Mixer is dead and streamers are being shuttled over to Facebook Gaming
This announcement came out of left field.
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Nestled in between all of the Apple announcements from WWDC, Mixer dropped a bombshell on the game streaming community. In a tweet, the company announced that it would cease operations and officially partner with Facebook Gaming.
While it is no secret that Microsoft’s Mixer hasn’t been able to retain a comparable audience with other streaming sites like Twitch and even Facebook Gaming, this move still came out of left field. Mixer will officially shut down operations on July 22.
Streamers on Mixer will be onboarded to Facebook Gaming in the coming weeks and Mixer partners will be granted partner status on Facebook Gaming. This means they’ll be able to quickly start monetizing their streaming on FB. Other streamers that monetized on Mixer will also be to start making money on Facebook through the company’s Level Up program.
Contract streamers like Shroud and Ninja will be released from any contracts and are free to stream on the platform of their choice again. It has also been reported that they’ll receive their full contract payouts, which will be multimillion paydays for both of them. It will be interesting to see where these two go, as they were paid big money to stream exclusively to Mixer. My money is currently on Shroud going back to Twitch, and Ninja to YouTube Gaming, but both have stated they are currently weighing their options.
In an interview with The Verge, Phil Spencer, Microsoft’s head of gaming, notes, “We started pretty far behind, in terms of where Mixer’s monthly active viewers were compared to some of the big players out there.”
The Verge also notes that this move could be part of Microsoft’s efforts to expand its xCloud game streaming service. Essentially and eventually, this would allow viewers to watch a streamer on Facebook Gaming then click a link to instantly start playing the same game.
This announcement also comes at a terrible time for streamers, as Twitch is currently dealing with a large amount of sexual harassment and misconduct allegations from the community in regards to both partnered and popular streamers on its platform.
What do you think? Surprised that Mixer is shutting down? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.
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