After Microsoft announced today it would be shutting down Mixer next month, the platform’s biggest streamer is trying to help some of his fellow content creators.
Ninja and his wife Jessica donated hundreds of dollars to Mixer streamers today, something Jessica said will continue to happen. Ninja tweeted earlier in the day that he loved his community and “what we built together on Mixer,” and that he had some decisions to maker regarding the future.
Ninja originally donated $500 to Mixer partner VinnyB, who was wearing a Ninja hoodie on stream. Vinny cried as he thanked Ninja, who went on to donate an additional $1,000. Jessica also donated $200 to Mixer partner s0apys, which also elicited tears from the streamer.
With the news of Mixer’s closing, many content creators have attempted to signal boost the impacted streamers. Facebook is also reportedly offering a one-time, $2,500 signing bonus for any Mixer partners that choose to switch to Facebook Gaming, but some streamers and fans are understandably concerned about the viewership numbers on Facebook.
Related: Ninja updates the information on his dormant Twitch channel
Despite the service growing more than Twitch and YouTube Gaming in year-over-year growth percentage, the platform is in a distant third place when compared to Twitch and YouTube Gaming in terms of hours watched, according to a Stream Elements and Arsenal report. In fact, Facebook viewers watched 291 million hours of content in April 2020, which is much lower than YouTube’s 461 million and Twitch’s 1.65 billion.
Ninja and Shroud reportedly received massive offers to make the switch over to Facebook, but they both reportedly opted out and are free to negotiate with other streaming platforms. The two streamers were the biggest names to leave Twitch in 2019 for other services, with the pair reportedly being paid millions for exclusive deals with Microsoft’s platform.
Neither could come close to keeping the same number of viewers they attracted on Twitch, though, and Mixer barely registered an increase in hours watched from April 2019 to April 2020.