In Valorant we already have several choices to customize our weapons. As the game develops, we can be sure that more and more skins will be available. It's a great way to personalize the gaming experience for players but it's also a big money-maker for Riot Games. Like League of Legends, Valorant is free-to-play where you can still pay for cosmetics.
High prices to avoid skin trading
To justify such a price, Joe Lee, Valorant's sales manager, put forward several arguments. For him, the purchase of skins must be something rewarding for the player and meaningful. You have to be able to buy something that you specifically want and putting a price on it is part of that process.
He doesn't want to witness a parallel market like CS:GO where trading and reselling skins is commonplace. For him, such a model is dangerous with fluctuating values based on supply and demand. The desires and the satisfaction of the players would be in this system put in the background. This model often works on a large part of randomness with drops and cash registers to be opened. This isn't at all the direction Riot Games is taking, preferring expensive but "safe" skins.
In any case don't worry if you can't afford or don't feel like taking out your credit card. Skins bring absolutely nothing into the game except a cosmetic aspect. They don't make you shoot or reload faster and are not mandatory at all. You can always get the agent skins via their contract or... pick up your enemies' weapon skins once you kill them.
Carlos "Ocelote" Rodriguez, G2 Esports CEO, discussed the recent investments that the organization has made in Valorant in an interview with Forbes.
