Ninja and Shroud Moved to Mixer, Should I?

If anything, people are certainly talking about Mixer more than they used to, but is that really a good thing? Is it good or bad press they’re attracting?

With Ninja moving over to Mixer for at least a seven figure dollar amount, it started a new trend in streaming.

It may be hard to believe, but I was about to move over to Mixer for a while to see what would happen, it just so happened to be at the same time Ninja was about to relaunch his streaming career over at Mixer too.

He started off well with tens of thousands of viewers, the free subscriptions enticed people to claim them and therefore watch him, but the novelty wore of really quickly and there are days he barely breaks 10,000 viewers.

If you read his wife’s story about why Ninja moved away from Twitch, she would have you believe it wasn’t just about money, but that Twitch was stifling his brand and they weren’t going to let him have a lot of freedom to make his own deals such as the one with Adidas.

Whether that’s true or not will only be known to Twitch and Ninja, but you can’t blaim him for taking a deal which saw him take a guaranteed payout as his Twitch subscriptions were dropping and he’d reached just over 14,000 subs at the time of transistion, so was it the right time for the move?

Out of nowhere, Shroud was the next big name to make the move to Mixer, literally to everyone’s surprise. What makes Shroud’s move more surprising is that he had around 12,000 more subscriptions than Ninja, so why did he move? The simple answer is money.

Shroud doesn’t have the same kind of “brand” as Ninja. He’s not out there making deals with companies or appearing in any TV shows or movies. Heck, he didn’t even go to TwitchCon or do anything fancy for New Year, so if you’re looking for any deeper meaning as to why Shroud moved, look no further than the power of green.

I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. Please don’t think I’m saying that’s bad, oh God, no… No no. If I was in the same position as Shroud and Mixer said ‘how would you like $x,xxx,xxx to stream exclusively on our platform?’, I’d do it.

Call it what you will, selling out, turning your back on your fans, disloyal… If you can look me straight in the eyes and say you wouldn’t take a $1.5m payment to stream anywhere else but Twitch, you’re the world’s best liar.

Now for that question the average streamer is asking themself, should I stay on Twitch or should I go to Mixer?

Just because big names like Ninja and Shroud went to Mixer doesn’t mean you should. Remember the reason why they did, what be your reason; because they did? What difference does that make?

They got paid lots of money to stream on Mixer, that wouldn’t be the reason you’re thinking of moving there too. You want to move because they’re there and you just want to be in the same place as them, whether you get big enough to make partner and gain a few hundred consistant viewers to be moderately popular is only a possibility.

I streamed on Mixer for a couple of months, gained about 40 followers and maybe a couple of return viewers and lurkers and that was me only playing Fallout 4. It was quite a surprise and I maybe could have done better if I played modded, but the growth would have been so slow, so I returned to Twitch.

I moved back to Twitch in the hope I could start gaining some traction on there. Build up more views, followers, viewers, be more consistant and even if it means that I get a small community of around thirty people after six or twelve months, I’ll be happy. Of course I’d be happier if even just half of those were subscribers, but I’m not greedy and in it for money, that’s just a nice bonus.

If you want to make money from streaming, you’re in it for the wrong reason. Having fun while playing videogames is the main priority, you’re not going to be an overnight sensation unless you’re lucky enough to play with and get hosted by a more popular streamer and Mixer is only just adding the possibility for streamers to earn a bit of money through Embers.

Another thing to remember is Mixer doesn’t have an Affiliate scheme, so you won’t get the chance to have your own emotes until you reach Partner and you need to reach 2000 followers before even being considered. Reaching Twitch Affiliate may be easy for some, some even manage it in a week somehow, but it’s that first step of recognition that you’re doing something right.

Mixer is a grind which could take years to get anywhere. Despite Twitch and its shenanigans, it’s the better of the two platforms due to all the features you have (such as transcoding even as Affiliate) and will have access to.

If you’re looking for a no-frills streaming experience, go to Mixer (it’s hard to have a decent looking ‘panel’ layout under the stream window), but remember, Shroud and Ninja moved for their own reasons and lots of money, have a good, long think and do some research before deciding where you want to stream.