A job listing on Tencent’s website may have revealed its ambitions for a Valorant Mobile esports scene. Responsibilities listed in the post include promoting Valorant Mobile and its esport, as well as event creation, promotion, publicity, production, as well as esports-specific responsibilities.
What we know about Valorant Mobile esports
There are no evident details relating to the esport in the listing, or what its circuit looks like specifically; however, we do know the first Valorant Mobile esport event is planned for July 2025, in China, but the job listing points to ambition for a complete scene, not just a single event.
While esports action kicks off soon, Valorant Mobile lacks a release date outside of China, having gone through pre-registration and closed beta only in China, with no esports events planned elsewhere as of yet.
It is no shock that Riot’s parent company, Tencent, would want to further exploit the mobile esports market. Five of the most watched esports events of all time on viewership aggregator, Esports Charts, are mobile games, with Free Fire, Mobile Legends Bang Bang, PUBG Mobile, Brawl Stars and Arena of Valor all in the top ten.
Mobile games and the Esports World Cup – Why are prize pools so high?
Of EWC’s 24 events, four have the maximum prize pool of $3,000,000. Three of those are mobile games – Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Honor of Kings and PUBG Mobile. While fans of more traditional esports may wish to be elitist against mobile games, the reality is that they are extremely popular.
In fact, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang was EWC 2024’s most-watched esport, with both men’s and women’s tournaments playing a prominent role in EWC 2025’s schedule. The MOBA attracted over 2.34m people at its peak viewership during the Grand Final between AP.Bren and Selangor Red Giants OG Esports, according to Esports Charts.
PUBG Mobile and Honor of Kings also made the top five, with 566k and 461k viewers, respectively. It is hardly a surprise, then, that these games are valued so highly by EWC in terms of prize pool.
One additional aspect that gives mobile games an edge at EWC is their integration into the esports scenes of the games. For MLBB, EWC is their Mid-Season Cup (equivalent to League of Legends’ MSI). For PUBG, EWC is the PUBG Mobile World Cup, the most prestigious event of the calendar. For Honor of Kings, EWC 2025 will be the first ‘World Cup’ event since 2022, making it a significant moment for the scene.
In short, EWC has the ability to define a scene for a mobile esport in a way which is hard to capture for more traditional games, but we do see the same pattern in Overwatch 2 (OWCS) and, controversially, Apex (ALGS), at play in making EWC an important calendar event.
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Darragh Harbinson is an esports writer specialising in Counter-Strike. He has written for Esports News UK, Esports Insider, UKCSGO, Dexerto, and Rush B Media.