Ninja announces another surprise change. The most famous and followed Fortnite gamer is ditching Twitch to switch to Mixer. Here's what it is and how it works
Time for change, for Ninja. Considered by many as the strongest Fortnite player (even if he failed to qualify for the final phase of the World Championships, then won by a 16-year-old American), Tyler Blevins has chosen to take a sort of pause for reflection from the video game platform of Epic Games. At the base of the choice there are reasons of physical nature (the gamer has accused an eye infection, which prevents him from playing) but not only.
Reading the latest news, in fact, it is possible that Tyler "Ninja" Blevins is planning more radical changes, strong now of his celebrity status in the world of video games. A few months ago, in fact, it seems that he was paid several million dollars to play with Apex Legends, an alternative to Fortnite plate. In short, a period full of changes for the famous streamer, who surprised his fans with a totally unexpected decision. Ninja says goodbye to Twitch forever and settles on Mixer, video game streaming platform created by Microsoft.
Ninja Mixer: the reasons for the change
In recent years, the world of e-sports has gained increasing importance. This is demonstrated by the Fortnite world championship organized by Epic Games, with a total prize money of 100 million dollars (3 million for the first in the standings) or the many e-sports teams sponsored, for example, by soccer clubs or Formula 1 teams.
In this panorama, streaming platforms dedicated to video games play a fundamental role. Not only do they help make "electronic" sports even more famous, but they allow the strongest gamers to become real celebrities. And as the number of visualizations increases, obviously, the costs for the advertisements and the economic return of the managers also increase.
For this reason Microsoft has decided to invest some money (probably a considerable sum) to "buy" the exclusive streaming rights of Ninja, snatching it from the competition of Twitch (owned by Amazon, among other things). The Redmond-based company hopes in this way to conquer a good part of Ninja's followers (on Twitch they are almost 15 million) and thus see its own streaming platform grow.
What is Mixer and how does it work
From a technical point of view, Mixer is not very different from Twitch. Purchased in 2016 by the Redmond-based company, Mixer allows you to stream your PC online: although it's mainly used for video games, it could also be used for video tutorials on the use of software or things like that. Compared to Twitch and YouTube it boasts a far smaller user base, but it has an undeniable advantage: it's integrated into the Windows 10 and Xbox One dashboard and allows you to do video streaming much more easily than other platforms.
With the arrival of Ninja (which, perhaps, could also initiate a gradual transition from Fortnite to Apex Legends) Microsoft hopes to significantly increase the number of registered users and thus make its existence economically sustainable. At the moment the streamers on Mixer are about 69 thousand (on Twitch there are 1.5 million) even if the content monetization program is more convenient (you get paid almost twice as much).
It must be said, however, that it is not so simple to become a paid streamer. To activate the monetization profile, in fact, you need to be subscribed for at least 2 months, have more than 2,000 followers, broadcast at least 12 days a month and have broadcast at least 25 hours of content.