BR and LATAM are also separated but they have very large territories
However Korea and Japan are not that big
KR and JP can also be integrated into East Asia
This seems a bit discrimination for SEA regions.
SEA regions are not separated by country like KR and JP
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Why did KR region and JP region separate?
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only 20% of people in JP know english compared to 50% of South Korea. also in EMEA, turkey and CIS are their own regions before the regions come together for the final qualifier(Similiar to how JP, SEA, and SA come together for Asia LCQ, or how LATAM N and S are separate regions until challengers finals).
According to Google:
Population of Japan: 126.3 million
Population of Korea: 51.71 million (hard to argue Japan is better than Korea skill wise)
Population of Brazil: 211 million
Population of the rest of South America: 211.5 million
My guess is that it's probably just in the best interest of Japan and Korea as they both get 2 slots as opposed to SA which only gets 3 total.
*Edited (originally said SA only gets 1 on accident thinking of LATAM only getting 1 team in)
Japan has shown large interest in the game. You can see this by the viewer numbers. It's just free money lmfao. And Korea just has always been a strong esports scene. So they are trying to make sure that Korea is a part of this game because Korea generates some of the strongest players in any game they are actively a part of.
That's the main reason. I guess it's slightly discrimination. But it's reasonable considering how interesting it can be if they tap into the japanese market because League has never really got into Japan. And Korea just is always a place where esports are mainstream.
To sort of add on to this, Japan has had a very strong FGC scene, which has been helped by the fact that a lot of big fighting game esport titles are produced over there. I'm not that familiar with their history in FPS games, but I think the most recent attempt that was made (prior to the release of Valorant) at breaking into the Japanese market was Overwatch. It did okay but a lot of OW talents eventually left to play in other regions swapped games
People who are knowledgeable of Japanese presence in Crossfire (or another FPS title I didn't mention) may prove my point wrong, but I'm unfortunately not that familiar with Crossfire's history
It's not a language barrier, ping issue, or the history between the two countries
My guess would be Riot are trying to market Valorant in JP while not having Korea, a major region for Riot already (shown by lol), discourage the scene from developing
It's clear Riot are trying to grow the Asian Valorant scene this year by giving them 5 slots at Champs (too many imo) along with trying to add newer regions to the VCT such as SA and CN, so I think my assumption is fair
kr would just sweep everyone so its to give everyone else a chance. also the viewership in jp is massive, they get 100k+ consistently. still giving jp 2 slots is just riot bias cause jp are not good enough for 2 slots. id much rather have south asia (vcc) get that slot or give the slot to sea cause sea have the most grueling quals ever, they have to fight like 50 teams just to reach playoffs.
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