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)
