Ninja hits back at claims that he used Mixer to “cash out”

During a recent live stream, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins hit back at claims that he used Microsoft’s Mixer in order to earn extra money.

Ninja, one of the original Fortnite content creators and easily one of the most popular gamers of all time, was the biggest name that had switched to Mixer in 2019. However, Mixer was shut down in July 2020, citing an inability to keep operations running.

As a result, Ninja took a break from live streaming until September 10, 2020. He announced that he had signed a multi-year exclusive deal with Twitch and was making a return to the popular platform.

Ninja claims he did not join Mixer just to “cash out”

Despite Mixer being in operation since 2016 and then acquired by Microsoft in 2017, the platform simply could not compare in terms of popularity with its competitors such as Twitch or YouTube Gaming. It showed signs of life in 2019 when both Ninja and Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek were signed to exclusive deals with Mixer.

Ninja’s deal with Mixer was said to be worth somewhere between $20-30 million, which is obviously an insane amount. The streamer also cited issues with his Twitch contract that had initially led to a disagreement with the platform. His manager and wife Jessica Blevins claimed that Twitch’s contract limited Ninja’s ability to grow his brand outside of gaming.

Regardless, due to the exorbitant amount of money involved and the fact that Twitch was always comprehensively more popular as a streaming platform than Mixer, Ninja has often been accused of using Mixer to simply cash out. In a recent live stream, he claimed that he wanted a lot more than money via his move to Mixer, and that he had increased his workload two-fold since joining the platform.

“Bro, I was streaming double the hours I was supposed to. It was like a 150-hour requirement, I think, for a month and I was doing 300, easy. So, I wanted it to win. It wasn’t like I just signed this big deal and cashed out, I was streaming double my requirements for six months straight and it still didn’t work out. And, it wasn’t for a lack of want.

Ninja also claimed that Mixer could never succeed as a gaming platform due to its inability to retain viewers. According to the streamer, he did everything he could in order to succeed on Mixer, and the money involved was not the only reason behind the move.