Ninja and Shroud reportedly received ‘tens of millions’ due to Mixer’s closure

Major streamers ‘Ninja’ and ‘Shroud’ reportedly received payouts in the tens of millions following Microsoft’s decision to close Mixer and release them from their exclusivity contracts.

The pair – real names Tyler Blevins and Michael Grzesiek – are also said to have turned down an “insane offer” to move to Facebook Gaming, which is where Mixer’s members and sites will be migrated to next month.

That’s according to esports consultant Rod Breslau, who cited sources claiming “Facebook offered an insane offer at almost double for the original Mixer contracts of Ninja and Shroud but Loaded/Ninja/Shroud said no and forced Mixer to buy them out.”

Ninja made in the region of $30m and Shroud $10m from Mixer buying out of their contracts, the industry insider said.

Microsoft confirmed to Business Insider that both streamers are now free agents and had received their full pay-out before leaving Mixer.

The pair are now free to move to another platform of their choice, and on Monday both released statements saying they were considering their next steps.

Microsoft announced it was closing the Mixer streaming service and transitioning all users to Facebook Gaming in a statement on Monday.

From July 22, all Mixer sites and apps will redirect users to Facebook Gaming. Mixer Partners will be granted partner status with Facebook Gaming, and the platform will honour and match all existing Partner agreements “as closely as possible,” according to Microsoft.

In a statement published on the Xbox website, head of Xbox Phil Spencer said the service had failed to grow in line with its expectations.

“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.”

further reading

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Microsoft is closing Mixer and releasing Ninja and Shroud from their contracts

All users will be redirected to Facebook Gaming from next month

Mixer was launched by Microsoft as Beam in 2016 and later rebranded.

Microsoft reportedly paid in the region of $50 million to lure Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins from Twitch to Mixer in August 2019.

Signing Ninja, who had some 14 million followers on Twitch, marked a huge coup for the platform as it attempted to compete with streaming giants Twitch and YouTube.

Commenting on Monday’s closure news, Ninja tweeted: “I love my community and what we built together on Mixer. I have some decisions to make and will be thinking about you all as I make them.”

Shroud added: “I appreciate the Mixer community and everything I’ve been able to do on the platform. I love you guys and am figuring out my next steps.”