Major streamers ‘Ninja’ and ‘Shroud’ reportedly received payouts in the tens of millions followingMicrosoft’s decision to close Mixerand release them from their exclusivity contracts.
The pair – real names Tyler Blevins and Michael Grzesiek – are also said to have turned down an “insane offer” to move toFacebookGaming, which is where Mixer’s members and sites will be migrated to next month.
That’s according to esports consultantRod Breslau, who cited sources claiming “Facebook offered an insane offer at almost double for the original Mixer contracts of Ninja and Shroud but Loaded/Ninja/Shroud said no and forced Mixer to buy them out.”
Ninja made in the region of $30m and Shroud $10m from Mixer buying out of their contracts, the industry insider said.
Sources: Facebook offered an insane offer at almost double for the original Mixer contracts of Ninja and Shroud but Loaded/Ninja/Shroud said no and forced Mixer to buy them out. Ninja made ~$30M from Mixer, and Shroud made ~$10MNinja and Shroud are now free agents
Microsoftconfirmed toBusiness Insiderthat both streamers are now free agents and had received their full pay-out before leaving Mixer.
The pair are now free to move to another platform of their choice, and on Monday both released statements saying they were considering their next steps.
Microsoft announced it was closing the Mixer streaming service and transitioning all users to Facebook Gamingin a statement on Monday.
From July 22, all Mixer sites and apps will redirect users to Facebook Gaming. Mixer Partners will be granted partner status with Facebook Gaming, and the platform will honour and match all existing Partner agreements “as closely as possible,” according to Microsoft.
In a statement published onthe Xbox website, head ofXboxPhil Spencersaid the service had failed to grow in line with its expectations.
“It became clear that the time needed to grow our own livestreaming community to scale was out of measure with the vision and experiences we want to deliver to gamers now, so we’ve decided to close the operations side of Mixer and help the community transition to a new platform.”
further reading
Mixer was launched by Microsoft as Beam in 2016 and later rebranded.
Microsoft reportedly paid in the region of$50 million to lure Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins from Twitch to Mixerin August 2019.
Signing Ninja, who had some 14 million followers on Twitch, marked a huge coup for the platform as it attempted to compete with streaming giants Twitch and YouTube.
Commenting on Monday’s closure news, Ninjatweeted: “I love my community and what we built together on Mixer. I have some decisions to make and will be thinking about you all as I make them.”
Shroudadded: “I appreciate the Mixer community and everything I’ve been able to do on the platform. I love you guys and am figuring out my next steps.”
