Microsoft shuts down Mixer, partners with Facebook Gaming
Microsoft's Mixer team revealed just a few hours ago that the end has come for the streaming service. Mixer, a game-focused streaming service similar to Twitch, will continue to run through July 22, 2020 according to Microsoft and redirect the domain to Facebook gaming after that date.
Microsoft had big plans for Mixer, a game streaming service that it developed after acquiring the core service Beam.pro. The company invested heavily in the platform and managed to lure the streamer Ninja to Mixer in order to boost its attractiveness and audience.
Mixer did not grow as much as Microsoft hoped it would according to the blog post and the decision was made to partner with Facebook Gaming instead.
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. 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.
Microsoft and Facebook will migrate the Mixer community to Facebook Gaming. The new platform has a sizeable monthly audience of 700 million users already according to Microsoft, and the partnership "brings the ability to partner closely with the Xbox ecosystem".
Mixer partners and streamers who participate in the monetization program will be granted partner status on Facebook Gaming or allowed to participate in Facebook Gaming's Level Up Program.
Streamers need to download past streams or VODs before July 22, 2020 in order to preserve them or upload them to another platform. Access to the content after July 22, 2020 requires "submitting a written request" according to Microsoft. The company promises that it will provide additional details on the process soon.
Mixer viewers can also connect their account; the main benefit of doing so is that Facebook provides a list of Facebook channels of subscribed Mixer channels.
All it takes is to open the Mixer page on Facebook to connect the Mixer account.
Mixer users with Ember balances, channel subscriptions or Mixer Pro subscriptions will receive Xbox Gift Card credit. Ember and Sparks can be spend until the shutdown, and streamers will receive double the amount in the month of June.
Xbox One gamers who used to stream to Mixer won't be able to do so anymore after July 22, 2020. Microsoft suggests that gamers use the Twitch app to stream to Twitch or connect to a PC and use streaming software such as OBS or XSplit for streaming.
The FAQ offers additional information.
Closing Words
Microsoft's decision to shut down Mixer may come as a surprise to many. The company invested heavily in the platform but even that and the fact that it integrated it in its Xbox systems was not enough apparently.
The partnership with Facebook Gaming may make sense from a business perspective, as Microsoft's main competitors Google and Amazon own the two other major streaming platforms, but it is likely that part of the userbase does not want to migrate to Facebook Gaming. Many will probably return to Twitch or YouTube instead.
Now You: Did you try Mixer? What is your take on Microsoft's decision?
Did you try Mixer?
No
What is your take on Microsoft’s decision?
I take it that this move is the most logical choice for Microsoft to stay profitable. Any speculation beyond that is frivolous.
Oh jeez now Microsoft will probably paste users names and data on other sites, Just like they did When I used to use Windows Live Messenger, posting which videos I would watch at youtube I think.
What’s next.. “Microsoft shuts down Skype in favor of Facebook Messenger?” Haha.. all jokes aside this is a bad decision with the rep facebook has.
“managed to lure the streamer Ninja to Mixer”
Microsoft is in deep denial of how much it is hated by the world and what a joke it is among gamers. Lure is a funny way of putting it. More accurately Microsoft bribed Ninja and Shroud with a few million dollars to quit Twitch and stream on Mixer. No one was surprised when audiences didn’t follow them to Mixer and remained on Twitch. The Microsoft way of doing things, bribery, brute force, and monopolism. They still haven’t learned their lesson that it doesn’t work. Their last success was the X-Box and now even that is no longer a force in the market. Since then all they have done is buy up other companies, one mistake after another. Either you make cool products that don’t screw over consumers (Mixer required Microsoft, Facebook, or Google accounts and 2FA) or consumers will simply not use your corrupt product.
Be happy this shit was never integrated into your Windowsâ„¢ 10â„¢ Proâ„¢ system :^)
I’m actually quite surprised.
Oh, boy. So, true.
What makes you so sure about this? Personally, I am having my doubts…The new partnership opens new horizons for both companies.
lol yup
I tried to use mixer, and my experience is as follows.
>visit mixer homepage
>see lgbtqhivbbq++ streams plastered all over the front page
>close mixer
Imagine my shock that such a decision would prove to be detrimental to the success of their business.
Facebook is now an official spyware partner of Microsoft? Nice, now they are going to exchange our data too.
This was expected. since Beam days it was a mess, companies not really listening to community even if there was a forum and all. Beam days, it barely worked on any browser, they promised features that never got deliverd, questionable decisions. Mods and staff doing whatever they wanted. We shall remember how Beam started to suspend and don’t give partnership to people whose political position wasn’t like little Seattle special people and while it seemed like a cool alternative to Twitch, it never worked.
Then Microsoft bought an already dead and small platform, and make it worst because if Beam barely listened to community, Mixer team would listen less. Removed Forum, the ideas/feedback page was more abandoned, then they never gave transcoding to non partners (unless you paid for Pro, Beam let you buy 480p with sparks just to give you an idea) so users couldn’t even watch the streams many times, they ruined the idea of sparks, added ember which few people cared about, never delivered what Beam promised and never delivered. And they pushed more political garbage down people’s throat and didn’t focus on gaming, gamers, streamers, non-partners and even partners.
The partnership staff helped their friends who barely met the requierements, and to questionable people breaking rules who got viewers (or many bots) but all they wanted was high viewer numbers on some even if they broke rules. It was just a mess before Microsoft and it became worst after Microsoft.
They are even messing up by partnering with Facebook, like seriously, I know few people who wanted to try it, but imagine getting a facebook account to watch live streams, where facebook requieres you to use your real name, if you had trouble in the past, you will be even requiered to send your real pic to be verified, if you don’t comply… bye bye and your email will be held hostage and never release like anything else around Facebook. Last time I used my real name for an account I got a creepy stalker sending me a message, and even started using my surname to be like “I know you are the person I meant to find, who is connected to this other person I hate”. so why do I even want to create an account with my real name again? I tried, and then I was even asked for a photo which would obviously fail with a fake name.
The only last hope for a streaming site that is not owned by a big corp is Dlive, but it seems more like a hitbox/streamcast thing. But they don’t seem to censor or ban people easily, but like anything that has “blockchain” around it, it can have some issues nad then drama started/starts and the idea gets tainted with issues. so yeah…
This will only benefit Twitch, look at twitch past and you will see not much change from 10 years ago, but they always took advantage after renaming Justin to Twitch. They never listened to the community or brought features but it worked for them. So even this, where they aren’t doing anything will benefit them again and Amazon bought them and Amazon is happy about it.
I know pushing features it is hard, especially for small teams like Beam was and Dlive is but I wish they would put more effort on things than trying to hope a small effort will take them far. or maybe that’s not even their goal and it is just the wish we all had at one time.
Nothing we can do about this. I wish Mixer would just be dead already so all this drama and people begging “follow me on twitch now” will get to an end, and all those people who thought were big in Mixer realize that the reason they got popular was because:
1. Mixer was small so people started to go with the ones that somehow started to get bigger.
2. People lurked so much for sparks and “viewer points” that they were like free useful bots
Now on twitch or worst… in Facebook, I wonder if they can build a community, maintain it or they will see the numbers will shrink (as expected) since there are more alternatives to watch, thousands of channels streaming everything and not just few popular ones.
For example: I can even imagine people streaming Paladins to be hit by that because, paladins was the main reason why 24/7 channels started to get banned, it was crazy lurking to get viewer points for the free skins, and still, people would lurk so many channels that you would see hundred of viewers, and thousands of follows but barely anyone talking, because people wanted Paladins viewer points for free skins so channels, even without the 24/7 channels, they only need to lurk more channels and not just one. So imagine these people on twitch, where game doesn’t get many viewers unless they are popular big Paladins streams, there are not viewer points (sadly yet, since they might be added sooner now, which might make things ridiculous like on Mixer). And this same I can imagine will happen to many, but what can you do? You can’t blame Microsoft, I saw Beam dead 4 years ago, people thought Microsoft money would make it big like if money was the problem 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 years ago.
Oh well.
With Facebook?? Really, guys?
With the most irresponsible, venomous, freedom-slashing company of the whole Internet?
Thanks but no, thanks.
No way i’m going to use facebook. Good bye Mixer.
I never really liked Mixer. The website layout has been very unintuitive, there was no Search box on the main page and one thing I can’t really explain, it didn’t buffer the video, be it live or recorded as good as Twitch. Most of the times I was left hanging, waiting for 20+ seconds to get like 1 second of footage and then it goes back to buffering again, regardless what browser or device I use. And my internet speed is good, the website itself loads instantly, just the video part loads like ass.
I can’t say I’m thrilled with Twitch either, but at least it works. My biggest pet peeves with Twitch are the color scheme – white and that annoying shade of purple that makes me nauseous. I know there is the dark theme, but the purple is still as bad there too. Another thing I don’t like about Twitch is how some channels have all those annoying buttons for apps or whatever on the screen and some of them you can’t even hide at all…
But then again I don’t really care about either, since I try to spend whatever free time on the PC I have playing the games I like rather than watching them, because I find the latter rather stupid.