This is a massive failure—Microsoft spent a ton of money on exclusive contracts for some very big-name streamers, and also invested a lot of effort into integrating Mixer in with the Xbox consoles...
This is a massive failure—Microsoft spent a ton of money on exclusive contracts for some very big-name streamers, and also invested a lot of effort into integrating Mixer in with the Xbox consoles and other systems.
The major streamers locked into exclusivity deals with Mixer — including stars like Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, Cory “King Gothalion” Michael, and Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek — will be released from their contracts, and Microsoft says it’s up to them where they decide to go.
“It’s up to them and their priorities,” says Vivek Sharma, the head of Facebook Gaming, meaning the platform isn’t actively pursuing exclusive agreements with any of Mixer’s biggest names.
It's probably the only streaming service that either doesn't use or doesn't have a firm commitment to a competitor cloud service provider. Twitch uses AWS, Google's offerings use G Cloud. What...
It's probably the only streaming service that either doesn't use or doesn't have a firm commitment to a competitor cloud service provider. Twitch uses AWS, Google's offerings use G Cloud. What else is left?
That said, I don't have much faith in Facebook Gaming's popularity either, it's even less known than Mixer and has the stigma of being Facebook. I could see why Mixer's big streamers were simply released from their contracts instead of being forced to move over, the Facebook brand is probably a big blow to their own. Ninja's big audience are kids who play Fortnite—how many of them have a positive association with Facebook and don't see it as the "old people" site?
I watch a lot of Twitch - it's nearly always turned on in the background on a second screen while I'm working. I've tried Mixer a couple of times, but it's just not as good, and it's annoying to...
I watch a lot of Twitch - it's nearly always turned on in the background on a second screen while I'm working. I've tried Mixer a couple of times, but it's just not as good, and it's annoying to use two different platforms.
I can't imagine any scenario where I watch anything on Facebook Gaming, including Twitch's demise - I'll stop watching streamers altogether before that happens.
This is what I was saying all along, twitch was going to outlast mixer because twitch has homegrown talent and people who came up through the platform (provided, mixer may have been friendlier to...
This is what I was saying all along, twitch was going to outlast mixer because twitch has homegrown talent and people who came up through the platform (provided, mixer may have been friendlier to small/new streamers but I don’t know for sure). Nobody was ever going to get huge through mixer and relay that success to twitch or youtube. This isn’t the 2018-2020 Rams, you can’t just hand out behemoth contracts left and right without developing any depth and expect to be successful long-term.
My buddy is a Twitch partnered streamer who looked into switching to Mixer when Ninja first moved, and (at least at that time) Mixer's requirements for getting partnered were significantly harder...
provided, mixer may have been friendlier to small/new streamers but I don’t know for sure
My buddy is a Twitch partnered streamer who looked into switching to Mixer when Ninja first moved, and (at least at that time) Mixer's requirements for getting partnered were significantly harder to achieve than Twitch's. And TBH, I suspect that had a lot more to do with why Mixer really failed to gain much traction than anything else. They may have snagged a few big names, but they also made it way too difficult for anyone newer to the streaming game to move along with them.
In fairness, getting partnered on Twitch can be really hard too. Most people don't go to twitch to find new streamers, they're content with watching people they already know. And that's fine, but...
In fairness, getting partnered on Twitch can be really hard too. Most people don't go to twitch to find new streamers, they're content with watching people they already know. And that's fine, but it isn't like youtube, which seems to way more proactive in introducing new channels to audiences.
It can be hard, but we're talking differences in the dozens of concurrent viewers, over longer periods of time, before someone starts to get anything significant in the way of support. If...
It can be hard, but we're talking differences in the dozens of concurrent viewers, over longer periods of time, before someone starts to get anything significant in the way of support. If Microsoft wanted people to come try to make a living on their platform (and that's what people are trying to do) they should have put more budget into growing their organic base of streamers to get stars of their own and less into drawing people over who'd watch Ninja and nothing else.
Oh, for sure. I definitely don't want to downplay my friend's hard work. It took him many months of consistently streaming for 6-8 hours every single day, to build up enough of a following to...
Oh, for sure. I definitely don't want to downplay my friend's hard work. It took him many months of consistently streaming for 6-8 hours every single day, to build up enough of a following to finally get partnered on Twitch. However Mixer's partnership requirements (again, at least at the time when Ninja moved) were like 10-fold that of Twitch's, but since they had barely 1/100th the userbase as Twitch, that made it virtually impossible for most Twitch streamers to actually move there without committing career suicide. And when you're trying to grow a new streaming platform, discouraging small-mid tier streamers from actually moving there is not exactly a winning strategy.
It seems like paying creators to move over doesn't automatically make your streaming service thrive. Maybe they should have done more to cultivate building their own unique big-name streamers by...
It seems like paying creators to move over doesn't automatically make your streaming service thrive. Maybe they should have done more to cultivate building their own unique big-name streamers by creating more tools for creators to use. If you think about it, a console-maker should have an easier time to build out their own streaming system, especially Microsoft with their reach and money. There are so many ways they could have built a compelling experience that was its own thing rather than Twitch-like.
Honestly, I can't speak to too many specific tools they could offer from the streamer's perspective that would make a new streamers QOL better. But I do know there are a plethora of problems that...
Honestly, I can't speak to too many specific tools they could offer from the streamer's perspective that would make a new streamers QOL better.
But I do know there are a plethora of problems that Twitch has, that Microsoft has the benefit of being better at just through sheer force. They tackled some of them such as higher quality video and less latency on streams.
Building a better chat functionality. A long time ago, Microsoft had a reputation system in online games. I will admit it was heavily abused by salty players but if they could take another stab at a reputation system, you could reward better-mannered players with more visibility in chat streams/stream interactions.
Lowering the bar for making high quality game clips on Xbox systems. I believe you can set a game to record in intervals like a dashcam on Xbox and with the Xbox PC app. Xbox could have built out a suite of user friendly tools to get that "meme-factor" with sharing game clips on Mixer. I think of something like Mario Maker but with game clips.
Highlight newer streamers. The Xbox dashboard already has a bunch of ads, use them to advertise semi-popular streamers. You have to make people want to share content, and you want to get it in front of the people
Those are just a shot in the dark and easier said than done. If I were to go really crazy, I would say make dedicated hardware to handle the highest quality streaming at no impact to system performance. Even crazier would be to offer an unlock to the Xbox hardware if you are streamer to install and share mods to games that are on par with PC mods.
This is a massive failure—Microsoft spent a ton of money on exclusive contracts for some very big-name streamers, and also invested a lot of effort into integrating Mixer in with the Xbox consoles and other systems.
The Verge's article has some more info from Phil Spencer, Microsoft's head of gaming, including mentioning that the Mixer-exclusive streamers are free to switch to whatever service they want. This separate article specifically about that aspect includes:
like 60 some million dollars down the drain, those guys are set for life
Facebook Gaming? They're really pushing people to something that sounds even less desirable than Mixer?
It's probably the only streaming service that either doesn't use or doesn't have a firm commitment to a competitor cloud service provider. Twitch uses AWS, Google's offerings use G Cloud. What else is left?
That said, I don't have much faith in Facebook Gaming's popularity either, it's even less known than Mixer and has the stigma of being Facebook. I could see why Mixer's big streamers were simply released from their contracts instead of being forced to move over, the Facebook brand is probably a big blow to their own. Ninja's big audience are kids who play Fortnite—how many of them have a positive association with Facebook and don't see it as the "old people" site?
EDIT: Apparently Facebook offered to double the contracts of these streaming stars and they all turned it down for a buyout of their Mixer contracts instead. It really doesn't sound like they want to be associated with Facebook.
I watch a lot of Twitch - it's nearly always turned on in the background on a second screen while I'm working. I've tried Mixer a couple of times, but it's just not as good, and it's annoying to use two different platforms.
I can't imagine any scenario where I watch anything on Facebook Gaming, including Twitch's demise - I'll stop watching streamers altogether before that happens.
This is what I was saying all along, twitch was going to outlast mixer because twitch has homegrown talent and people who came up through the platform (provided, mixer may have been friendlier to small/new streamers but I don’t know for sure). Nobody was ever going to get huge through mixer and relay that success to twitch or youtube. This isn’t the 2018-2020 Rams, you can’t just hand out behemoth contracts left and right without developing any depth and expect to be successful long-term.
My buddy is a Twitch partnered streamer who looked into switching to Mixer when Ninja first moved, and (at least at that time) Mixer's requirements for getting partnered were significantly harder to achieve than Twitch's. And TBH, I suspect that had a lot more to do with why Mixer really failed to gain much traction than anything else. They may have snagged a few big names, but they also made it way too difficult for anyone newer to the streaming game to move along with them.
In fairness, getting partnered on Twitch can be really hard too. Most people don't go to twitch to find new streamers, they're content with watching people they already know. And that's fine, but it isn't like youtube, which seems to way more proactive in introducing new channels to audiences.
It can be hard, but we're talking differences in the dozens of concurrent viewers, over longer periods of time, before someone starts to get anything significant in the way of support. If Microsoft wanted people to come try to make a living on their platform (and that's what people are trying to do) they should have put more budget into growing their organic base of streamers to get stars of their own and less into drawing people over who'd watch Ninja and nothing else.
Oh, for sure. I definitely don't want to downplay my friend's hard work. It took him many months of consistently streaming for 6-8 hours every single day, to build up enough of a following to finally get partnered on Twitch. However Mixer's partnership requirements (again, at least at the time when Ninja moved) were like 10-fold that of Twitch's, but since they had barely 1/100th the userbase as Twitch, that made it virtually impossible for most Twitch streamers to actually move there without committing career suicide. And when you're trying to grow a new streaming platform, discouraging small-mid tier streamers from actually moving there is not exactly a winning strategy.
It seems like paying creators to move over doesn't automatically make your streaming service thrive. Maybe they should have done more to cultivate building their own unique big-name streamers by creating more tools for creators to use. If you think about it, a console-maker should have an easier time to build out their own streaming system, especially Microsoft with their reach and money. There are so many ways they could have built a compelling experience that was its own thing rather than Twitch-like.
Honestly, I can't speak to too many specific tools they could offer from the streamer's perspective that would make a new streamers QOL better.
But I do know there are a plethora of problems that Twitch has, that Microsoft has the benefit of being better at just through sheer force. They tackled some of them such as higher quality video and less latency on streams.
Building a better chat functionality. A long time ago, Microsoft had a reputation system in online games. I will admit it was heavily abused by salty players but if they could take another stab at a reputation system, you could reward better-mannered players with more visibility in chat streams/stream interactions.
Lowering the bar for making high quality game clips on Xbox systems. I believe you can set a game to record in intervals like a dashcam on Xbox and with the Xbox PC app. Xbox could have built out a suite of user friendly tools to get that "meme-factor" with sharing game clips on Mixer. I think of something like Mario Maker but with game clips.
Highlight newer streamers. The Xbox dashboard already has a bunch of ads, use them to advertise semi-popular streamers. You have to make people want to share content, and you want to get it in front of the people
Those are just a shot in the dark and easier said than done. If I were to go really crazy, I would say make dedicated hardware to handle the highest quality streaming at no impact to system performance. Even crazier would be to offer an unlock to the Xbox hardware if you are streamer to install and share mods to games that are on par with PC mods.