The Biggest Gaming Streamer ‘Ninja’ Leaving Twitch for Microsoft’s Mixer
| Updatedby Teuta Franjkovic · 3 min read
Fortnite superstar Tyler “Ninja” Blevins left Twitch and is taking his video game live streams to Microsoft’s Mixer platform, a stunning switch that could have wide-ranging consequences for the rapidly growing industry.
The most followed streamer on the Amazon‘s gaming platform Twitch, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, is already getting negative reactions after he announced that he’ll be leaving the platform for Microsoft‘s streaming service, Mixer.
Currently, Ninja has more than 14 million followers on Twitch that is more than double that the second-most popular account has. Twitch is the most popular platform for video game streaming, and Microsoft is now hoping that Ninja’s audience will follow him to Mixer.
But let’s look at the statistics, shall we? Twitch is definitely the biggest video game streaming platform on the internet, having more than 72% of all hours watched. On the other hand, Mixer might be the service of Microsoft almighty but during this quarter, it has claimed only 3%, which is around 112 million viewership hours. Microsoft acquired Mixer back in 2016 when Mixer was still called Beam.
It still isn’t sure what might have happened for Ninja to change his mind (even though the money would be more than obvious answer), but it seems that Twitch accepted it as a gentlemen do (more or less).
Their statement says:
“We’ve loved watching Ninja on Twitch over the years and are proud of all that he’s accomplished for himself and his family, and the gaming community. We wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors.”
However, they almost immediately took away Ninja’s “Partnered” checkmark, the Twitch equivalent of a verified blue tick.
Damn they snagged this mans checkmark QUICK pic.twitter.com/Br62NB8uX5
— mako (@Mako) August 1, 2019
Ninja also followed with his statement saying:
“I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunities Twitch has provided me. But as I looked at the next step in my career, I wanted to be somewhere that empowered me to push the boundaries of gaming and achieve bigger goals within the industry. Mixer provides me with more ways to connect with my community.”
Ninja has earned huge bucks broadcasting himself playing Fortnite and other video games on Twitch and YouTube and now will host his first Mixer live stream Friday from Lollapalooza, a four-day music festival in Chicago. He also invited Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf, the 16-year-old who earned $3 million for winning the inaugural Fortnite World Cup, to join him.
Even though Ninja said he doesn’t have the intention to recruit other gamers from other platforms current platform, the truth is that more streamers follow him to Mixer, more it becomes a legitimate competitor in a market dominated by Twitch.
We are sure this Microsoft’s move was pretty legit because within 40 minutes of the announcement, Mixer was the top trending topic on Twitter in the United States, and Ninja’s Mixer page had over 28,000 subscribers.
It still isn’t publicly known how much is Microsoft paid Ninja to make this switch, but given Ninja’s profile these days and what a huge move this is, it has to be more than just few million. However, before some time Ninja was mentioning the struggle with main subscribers on Twitch, including losing 40,000 paying subscribers during a two-day trip — the equivalent of $100,000 in monthly income.
Be it as it may, Microsoft (MSFT) stock was pretty much volatile yesterday having its peak on $140.88 and ending the day on $138.06.
