Microsoft Corp. is shuttering its Mixer video game livestreaming platform and will transition its community of streamers to Facebook Inc.'s competing service.
Starting July 23, all Mixer sites and apps will redirect to Facebook Gaming, according to a Mixer blog post. Existing Mixer Partners — streamers that fulfilled the platform's requirements to receive payment bonuses and other perks — will be granted partner status with Facebook Gaming, which will match all existing agreements as closely as possible. Mixer streamers using the platform's monetization program will be granted eligibility for Facebook Gaming's Level Up program, which unlocks a variety of additional features and monetization methods.
A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to S&P Global Market Intelligence that under the new partnership between the two companies, Facebook Gaming will assume the rights to the Mixer trademarks and associated domain names. All other IP rights to the streaming technology used within Mixer will be retained by Microsoft.
The decision to close down Mixer comes less than four years after Microsoft acquired Beam, a game-streaming startup that Microsoft rebranded as Mixer in 2017. Despite Microsoft's efforts to expand the platform's viewer base, Mixer was unable to gain significant traction on competing services Twitch, YouTube and Facebook Gaming.
"Ultimately, the success of Partners and streamers on Mixer is dependent on our ability to scale the service for them as quickly and broadly as possible," wrote Phil Spencer, Microsoft's executive vice president in charge of the company's gaming division, in a blog post. "It became clear that the time needed to grow our own livestreaming community to scale was out of measure with the vision and experiences we want to deliver to gamers now, so we've decided to close the operations side of Mixer and help the community transition to a new platform."
According to data by game-streaming analytics firm Stream Hatchet, services Twitch, YouTube, Facebook Gaming and Mixer all saw a spike in viewership in the first quarter as the COVID-19 pandemic forced more people to stay at home. However, Mixer's growth was more subdued than its competition. Mixer ended the quarter with just 2% of the total hours watched on the four game-streaming platforms during the period, with 81.4 million. Meanwhile, Facebook Gaming held an 11% share with 553.8 million hours, while Twitch accounted for 65% of the total hours watched, with 3.11 billion.
"Mixer didn't see the same big viewership bump that the other platforms did from COVID-19, which may have highlighted the struggle it faced to management if it was unable to significantly grow viewership in what were close to ideal circumstances for an operator of a gaming streaming platform," said Seth Shafer, a research analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence media research group Kagan.
Even so, Shafer said the closure still came as a surprise given the investment that Microsoft put into Mixer over the last year, including signing exclusive streaming deals with popular players such as Tyler "Ninja" Blevins. Blevins left Twitch in August 2019 for a contract that was reported to be valued at between $20 million and $30 million. All Mixer streamers, including Blevins, will be released from their contracts when Mixer shuts down.
"Facebook Gaming is welcoming all Mixer Partners," a Microsoft spokesperson told S&P Global Market Intelligence. "Ultimately it's up to them as they think about the next step for their careers, in the same way it's up to all Mixer Partners."
A representative from Facebook did not comment on whether Facebook Gaming would pursue new exclusive deals with any Mixer streamers. Tweets from Blevins and other streamers who were locked in Mixer exclusivity deals, including Cory "Gothalion" Michael, and Michael "Shroud" Grzesiek, indicate that they are currently reviewing their options.
Microsoft's new partnership with Facebook will extend past the social media company's game-streaming service. Project xCloud, Microsoft's cloud gaming service currently in beta, will come to Facebook Gaming sometime in the future. Project xCloud will allow viewers to click on and seamlessly join streaming games.
"As part of our work together, Project xCloud will help us redefine future gaming experiences on Facebook Gaming," Vivek Sharma, head of Facebook Gaming, wrote in a blog post. "Imagine a scenario where people can instantly move from watching a Facebook Gaming creator's livestream to jumping in and playing the game with their closest friends, all in one click."
Michael Pachter, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities, said Mixer's abrupt and unusual shutdown implies there may be more to Microsoft and Facebook's new partnership than either company has said publicly.
"Normally, there would have been a several month transition, and I'm surprised it went down this way," Pachter said. "I can only surmise that Facebook offered a quid pro quo — likely something to do with a back-end deal to use [Microsoft's] Azure cloud services in the future and insisted upon an immediate transition."