Twitch.tv, a now multi-million-dollar company, started out as a small live streaming service called Justin.tv. While it was getting popular, what really made the site pop was its gaming category. From there, we all know the story: the Gaming category outgrows the other categories, Justin.tv rebrands as Twitch.tv, Twitch.tv is advertised as a gaming-exclusive streaming service, and tit finds massive success, dominating the streaming market.
Of course, there have been changes as the company has grown. Twitch introduced an IRL(In Real Life) category for streamers that take viewers outside the house, and a Talk Show category for streamers that don’t play video games but like to chat with the audience/others.
While these changes have been controversial, the general consensus is that Twitch is going on strong, though they’ve been slipping up a bit when it comes to their biggest streamers. And you know what happens when a company slips up? The shark’s attack.
A Mixed Solution
In 2016, Microsoft launched Mixer, its own solution to gaming-centric live streaming. Now, I’m not one to trash a company’s efforts to branch out…
The mixer has been a mixed bag, pun intended. It’s a decent streaming service that runs almost perfectly, allows users to subscribe to channels just like Twitch, has no problem working with most Mac or Windows VPNs, and has an appealing aesthetic. But that’s it. To find out more visit expressvpn.com/vpn-software/vpn-windows.
There’s nothing about Mixer that would encourage you to jump over to it from Twitch. There’s no special benefit unless you consider being close with Microsoft a benefit. Twitch has a much bigger audience, meaning more potential for you to become successful in it. For example, I looked and compared the most-streamed game of both, and it wasn’t exactly a competition.
Twitch – Fortnite at 138K viewers
Mixer –Fortnite at 12K viewers
Besides the fact that Fortnite is somehow still going strong, it’s clear that many people just don’t care about Mixer. After all, why abandon ship when the ship hasn’t even shown signs of sinking? This isn’t YouTube. Twitch hasn’t given big reasons for leaving whenever an alternative is available.
There’s Always That One
However, not everyone is happy with a perfectly healthy ship; some would rather face the excitement of being on a rocky-at-best platform and make their money there. Unluckily for Twitch—and lucky for Mixer—Fortnite streamer Ninja is moving his business to Mixer.
Ninja, real name Tyler Blevins, whose Twitch account has 14.7 million followers, announced yesterday that he has signed an exclusivity deal with Microsoft in regard to him moving to Mixer.
In his announcement tweet, he expressed excitement, claiming that “I’m going to get back to my streaming roots”, signifying that this is going to bring a change in his career and his style of gameplay.
All I hear is that Microsoft must have paid him tons of money for the exclusivity deal.
I’m not dissing Blevins, I just think it’s weird that he’s risking his extremely profitable career to move to a streaming service that only has a fraction of the user base that Twitch has. I’m sure he will find success in it, but he already had success.
Anyways, this may be the moment that Microsoft has been waiting for. Ninja is currently the most viewed streamer globally, and I’m sure that some of his fanbase will gladly follow him to Mixer. Now Twitch faces an actual threat to their profits, and no, I don’t count YouTube Live as real competition, due to YouTube being primarily focused on published recorded videos.
A bit of competition between companies never hurt anyone, so I only see this as a good thing in the long run. Will this be a good thing for Ninja’s career? Can’t say, but as long as Fortnite is popular, he’ll find success wherever he goes. He could go to a coffee shop and stream on Dailymotion and I’m sure he’d at least rake in 2,000 viewers.
