Game On: What Mixer’s shutdown means for game streaming
On June 22, Microsoft announced it would be shutting down its Mixer streaming service and urged its audience to transition to Facebook Gaming. The news came suddenly, and Mixer “partners” – who make revenue from their streams by running intermittent commercials – were as blindsided as everyone else. Mixer won’t shut down its servers until late July, but it’s essentially an eviction notice.
Despite Microsoft’s new partnership with Facebook Gaming, a cursory glance at the Mixer front page shows the vast majority of streamers requesting their audience to follow them on Twitch. Although they are paid by Microsoft for attracting viewers to the platform, Mixer content creators are under no obligation to switch to Facebook Gaming – not even Tyler “Ninja” Blevins or Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek, video game streaming talents who were the most-followed personalities on Twitch before signing exclusivity contracts with Mixer.
Blevins’ contract was reported to be worth between $20 million and $30 million. For all of the sheer capital Microsoft sunk into the streaming platform attempting to get it off the ground, Mixer was no real competition for its rivals Twitch, Facebook Gaming or YouTube Gaming. Statistics compiled by Arsenal show that in April, livestreaming achieved 99% year-over-year growth – meaning that the hours audiences watched in April were nearly double what they were in April 2019. Twitch experienced 101% growth, while Mixer showed a measly 0.2%. This trend is likely to slow since it’s aided by coronavirus lockdowns, but the statistics are still impressive.
Microsoft urging its Mixer audience to move to Facebook Gaming shows a commitment to undermining Twitch, the undisputed streaming champion, in any way possible. Within that same time frame, Facebook Gaming experienced 238% year-over-year growth. Its overall numbers – 291 million hours watched compared to Twitch’s 1.654 billion – tell a less impressive story, but it’s possible the platform could start to catch up.
Predictably, each platform has its strengths and weaknesses. Facebook Gaming is straightforward, but the service has privacy concerns, since viewers can only comment using public Facebook profiles. Browsing Twitch highlights the most-viewed streams while burying the least-viewed ones, which is great for big names but a huge obstacle for up-and-comers. YouTube Gaming is convenient for the hundreds of video game critics and commentators who already have massive followings for their existing YouTube content, but the platform carries the stigma of YouTube’s reputation for botching copyright claims.
My take? Mixer was the most user-friendly platform of the bunch. The interface was intuitive, and it elevated new streamers. The only complaint I consistently heard regarding Mixer was that “no one uses it” – a chicken-or-the-egg problem if ever there was one. Since its public blunders in 2013, Microsoft’s gaming division has been making strides to be more consumer-friendly – Mixer was a clear extension of those efforts. Meanwhile, “consumer-friendly” isn’t exactly the first term I’d use to describe Facebook, Google or Amazon – the latter two of which own YouTube and Twitch, respectively. Moving forward, I hope the gaming community will be more outspoken with its woes with the remaining platforms to make it all a better experience for streamers and viewers alike.