How Mixer pulls the best streamers from Twitch? Microsoft entered the struggle of streaming platforms

Just the other day, Korey Kinggothalion Michael, one of the most famous streamers on Twitch, left the site. He went to Mixer – a streaming platform from Microsoft, which more and more often appears in the headings of the news. Kinggothalion is the third owner of a large channel on Twitch, who left the site to the accompaniment of rumors about multimillion -dollar transactions and disputes about the ethics of such an act. At the same time, Mixer still remains a dark horse among the streaming platforms-although it appeared back in 2016.

What a mysterious platform is promoted by Microsoft, and how the future of Twitch (possibly far from cloudless) is connected with this)? We understand the situation!

Kinggothalion announces its care with Twitch

How it all began

At the end of July, one of the most popular streamers on Twitch, 28-year-old Tyler Ninja Blevins, unexpectedly announced the move to Mixer, a much less famous site from the company from Redmond. This is not to say that on Twitch he lacked fame or money – more than ten million people were signed on the Blevins channel, and only one deal with EA About streams Apex Legends brought him a million dollars. Times magazine even included Ninja in the list of the hundred most influential people of the year along with Taylor Swift and Michelle Obama, so the loss of such a large channel is far from a joke.

Then the news about Mixer was subsided for a while, but already in October Mike Shroud Grzheyk, a former professional player in CS: GO, And now – Streamer Call of Duty, PUBG And Rainbow Six: Siege, One of the most popular characters on all Twitch (7 million followers). And soon Kinggothalion followed him, another owner of the channel with a millionth audience – even if it is not comparable to the scale of Ninja and Shroud, but the figure is still impressive.

Ninja was survived by cinematography

What is Mixer?

The platform was founded back in 2016 by a couple of independent developers, Matt Salsamendi and James Boom, and then bore another name – Beam. Although the project did not become a competitor of Twitch, six months after launching it drew attention to Microsoft: the corporation bought BEAM, and then integrated into Windows 10 and Xbox One, simultaneously finalizing the functionality of the service.

For a long time, the technical part remains an important advantage of Mixer: an extremely low delay (only 2-3 seconds), the possibility of creating a joint session by several streamers, as well as interactive-from cosmetic trifles to the mini-game built directly in the broadcast of the mini-game. And if, in the case of a delay, Twitch can compete with a competitor due to the Low Latency function, then in interactivity and other chips, Mixer overtakes it.

At the same time, Mixer also has enough disadvantages. One of the main ones is the low popularity of the platform. According to the CNN report, the service has 30 million active users, but this is not surprising: after all, Mixer is built into the most popular operating system for PC. But the real indicators are much more modest: in the second quarter of 2019, the watch hours on Mixer accounted for only 3% of all broadcasts on different platforms. Twitch, for comparison, now holds more than 70%.

The most popular channels on Mixer have several tens of millions of views – and Twitch boasts hundreds of millions. This was partly affected by Ninja: although he quickly took root in a new place and in the first week he got a million subscribers, since then he only doubled this number. 2.5 million spectators – of course, is also a lot, but still ten times less than on Twitch. The growth rate of the channel fell significantly.

Finally, the Microsoft service was accused of censorship: in August, the Games Industry website published a material dedicated to too tough restrictions on the appearance of the streamers-even because of naked shoulders, the broadcast can receive the 18+ rating. However, this decision is most likely made in the framework of the struggle with girls-growers who attract the audience with almost erotic content. Twitch is constantly faced with this problem.

Statistics of views on sites, infographics StreamElements

If Mixer is so problematic, why the largest streamers go there?

Jessica Blevins, the wife of Ninja and part -time his manager, in general terms spoke about the reasons for the transition in an interview with Business Insider. According to her, one of the decisive factors was the attitude of the Twitch administration to users. When the couple had to negotiate with the company's employees, the dialogue could last for months, while the deal with Microsoft took only a couple of weeks, and representatives of the corporation helped them at every step. In addition, Ninja fans with Twitch could be subscribing to his channel in Mixer for free.

In addition, even a year before these events, Mixer spoke about the resource with a rather healthy atmosphere in the chat and an excellent attitude to streamers. The user agreement in every possible way protects the audience from the attacks of the trolls: for example, the phrase “Cam Girl” is considered an insult, and spam is unreasonable complaints addressed to the streamer tough, as well as any other threats – for example, matchmaker.

Shroud did not say anything about the reasons for the transition, limiting himself to a short message on Twitter. However, he was clearly warmly accepted: in the correspondence of Michael, Phil Spencer, one https://sister-site.org/slots-safari/ of the key figures in the game direction of Microsoft, greeted him. But Kinggothalion was more straightforward: he chose a deal with Microsoft to get more opportunities to help novice streamers and engage in charity work.

Probably, the Redmonds really help those who have chosen cooperation with them, not only with money – even though without them, of course, could not do it. For example, Ninja lost a lot of subscribers: interest in Fortnite gradually weakens, although Blevins himself calls the game one of the main factors of his success. Microsoft money would have become a guarantee of the future for a streamer – and it is really not easy to refuse such a proposal.

Mixer streams may look very festive

How it was perceived in the administration of Twitch?

Some time after the departure of Ninja, his Twitch account was at the center of the scandal. The site decided to try a new function on its channel: since Blevins himself no longer conducted broadcasts, an empty channel with a giant audience tried to turn into a place for advertising other, living, accounts. The channel that broadcast pornography was accidentally closed on the list of these streams, – Blevins noticed this and complained on Twitter that the site administration was destroying his long -term work. As a result, the general director of Twitch, Emmeters Shir, the General Director of the.

Shroud was more fortunate: in honor of his departure, the company published a touching video with gratitude for the memories and wished good luck.

What Microsoft are going to do next?

Now it is difficult to draw conclusions about the future Mixer. Top players on Twitch – albeit an important step for the development of the platform, but still only the beginning of the path. The indicators of the site still did not cause optimism, although with the transition of such mastodons as Shroud and Ninja, the situation may well change. Perhaps the stars of a similar scale will follow the truly impressive wave of spectators and streamers of a smaller caliber. Then the platform will be filled with content, and at the same time gain popularity among viewers.

However, some streamers are strongly tuned against Mixer. For example, the well -known APEX Legends and other GAI games DrdisRepect Bame accused Ninja and Shroud of short -sightedness, and Microsoft was overestimated by viewing statistics. In this situation, the parallel between Mixer and Epic Game Store suggests itself. Both primarily make a bet on the convenience and comfort of content creators. But both companies prefer to lure users with loud events and names. True, due to EPIC’s esclyes policy, on the contrary, they encountered a squall of accusations of dishonest competition with Steam, the echoes of which have not subsided until now.

But Microsoft has every chance to go around the trap where Epic got. In recent years, the list of claims to Twitch is only growing: users complain, for example, controversial censorship and other misses. But Mixer had not yet managed to cause large scandals, so now the corporation has a chance to win a place under the sun.

Have you ever watched the broadcasts on mixer? Or maybe they even tried to stream there? Be sure to tell us about impressions in the comments. And share your opinion: how do you think if Microsoft will be able to take away from Twitch the serious fraction of the audience over time?