Do you ever think if Valorant is a pay to win game or not? Is it really worth it to buy all these skins? Well, in this article we are going to discuss just that and settle this debate once and for all.
Image Source: Valorant Fandom
What is Pay To Win?
I think a lot of people don’t know or are misinformed about the definition of “pay to win” so we need to first understand what it really means.
If a game has anything that can be purchased with real money, whether it be items, skins, characters, or basically anything that a game consists of; that in any way gives you a direct or indirect advantage over others that makes the game unfair will be considered pay to win.
However, if a game only gives you skins or cosmetics for money with no other advantages, then we can’t really call it pay-to-win.
This can go on forever because there are too many variables that determine if a game is pay-to-win or not, or maybe partially pay-to-win, and so on.
Is Valorant Pay To Win?
Now that we got the nerdy part out of the way, it’s time for the fun and juicy part. The answer to this question is rather tricky so we will have to break everything down a little bit.
As we discussed just now, A game can either completely be pay-to-win, completely free to play, or partially pay-to-win, and so on. Valorant is one of those partially pay-to-win games so the answer to it is yes and no at the same time. Let me explain in a simple way.
Why is Valorant Pay To Win?
One of the main reasons people think valorant might be pay to win is because they have seen players use skins on their guns which results in better frags and overall performance in the game. It can be anyone, their friend, a random, a streamer, or a pro player.
Well to put it in perspective, Most skins in valorant have nothing to do with this “skin boost” as the community refers to this phenomenon. Now I know what you’re thinking, why did I say “most” instead of just dismissing this entirely?
There are some skins that can boost your aim slightly. What I mean by that is it won’t be of much help in the grand scheme of things but at the moment when you need to clutch a round a certain skin may increase your chances by a little.
There’s only one single thing that is proven to actually improve a player’s aim and overall performance and that is- Custom Bullet Tracers.
Some premium skins come with custom skin-themed bullet tracers that help in tracking down the enemy better resulting in better accuracy, the results may differ from player to player but the general idea is of these bullet tracers do make your aim better compared to the default skin.
There are some things that are collectively called a “Skin Boost” as I’ve mentioned above. Skin boost is basically psychological changes that are expected to increase your performance.
These include sound effects, animation, finisher, and the feeling that you have skin in your hands rather than the default skin has a psychological effect on your brain which may reflect in your gameplay over time giving you what is called a “Skin Boost” but because they are not proven to be effective I won’t line it up with the bullet tracers.
Why is Valorant NOT Pay To Win?
As I’ve said before Valorant is partially pay-to-win so it makes it both pay-to-win and free-to-play. Since it only gives players a slight performance increase which isn’t always noticeable in-game, we can let valorant off the hook. Not to mention there are tons of games that are completely pay to win ruining the player experience.
Since there are not many skins with these characteristics and the ones that do have so little to do with the player performance, I would say it isn’t that much of a pay-to-win from my perspective but of course, some people may think it still is pay to win which is totally justified.
I would say rather recommend you actually work on improving your gameplay rather than being dependent on skins, if you have enough skills then the advantage you get from these skins is almost always insignificant.
Skins Worth Purchasing
This is just a short list I’ve prepared in case you want to buy a skin to try and get to a conclusion for yourself, then these skins may be useful.
- Prime
- Reaver
- Oni
- Elderflame
- Glitchpop
- Forsaken / Sovereign
- Singularity
- Ion
Conclusion
To conclude this article, No, Valorant is not really pay to win and is extremely free-to-play friendly for the time being, the skin may have some effect on your gameplay but in the grand scheme of things, having better skills is much better than just being solely dependent on skins but skins make up for good cosmetics if we take out the pay to win part.
Thanks for reading our article, We hope to see you again.
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