One of the most popular streamers and famed Fortnite player Richard “Ninja” Blevins has decided to leave Twitch for streaming platform Mixer. Just one stream later, the switch seemed to be a big success.
Ninja left Twitch, the leading streaming platform in the gaming world, for Microsoft’s Mixer. Even though he has gained a massive following on Twitch, his first Mixer stream had more average viewers when compared to his most recent weeks at Twitch.
The stream went live from Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago at the Red Bull Outpost Gaming Center, and Ninja averaged 65,000 viewers consistently. This is compared to an average of 40,000 viewers the streamer had been pulling in at Twitch.
Ninja peaked with over 95,000 viewers when he began streaming with Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf, the Fortnite World Cup solo champion for 2019.
In just a short time after the Mixer stream debut, Ninja got 500,000 new subscribers. He then went on to celebrate with a cake and shared his excitement with the fans. Half a million subscribers to his channel pushed Mixer’s phone app to the top of the iOS app store for the night.
“Today was one of the best days of my life. I want to thank every single person who watched the Mixer stream today, and everyone who showed up to the Red Bull outpost,” Ninja said. “The crowd was out of this world.”
He will continue streaming Fortnite from the gaming outpost during the four-day festival.
It’s still not clear why Ninja made the decision to switch streaming platforms, but many speculate Microsoft has offered him a large sum of money and that he had grown tired of Twitch’s new policies and features. It’s surely a healthy change for the esports industry, as it brings healthy competitiveness between platforms and gives viewers more options.
Regardless of Ninja’s amazing start at Mixer, this decision didn’t seem to affect Twitch too much for now as Fortnite and its other popular streamers kept their usual numbers throughout Ninja’s stream. How Ninja will perform in the long-term at Mixer remains to be seen, but there can be no disputing that he’s off to a great start.
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