundles and champion sets. The official team opens up ecosystem resources for all parties to share, ensuring that everyone benefits from the game’s growth.
In fact, we continue to witness how the ecosystem’s influence extends beyond virtual boundaries into real life, driving actual consumer conversions—a phenomenon that remains a novelty in the gaming industry even today.For example, *Valorant* has partnered with Haidilao to launch themed meal sets and a championship-themed restaurant, collaborated with Master Kong to release co-branded gift boxes, and organized an offline “Instant Noodle University” campus event in Changsha.They’ve also partnered with Pop Mart, capitalizing on *Valorant*’s booming “Gu Zi Economy,” to launch an official merchandise store and release chibi-style agent blind boxes, among other initiatives. These brands, which are closely integrated into players’ real lives, naturally convey a trendy lifestyle.
When these cross-industry collaborations are combined with Wa’s own “Fearless Tour” series of offline events, they create a business model similar to that of the World Cup or Formula 1—leveraging the pull of a sufficiently strong core brand to provide players who have traveled across mountains and seas with a one-stop experience covering dining, entertainment, and recreation.
As mentioned earlier, at this year’s Shanghai Championship, *Valorant* partnered with Balenciaga to launch a concept internet café, which welcomed a total of approximately 30,000 visitors. It attracted a large number of players to experience the venue and check in, with daily foot traffic exceeding that of a typical internet café of similar size by more than tenfold.They hosted tournaments at the Jing’an Sports Center and the Mercedes-Benz Arena, and created a themed garden and a large-scale player party in Qiantan, weaving the Balenciaga concept internet café, brand collaborations, commercial district events, and various local Shanghai landmarks into a citywide network of experiences.
This comprehensive collaboration model has undergone multiple iterations during the “Fearless Tour’s” exploration across various cities. At the Guangzhou stop, the tour partnered with time-honored Cantonese brands such as Guangzhou Restaurant, Songyuan, and Huang Zhenlong Herbal Tea to create a signature culinary route, driving revenue growth of over 20% for participating merchants;with some businesses even doubling their revenue; to the Hangzhou leg, which attracted nearly 300,000 visitors to the West Lake Gymnasium; and the Beijing leg, where approximately 60% of the audience came from outside the city—the Fearless Tour has been continuously building on its experience. By integrating tournaments, player parties, trendy brands, and urban cultural tourism into a single network, the tour has achieved a further upgrade from city-specific events to citywide collaboration.
At an even higher level, the Shanghai Championship and the Fearless Tour are part of the larger “Wa Chinese New Year” initiative.Throughout 2026, as the Global Championship was held in China for the first time, the organizers introduced a wealth of major content and partnerships tailored to the Chinese market. For example, they incorporated the natural landscapes of Zhangjiajie into the game’s environments, launching the first Chinese-style themed map, “Tianshu Yunque”; they also introduced a brand-new hero from Lingnan, “Xiasi.”
With a user base of 100 million, the Chinese market has become central to Fist’s global content strategy. Whether through this level of in-game localization or the in-depth exploration of collaborations with local cultural and tourism landmarks and brands throughout the “Valorant Tour,” these efforts continue to strengthen *Valorant*’s empowering impact across the entire Chinese server ecosystem.These partnerships are intricately interwoven and interdependent, enabling more participants to achieve deeper levels of growth.
By 2026, high-DAU products and evergreen games will no longer be unfamiliar to the market. However, only a very small number of them will be capable of truly “igniting” the entire upstream and downstream ecosystem of the industry and adding new dimensions to it.
What makes Wa unique is that it has established “integrative” cultural DNA and a “self-sustaining” ecosystem, allowing the potential of traffic to naturally flow into external domains and create a win-win situation.Connection, openness, and mutual benefit are the path to long-term development under the Evergreen philosophy. When more participants can derive tangible value from it, this ecosystem gains the momentum to continuously attract external forces and sustain its own growth.
03
After 100 million, the end is not yet in sight
Based on past industry observations, for most products, a period of peak performance often signals that they are gradually approaching their growth ceiling.
However, when it comes to *Valorant*, it seems difficult to identify a clear bottleneck beyond 100 million users. There is still a wealth of unexplored potential in terms of gameplay and content. In particular, the existence of the “continuously expanding” variable—the ecosystem—gives *Valorant* its own unique room for growth.
This is also the difference between a “product sensation” and a “thriving ecosystem”—an ecosystem naturally grows like a snowball, continuously absorbing external nourishment while generating new forms of internal connections, such as cross-industry collaborations and IP-based operations, all of which are promising directions for future expansion. Just like a star: the greater its mass, the stronger its gravitational pull;the more people participate in a meme, the easier it is for it to spark new waves of virality. As more players, creators, brands, and business partners join this ecosystem, we have every reason to anticipate what new experiences *Valorant* will bring to players, partners, and even the entire industry in the future, as more initiatives designed to empower the local market are implemented.
For China’s gaming industry, Wa is providing a noteworthy example of a long-lasting success story: beyond users and revenue, games can also accumulate a cultural influence that continues to grow, as well as the extensive network of connections built around that influence.
As for where exactly the boundaries of this ecosystem lie, it will likely be difficult to answer that question until we actually reach them. But one thing is certain: Wa’s next “hyper-evolution” already has a solid foundation that gives us reason to look forward to it.
原创文章，作者：游茶妹儿，禁止转载：https://youxichaguan.com/en/archives/216547
