Following in Ninja’s footsteps
Just a few months after wrapping Ninja up to a major exclusivity deal, Mixer has struck again. Now, Microsoft’s streaming platform has two of the most popular battle royale players.
Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek has announced that he’s following Ninja to Mixer:
Same shroud. New home.https://t.co/eZV2GBBSsY pic.twitter.com/AHaajkjees
— Michael Grzesiek (@shroud) October 24, 2019
Shroud’s move is another significant victory for Mixer in the streaming wars, as he has been one of the most-watched streamers for quite some time. TwitchTracker estimates he has the third most paying subscribers, although all three at the top are within striking distance of one another. Social Blade shows that Shroud has the third most Twitch followers, recently overtaken by tfue; Ninja’s inactive Twitch channel is still the most-followed on the platform.
Is Microsoft’s aggression paying off? It’s tough to tell, but Mixer is at least making headway. According to data published by Streamlabs, Mixer’s total hours streamed nearly tripled in the quarter that Ninja joined — from 11.3 million hours in Q2 to 32.6 million hours in Q3.
Make no mistake, Twitch is still king by a large margin. In Q3, Twitch’s hours watched dwarfed Mixer’s 28 times over (2,551.4 million hours to 90.2 million hours). But, Microsoft’s willing to pay for top talent, and we’ve already seen that’s one viable path to growth. If you want to watch a couple of the world’s most popular streamers, you’ll have to tune into Mixer.
