Mixer: What Not To Do

Have you ever wondered what happened to Mixer?  It felt like one day all you heard in the video game community was how they were poaching some of the biggest names on Twitch from across all genres and then… well, nothing. 

So, what happened?  Let’s break down what we know.  Prior to Mixer nabbing Shroud and Ninja, the streaming company first plundered a group of what some would call “Mid-Tier Talent”.  Now they compensated these steamers very generously to help build the site and its viewership.

Here comes the shady part. 

Once Mixer had their Mid-Tier talent secured they then acquired their heavy hitters, Shroud and Ninja.  Immediately afterwards Mixer essentially abandoned those Mid-Tier streamers.  When it came time for contract renewals Mixer was offering a select few of them significantly less than the tidy sum they’d used to entice the content creators from Twitch.  For most of the others Mixer sent packing. 

This is where the streamers that were still at Mixer began to see the writing on the wall and an exodus of sorts was sparked.  It was beginning to become obvious that things at Mixer just weren’t right.  So, some tucked their pride and returned chastened to Twitch while others moved to Facebook and Mixer was now reaping what they’d sown. 

They had turned their back on their streamer base.  They thought that they were going to float their platform off the broad backs of their pair of streaming leviathans and woe betide the mid-tier streamer foolish enough to enter a pact with such sharks.

An interesting thing to watch moving forward will be the juxtaposition between the way Facebook and YouTube are running their streaming services. 

Facebook is very much going the way of Mixer.  Offering exorbitant amounts of money to big names while neglecting their smaller names.  Facebook has even been caught misrepresenting their viewership numbers in what appears to be a ploy to mimic growth on their streaming platform.

YouTube has seemed to have achieved a workable strategy.  It’s more about securing big talent with big money and having the systems in place to keep making money off these big names through their VOD services.  Basically meaning that these big names are always making money even when they’re not LIVE.  Through the algorithmic discovery program YouTube ensures that everyone is making as much money as is possible through relevance and industry trends. 

Hopefully other streaming platforms can learn from this blueprint because I think we can all agree that Mixer’s way… ain’t it, Chief.