Ninja's Mixer Deal Was Even More Tragic Than You Realized

The saga of Ninja's decision to ditch Twitch for Microsoft's Mixer streaming service was the biggest story in streaming in 2019. The move represented one of the first serious challenges to the dominance of Twitch as the go-to platform for streamers, and speculation about the millions of dollars that Ninja was paid to switch dominated the discussion around esports and professional steaming for months. 

The story became even more compelling when Microsoft revealed the tragic news that it would end support for Mixer less than a year later. Fans reeled from the announcement, and many tried to figure out the reasons behind Microsoft's decision to shut down Mixer. Some fans even wondered if the core of the problem was the fact that Microsoft had unloaded massive amounts of cash to sign its most visible stars, such as Ninja and Shroud.

As the service's most visible personality, Ninja became the target for a lot of the negative attention directed towards Mixer. The Twitch vs. Mixer battle became a well-worn trope from mid-2019 until the service closed in 2020, and Ninja often found himself defending the service — and his decision to join it — to streamers like Cloak and Alinity.

However, as the cautionary tale faded into the background, streamers began to break their silence on the Mixer shutdown, and new details shared by Ninja revealed that the streamer had put a lot of effort into the platform. Here is why Ninja's Mixer deal may have been more tragic than fans ever realized.

During a recent appearance on The CouRage and Nadeshot podcast, Ninja dove deep into his experiences with Mixer, detailing some of the problems he found in trying to make the platform viable and the effort he put into establishing an audience.

Ninja began by stating, "It's very tough, and you know, we really believed in Mixer, too." He continued by noting that he wanted his fans to know that he had faith in the platform but found that Mixer could not make changes due to the amount of time it took to clear decisions with Microsoft.

One of Mixer's fundamental challenges, Ninja explained, was providing a pathway to set up user accounts. Ninja said, "Dude, so many barriers. Here's the thing, my brother, both my brothers, and my wife needed actual Microsoft assistance to make an account." From there, the discussion moved to Mixer's final days, and Ninja revealed, "We found out like 72 hours, 48 hours before it happened." While Ninja made it out unscathed thanks to a contract buyout negotiated by his lawyers, he was bothered by the platform's failure, especially due to the amount of effort he had put in to make it a success. 

Ninja said he had signed a deal to stream 150 hours per month, but regularly put in around 300. Ninja explained, "I was streaming double my requirement for six months straight, okay, and it still didn't work out, and it wasn't for lack of want." While the hustle ultimately didn't work out on Mixer, many of his fans have been more than happy to tune in on Twitch once again.