After coming back to Twitch a few days ago, popular Halo-esports-player-turned-Fortnite-streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins announced that “a new chapter” will begin “only on Twitch.” Ninja left Twitch last year when he signed a $30 million deal to stream full-time on the Microsoft-owned Mixer platform. After Mixer was suddenly shut down on June, Ninja, along with several other prominent streamers such as Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek, were basically left in the dust.
Last month Shroud went back to Twitch. And after previously seen streaming on YouTube for some time, Ninja went back to his “home” as well on August 5th.
A new chapter, only on @Twitch pic.twitter.com/cv2qFFFI0p
— Ninja (@Ninja) September 10, 2020
On the day of his return to the Amazon-owned streaming platform in August, InfluencerUpdate.biz noted that Ninja’s original Twitch channel had been completely restored. From all of his previous broadcasts and 14.8 million followers as well. Right now, his follower numbers have risen to 15.1 million.
When Blevins decided to move to Mixer, most of his Twitch viewers didn’t follow him, but instead, other streamers ended up giving Mixer a try. While it opens up a new opportunity for new players trying to build their own community, the lack of viewership seemed to be Mixer’s undoing. On the site, Mixer blog post discussed the reasoning behind the platform’s departure as:
“It became clear that the time needed to grow our own livestreaming community to scale was out of measure with the vision and experiences that Microsoft and
Xbox want to deliver for gamers now, so we’ve decided to close the operations side of Mixer and help the community transition to a new platform.”
Microsoft then suggests for streamers to switch over to Facebook Gaming by giving Mixer Partners a similar partner status on Facebook Gaming and allowing streamers using Mixer’s open monetization program to use Facebook Gaming’s Level Up Program. Drop by in the comments and tell us what do you think Ninja is cooking up right now.
