Microsoft Signs Exclusivity Agreement with Ninja
Microsoft has made a significant change to how it will start promoting Mixer, the company’ game streaming service. The company is going after Twitch all-stars with the hope that they can bring some life to its own platform.
Announced today, Richard ‘Tyler’ Blevins, also known as Ninja, will be moving exclusively to Mixer. If you are not familiar with his work, and that’s ok, he is the largest Fortnite streamer on Twitch and he is now dumping that service for Mixer.
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Clearly, Microsoft is paying out for this and this isn’t some newfound success for Mixer. After Microsoft cut some of their original programming staff in late June, it looks like they are turning those dollars into sponsorships for their game service.
There are some big unknowns though, first being if this is ‘forever’. Blevins states that he is moving away from Twitch but it would be more logical if his contract had a timespan that dictated when and where he could stream. Meaning, this contract will eventually expire and he could go back to Twitch at some point but we don’t know how long the lockup period is but it seems unlikely as it is indefinite.
It will be interesting to see how this impacts Blevins’ game streaming career as it’s quite obvious he found massive success on Twitch. But, this doesn’t mean all his supporters will move over to Mixer and if they don’t, what are the long term ramifications from this move?
That being said, I suspect he has likely considered what could happen by moving to Mixer and it’s more than likely that Microsoft is paying a significant amount of money for this move as well. It will also be interesting to watch to see if Microsoft goes after any other Twitch personalities like Shroud or Dr. Disprect but for now, the company is spending big money to try put Mixer into the limelight.
Conversation 22 comments
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Thom77
<p>"I am getting back to my streaming roots" = "Mixer paid me a **** ton of money"</p><p><br></p><p>By the way, Mixer could of paid Ninja to troll everyone and announce this even though its not true, and it STILL would of been worth more then they paid …. BECAUSE HARDLY ANYBODY HAS EVER HEARD OF MIXER. This announcement, by itself, has provided Mixer with exposure nothing else could of even come close to .. forget anything that happens in the future … this announcement made the gaming community say two things .. First, "Ninja is moving to Mixer!!!?" and second, "Wait, what the hell is Mixer?"</p><p><br></p><p>I would suggest it might not even matter if Ninja succeeds or fails at this point on Mixer …. the purpose of this contract, from Mixer's perspective, has already been successful. Anything more, is icing on the cake. </p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>
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Thom77
<blockquote><em><a href="#446930">In reply to seancookie101:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>I'm not suggesting he is trolling. I was only pointing out that if in a hypothetical situation that Ninja was paid to do a publicity stunt for Mixer and never actually streamed one time on Mixer, that it would of been worth it because now people are googling Mixer and checking it out which I am proposing is the actual worth of this contract to begin with, not the actual streaming itself.</p>
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Bats
<p>Bad move. REALLY BAD move by ………….. Blevins. </p><p><br></p><p>So bad it's laughable. SO how much is Microsoft paying him? If he's getting paid by Microsoft, then it's fine. However, to ditch a well known streaming company like Twitch for a virtual newbie with an horrendous track record of services is very very odd. That's like someone saying, I am going to start selling products thru Shopify and not Amazon because I can make more money. </p><p><br></p><p>Yeah.Right.</p>