In August 2019, a little over two years ago, streamers Ninja and Shroud signed an exclusive contract with the Microsoft-owned streaming platform Mixer. Their contracts were rumored to be $30 million and $10 million respectively (Patel 2020). On July 22nd, 2020, about a year later, Mixer shut down services. Insiders claimed that the two pushed for and received a full payout for their contracts, though I could not find a credible source for this claim. What I can verify is that these contracted streamers were able to move on to other platforms with relative ease and began negotiations for new exclusive-contracts.
This happy ending does not extend to everyone who was a streamer on Mixer. Leckakay, who now streams on Twitch, was in the middle of streaming on Mixer when she received the news that Mixer was shutting down (D’Anastasio 2020). In fact, the majority of Mixer partners, streamers, and viewers found out at the same time. It was in the form of a tweet sent out on June 22nd, 2020 by Mixer’s official account. They gave streamers a one month warning that they either had to move to their new partner, Facebook Gaming, or figure something else out.
(An picture of a red stand-mixer)
Though Ninja, Shroud, Leckakay, and several other Mixer streamers did indeed “figure something else out” a far too common thought was that transitioning between streaming services was as easy as letting your followers know the link to your new channel. However, this is a baseless assumption. For instance, Ninja, who was signed for the aforementioned rumored $30 million, had cultivated a following of roughly 14 million followers on Twitch before switching to Mixer. After about a year's time, Ninja only garnered 3 million followers on Mixer (Patel 2020). That is still quite a bit, but the difference between 3 million and 14 million is extraordinary. It is also a prime example of how even the most followed streamer on Twitch can’t assume that all, half, or even a quarter, of their followers would follow them to another platform. It turns out predicting human behavior is as hard as ever!
Knowing this, it would be fair to say that a month's warning to all Mixer partners that the platform is shutting down is not enough time to make adequate preparations for the switch to another platform. In the article, “The Affective Labor and Performance of Live Streaming on Twitch.tv” Woodcock and Johnson examine just how much labor goes into growing a streaming channel. As they observed in interviews with streamers, it is not an easy tasks to grow a channel:
“[Streamer] ...grew his channel by streaming ‘a mind-crushing’ twelve to sixteen hours a day, every day of the week, for two years straight: ‘this,’ he explained, ‘was the only way I could maintain growth.’” (Woodcock & Johnson 2019)
This falls in line with what interviews with former Mixer streamers showed. There was a common concern that all their labor would be erased as followers retention is not guaranteed. QueenEliminator, who is now a Facebook Gaming streamer, was formerly one of Mixer’s top streamers with 350,000 followers and 5 millions views “after streaming eight to 14 hours a day with one day off a week.” She was quoted as saying “When those all get ripped away from you, so do the opportunities.” (D’Anastasio 2020). Over a year since this transition she sits at ~254,500 followers on Facebook Gaming.
The digital labor that these content creators contributed was not respected in many ways, and in the end they were on the hook as their platform shut down. There are many potential reasons for why Mixer shut down, but I won’t be diving into speculation here because no matter the reason the result was the same, the burden was placed on the content creators.
One solution to help content creators have a more direct say is for them to be considered employees. This would also potentially extend other benefits such as health care. However, many content creators reject this notion as that would open the door for others to have more direct control of what content they produce. It would also potentially limit the number of hours any one streamer can stream for and also potentially eat into their revenue more so than as it is. This is why most streaming platforms avoid using the term employee and instead opt for “Partner” to describe their relationship with streamers.
However, as we have seen with this existing “Partner” relationship, the digital labor of streamers can be used and tossed aside at a moment's notice. D’Anastasio muses that in order to offer some protection without stripping away certain rights from the streamers, there needs to be a recognized new category of employee specifically for this new idea of “digital labor” that Woodcock and Johnson explore.
Reference:
D'Anastasio, Cecilia. “Is It Game Streaming's Turn for a Labor Revolution?” Wired. Conde Nast, July 8, 2020. https://www.wired.com/story/mixer-livestreaming-labor-rights/
Patel, Akshay. “Were Ninja and Shroud the Reason behind the Mixer Shutdown?” EssentiallySports, July 25, 2020. https://www.essentiallysports.com/were-ninja-and-shroud-the-reason-behind-the-mixer-shutdown-esports-news/
Woodcock, Jamie, and Mark R. Johnson. “The Affective Labor and Performance of Live Streaming on Twitch.Tv.” Television & New Media 20, no. 8 (December 2019): 813–23. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476419851077
I appreciate you bringing up the concept of "digital labor" that these authors explore, because I believe it to be the most vital consideration when discussing the rights of streamers. There are no rules set in stone when it comes to regulating/managing content creators because society simply hasn't had to deal with anything like this before. The boom of self-employed media creators can be attributed to the rise of social media, new technologies, and likely other economic factors beyond the scope of my knowledge.
ReplyDeleteI'd be interested to hear what others think about the question of how heavily should content creators/streamers be regulated. Should they be protected like normal employees?
I think the whole deal with content creators having to jump through so many hoops to create their content, what with the strange regulations sometimes put in place along with at the same time how many rules are not actually regulated or manages, is a confusing issue for both the creators and consumers since neither of them have any idea what they can or can't do/watch at any time. The labor goes largely unnoticed since many still consider the internet like the "wild west," where anything goes, when in reality there's a huge disparity between what the actual creators know and what the higher-up multimillionare conglomerates they create for knows.
ReplyDeleteI think content creators should have some protections like normal employees, but it seems so much more difficult on the surface than with employees of a store or other workspace, since these websites have essentially infinite space for creators and it would be insanely confusing to even try and unify that group under a single umbrella.