Microsoft's Mixer Is Shutting Down
Mixer, the livestreaming service owned by Microsoft, is officially shutting down next month, it [...]
Mixer, the livestreaming service owned by Microsoft, is officially shutting down next month, it was announced today. The service will close its doors on July 22nd, and as part of the shutdown announcement, revealed that it is attempting to transition any and all users, streamers, partners, and so on over to Facebook Gaming.
"Ultimately, the success of Partners and streamers on Mixer is dependent on our ability to scale the platform for them as quickly and broadly as possible," today's announcement reads in part. "It became clear that the time needed to grow our own livestreaming community to scale was out of measure with the vision and experiences that Microsoft and Xbox want to deliver for gamers now, so we've decided to close the operations side of Mixer and help the community transition to a new platform."
Mixer Partners, streamers, and community - today, we've got some very big news for you.
While we’ve decided to close the operations side of Mixer, we're officially partnering with @FacebookGaming and we're cordially inviting all of you to join.
📰 https://t.co/E1eMDvjYQb pic.twitter.com/554hHAXfaB
— Mixer (@WatchMixer) June 22, 2020
Mixer has shared a FAQ about the service's transition, which is worth a read if you ever used it, but perhaps the most notable aspect has to do with how Mixer Partners aren't necessarily guaranteed the same sort of agreement with Facebook Gaming. "Mixer Partners will be granted partner status with Facebook Gaming, and the platform will honor and match all existing Partner agreements as closely as possible," Mixer states. That "closely as possible" could mean that, for example, top streamers that were lured to Mixer with lucrative deals might end up going somewhere else entirely rather than transitioning.
Mixer, as a service, is officially set to discontinue on July 22nd. Beam, the predecessor to Mixer, was acquired by Microsoft in August 2016, launched in March 2017, and was rebranded as Mixer in May 2017. The service was perhaps most notable for signing Tyler "Ninja" Blevins to an exclusive contract back in August 2019. You can check out all of our previous coverage of Mixer right here.
What do you think of Mixer shutting down? Did you use the service? Let us know in the comments, or hit me up directly on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk all things gaming!