Why are Valorant Skins so expensive?

Why are Valorant skins so expensive to purchase?

Valorant is Free-to-Play

The simple answer comes down to the fact that Valorant is a free-to-play game. This means that because anyone, anywhere, can play the game for free, Riot Games needs to make money elsewhere. This comes in the form of in-game cosmetics. And what is the most popular in-game cosmetic? You guessed it, weapon skins.

Skin bundles,  knife skins, and any new skin nowadays in Valorant cost a lot of money, with decent skin costing a minimum of $20! The most expensive skin bundles cost over 10000 Valorant Points, such as the Spectrum bundle, which costs 10700, which is nearly $100! This might seem extortionate, which it is, but you need to remember that other games, such as Call of Duty, make you purchase the game, for a price not too far off of this! 

Valorant has no Loot Box system

This is another big reason for Valorant skins being so expensive. This was also a very controversial point when Valorant was released, as a lot of players enjoy loot box systems, and with Riot Games clearly not afraid to shy away, with League of Legends having the Hextech Crafting system, there was a lot of confusion around their absence in Valorant's release.

If Valorant had loot boxes, then the prices of skins would drop, as it would make it easier to obtain skins for weapons. Riot Games clearly want to make obtaining a specific skin hard, as you can only purchase four skins a day, plus the chosen bundle at the time - unless the Night Market rolls around. If you have wanted one of your favorite knife skins for a while, and it comes up in the store, you are more likely to fork out for it if the anticipation has been building!

Valorant Skins are very high quality

Yes, we admit that Riot Games have released some stinkers, even on coveted knife skins and Vandal skins, two of the most popular weapons in the game, but most Valorant skins that get released now are arguably the highest quality in the industry. Do you remember in Warzone when tracers were released? Well everyone lost their mind. Riot Games and Valorant however have pretty much been doing that as standard since the very beginning of day one. 

Each skin now has to come with additional VFX and audio changes, sound effects, and most will come with their own unique selling point. Any skins without these will flop, and even then some of these still do. There is a lot of pressure on Riot Games to get these skins right, and that is why they put so much time and effort into each and every skin. After all, look at the Prism Collection compared to the level of Valorant skin bundles we get now!

New skins obviously take a lot of money, having to pay graphic designers, audio specialists, and not to mention the people that come up with the ideas in the first place. From a business perspective, Riot Games are putting out the best product on the market, so they can afford to charge more for it! 

Are Valorant skins actually that expensive to purchase?

Here is a question we put to you, the Valorant community, are Valorant skins actually overpriced? Yes, there are some skins that are incredibly extortionate for what you get, but we are talking about the older skins, that don't have a reduced price. These are skins such as the Elderflame line as an example, which only have the reputation and hype behind the line keeping them worth it. They get battered by the quality of skins today, which include death animations, sound effects, and even more detailed variants.

However, if you look at it for what you are buying, you are buying a lot of time and effort from a large team of people, which is something you can appreciate, and in other industries, you pay for quality, so why not in Valorant? If you want a skin, just for the sake of having skin, there are so many workarounds, you can purchase the battle pass for $10, which gives you between 10 and 15 skins for each one, and if you think the battle pass is worth it, then there is no one stopping you spending your real life money on a great deal!

It is completely up to you what you spend your money on, but be careful, because a Valorant skin is a lot of money to spend, especially if you do it frequently, but maybe consider what you are actually paying for before you purchase a knife skin or Operator skin. Valorant skins are expensive, such as the Valorant Champions Bundle, but sometimes they certainly can be worth it.