VALORANT and League of Legends fans started wondering whether their favorite games would get banned in America amidst the TikTok shutdown on Jan. 19, 2025. While both titles are still operational, at the time of writing, there's a justified curiosity surrounding their future.

The law that caused the TikTok ban was taught to be focusing on social media apps. However, after it took effect, Marvel Snap got banned in the US, too, which put question marks around Riot Games titles' future.

Is League of Legends getting banned in America?

No, League of Legends is unlikely to get banned in the US for now. This is mainly because the underlying law focuses on social media apps and TikTok, to be more specific, so games look to be off the radar for the time being.

Naturally, one might wonder why Marvel Snap got banned if social media apps were targeted. The reason behind it was Marvel Snap's past ties to ByteDance, TikTok's owner, which is also Snap's publisher Nuverse. Despite a restructuring, Marvel Snap still got caught in the crossfire.

Overall, Riot Games titles look to be clear even though it's Tencent ownership. The Chinese gaming giant has been the majority stakeholder of Riot Games since 2011, and it may want to continue its existence in a compliant manner to ensure its US operations don't run into any roadblocks.

Is VALORANT getting banned in America?

No, VALORANT won't get banned in the US for the time being. Though Tencent, the Chinese gaming company, owns Riot Games, the developer was in the clear from the law that got TikTok banned.

To be objective, there's little indication that Riot Games titles like VALORANT and LoL would face a US ban. The TikTok incident showcased that even the most mighty can fall, so Tencent and Riot Games must continue to be on their best behavior. If the focus were to turn on games, Tencent could still face troubles, meaning nothing is for certain.

A game-centric crackdown would cause other popular titles to struggle, too, and potentially impact a decent majority of the gaming market. America is one of the biggest gaming markets in the world, but Chinese companies own a decent number of top gaming developers and publishers. If tensions escalate in the future, we can only hope for a swift resolution that protects gamers' interests, so our biggest problems could remain at the levels of Game Pass not working in League of Legends or finding out how to use FLEX in VALORANT.