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Report: Morale among Microsoft's Mixer team is at an all-time low

IDontBeatGames

IDontBeatGames

ThreadMarksman
Member
Oct 29, 2017
16,544
New York
Video Games Are Dumb said:
I think it still has a serious shot if the Xbox Series X pulls in a lot of new users. Put mixer right up front and autoplaying without sound. Make the dashboard come to life and make mixer a core experience for Xbox owners. Couldn't be any worse that what the 360 and One dashboards turned into.
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Snake__ said:
If Series X pulls ahead of PS5, Mixer numbers will skyrocket
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I don't generally agree with this. I don't see how Mixer will gain a one-up on places like Twitch / Youtube because of two reasons:
  • Youtube and Twitch both have had such a head start historically with the internet and have such a huge userbase that have already shown that they won't massively move over to a new platform despite their favorite streamers moving over.
  • Mixer would have to eclipse a huge number and gain a huge number of users, see here:
Bz2PofHeyU0zs7YfUVJjCpwO1jK5NeMvX5vcfWpr7WhQQiBIZ3NiPKqkkgREBwDmFXlAABAgQIECBAgAABAgSyCAjOWSalTwIECB.png
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Sure, yes, it was originally beating Youtube Gaming Live in 2018 but with the purchases of Valkyrae & CourageJD from 100Thieves (a very well known and growing organization by well known ex-COD Pro player Nadeshot) helped boost Youtube's numbers and that growth sustaining remains to be seen. However, I don't think Mixer's current strategy allows for them to do what you guys are hoping and numbers overall are showing that it isn't working (see my other post on page 1 lol), so whatever their strategy is outside of buying big faces, doesn't work. There would have to be major changes in order for them to do this big jump in numbers like you guys say will happen.
 
LycanXIII

LycanXIII

The Fallen
Oct 26, 2017
10,002
Slayven said:
Yeah I think that is the fate of a lot of video game streamers. They are good at what they do, but have zero crossover appeal. 2018to the beginning of 2019 they were everywhere like on ellen and stuff, but that fizzeled out. But that little kid that reviews toys has his own damn Pluto channel, and lets not talk about makeup vloggers.
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He has his own game now.

race-with-ryan-game-xbox.jpg
 
Prime2

Prime2

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,338
I actually looked into that article and the person who is shown in the tweets later comes back and corrects himself. Mixers issue is the lack of big draws to the service, Youtube has OWL and Cod, Twitch gets CSGO and LOL if they want to be serious they need to lock down one of the big draws competition wise to really draw people to it.
 
King_Moc

King_Moc

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,126
Well, of course it didn't take off. Someone else got there first. Stop copying and try your own ideas.
 
Dreams-Visions

Dreams-Visions

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
41,368
Miami, FL
Growing brands is hard. Doubly so when you're trying to grow a brand that is an extension of a bigger brand with a lot of history.

One thing Twitch didn't have? A lot of negative history. People liked Justin.tv, people like how Twitch grew out of it. Mixer and Microsoft have a very different story to tell that doesn't necessarily feel organic...or needed...or wanted.

So when I log in right now, for example, and I see Ninja at 8.7k viewers and the next highest at 800, I am reminded how far they have to go to be relevant, how much more time and investment is needed for them to reach just to matter. Hell, streamers that were inferior to Ninja on Twitch are doing literally 5x his viewer numbers every day of the week because nofuckinbody outside of his hardcore fans want to user Mixer.

I would not want to be on the marketing team trying to figure out the solution. In my mind? There is nothing they can do.
 
robot

robot

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,470
I completely forgot what Mixer was for a second and thought you were talking about Microsoft Teams, which I guess pretty quickly sums up the problem with Mixer.
 
Geode

Geode

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,457
You can't stream from a PS4 to Mixer, right? I'm sure Microsoft is losing some steamers (users) without offering that option.
 
PRrambo_

PRrambo_

PlayStation.jif
Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,869
Got to go back to that Ninja announcement thread, so many people here thought Mixer was making great decisions buying up these streamers. Oof.
 
shawnoftheshred

shawnoftheshred

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,288
Calgary, AB
What makes me turn Mixer on:
Rewards for watching streams or the rewards for Forza Horizon 4 for streaming.

I was hoping that Microsoft had something planned to make it more than just a streaming service with the release of the Series X - have more implementation or reasons to use it. Whether that be the development of an iteration on the 1 vs. 100 idea, rewards that are more consistent than just their E3 etc. streams, or having games that could be manipulated by the audience participation more. But, from the sounds of it, it's still just going to be the streaming platform they push for awhile on the Dashboard that I mostly ignore.

It's too bad, my experiences have always been smooth.
 
Fat4all

Fat4all

Woke up, got a money tag, swears a lot
Member
Oct 25, 2017
92,843
here
While I do think MS are gonna focus on tying Series X and Mixer together, there's no way they don't also offer users the ability to stream on Twitch as well, imo.
 
Commander Kook

Commander Kook

Member
May 22, 2018
699
As someone who checks out Twitch every other night, I'm not drawn to streamers as much as I am the games. I tend to watch games I'm considering buying, or for strategies with games I already own. Finding a likable streamer is really just the cherry on top. As for Mixer, it's not on PS4, and that's my most used avenue for watching.
 
Kupo Kupopo

Kupo Kupopo

Member
Jul 6, 2019
2,959
ducktape said:
There's a compilation on YouTube of Ninja slipping the N word. It's pretty fucking bad. I'll never understand why Microsoft paid so much to have him when his popularity was already fading. He was never going to save Mixer.
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because, as often as not, by the time ms decides to get into something, whether it's mixer or ninja, the window (no pun intended) is already closing...
 
Sargerus

Sargerus

▲ Legend ▲
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
20,844
DanteMenethil said:
Twitch """"""""""""""culture""""""""""""" is a big userbase retainer. People like their Kappas, Pepes and Pogchamps. I'll always appreciate Mixer for bringing in sub second stream delay. Twitch had 30 sec delay at that time but I think they caught up now.
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I personally will only use Mixer the day they create a emote to surpass billyReady.
 
Kyougar

Kyougar

Cute Animal Whisperer
Member
Nov 3, 2017
9,359
Hella said:
I don't really follow Twitch streamers at all, but I'm kinda surprised the big streamers never pulled over many of their viewers. I would have assumed the person was the draw, not the platform; but with how Twitch channels work like TV channels, I guess you'd just switch to something else, maybe?
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I think there are two main reasons

- customers don't like fragmentation. Why should you switch to a different service if the current service is providing all your needs? Sure, you can watch Ninja and shroud on mixer, but you would have to switch back to twitch if you want to watch 99% of the other reasons to watch games on streams.
- "one-of-us" mentality plays a role here. Even if they take hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars a year home, the streamers are still seen as some dudes and dudettes who "made it" playing video games. The viewers want to support the streamers. but if the streamers were bought out, they don't need your support, so why give it to them? They are now part of the corporate world. How many successful streamers come from a corporate background? The most successful types of corporate streaming you will see are sponsored events, news, announcements, or new gameplay. But no corporate person just playing a game and having a big viewership.
 
Big-E

Big-E

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,169
The exclusive streamers made out like bandits. If Mixer goes belly up they can go back to Twitch or can ride off into the sun set with no worries. Big miss on the money that MS was throwing around but congrats on the streamers for making that money.
 
Slayven

Slayven

Never read a comic in his life
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
93,112
Com_Raven said:
I have to admit that the video of their GM speaking to the team at their town hall is one of the worst examples of shitty coporate bosses trying to give a prep talk I have ever heard. Absolutely shocking.

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Nothing sends me up a wall faster than being gaslit. WHy not talk about the problem and solutions ? Instead they talk about how ti's a bummer folks are being a bummer.
 
Dreams-Visions

Dreams-Visions

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
41,368
Miami, FL
Marsy said:
I blame the marketing team. I had no idea was Mixer was and only until late last year did I find out they were competitor to Twitch. I actually showed up (but didn't make it in) to the Mixer event at GDC 2018 which was in March.

I feel like the whole marketing failed Mixer.
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It's not the marketing team's fault that the platform itself doesn't have much of anything to differentiate it positively vs the Twitch experience.

What even is the sales pitch for Mixer to exist other than, "because Microsoft wants it to"? What are its differentiating factors that make it a better experience compared to what already existed before it? A slightly higher bitrate sometimes? I think most people would rather keep their PogChamps and Kappas and familiar spaces.

To my eyes, Mixer presents several UI experience downgrades, its sorting and discovery features are a downgrade, I continue to get inconsistent performance (video pauses and stutters), and the emotes fucking suck. And the brand name itself is nonsense. That's a lot to accept for no clear benefit. It all adds up to a net negative. And so here lies Mixer.
 

Deleted member 18379

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,165
I've called it from day one. Buying up big streamers is the most out of touch "let me force old ideas that work in old business" old man idea ever. Big streamers have finicky audiences and when streamers leave platforms, it's more likely people just watch something else than follow them. You got to crawl before you can run and spending a hundred million dollars on a pair of running shoes for your baby isn't going to get it into the Olympics any faster.

Sit down and foster your own community. Let big explosive stars emerge naturally. That's the beauty of streaming. You never know who can become the next big thing. And when little streamers see people becoming millionaires on twitch while Mixer is throwing money at them, it just reinforces the idea that people become stars on twitch and maybe someday Mixer will pay you too retire for the rest of your life.

Good for those who took the money and set themselves up for the rest of their lives while the suits sit their with pie on their face for trying to force business with money, rather than just being a better place to be a small streamer and maybe giving them some base line dough for being on your platform. I'm sure that would have swayed way more folks instead of dumping millions into single streamers.
 
MrHedin

MrHedin

Member
Dec 7, 2018
6,815
I don't know how much it would actually help but I am still baffled by the fact that they don't have an official app on Roku. Getting the Mixer app on Fires would be very unlikely but Roku is just sitting out there available to use (and Twitch doesn't support it either). Maybe there is something that I am not aware of with how Roku does business but it feels like malpractice not to have Mixer available there.
 
Raider34

Raider34

Banned
May 8, 2018
1,277
United States
Twitch has madden and fifa, nba 2k and other games all the free ultimate team card drops, free games and cosmetic dlc's are hard to compete with mixer has great technology they need to come after YouTube. YouTube is very vulnerable right now demonetizing creators and deleting channels period Microsoft needs to get aggressive and take a poke at it.
 
jelly

jelly

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
33,841
Maybe I'm just out of the loop but their star acquisitions were baffling to me, the money was wild. Imagine green lighting that series of buys, did they really expect it to light a fire.

I guess it will live or die on the next Xbox era but streaming still baffles me.

I think Mixer would be a more interesting platform if it was the YouTube of game shares clips or something as well as a streaming platform.
 
Filipus

Filipus

Prophet of Regret
Avenger
Dec 7, 2017
5,132
They really messed up this last year when it comes to Mixer. And Mike Ybarra just bolted out of there with "if they follow the plan everything will work fine!".
Well, it seems the plan was to buy streamers, justify investment by viewership increase and make Mixer relevant. Big fail.

In my opinion they need to go back to the roots. Go back to the reason Mixer was created, to have a better environment for watching and for streams than the competition.
Mixer has way better image quality (the bitrate allowed is SO MUCH better than twitch), the way you level up globally and per channel is pretty cool, they have much better community guidelines AND the idea was to allow Mixer to have implementations inside games (so viewers can interact with the streamer/game directly). This means that all the reasons why people should be using Mixer has nothing to do with who's streaming but the technical team.
If they have a skeleton team working on it right now it is a flipping disaster.

There are way better ways to bring an audience than whatever they are doing now.
 
Tobor

Tobor

Member
Oct 25, 2017
28,490
Richmond, VA
MIxer sounds like a textbook old school Microsoft fail. Good to know they can still overspend and underdeliver like the good old days.

robot said:
I completely forgot what Mixer was for a second and thought you were talking about Microsoft Teams, which I guess pretty quickly sums up the problem with Mixer.
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Teams is also classic Microsoft fuckery. They spend billions on Skype, try and push it on businesses, while simultaneously developing Teams, which also sucks.
 
Suicide King

Suicide King

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,018
ImaLawy3r said:
What fixes Mixer is something no one will like. It's buying the licenses to stream an entire game exclusively on the platform. Example: Fornite, or Apex, or COD, or FIFA, etc - can only be streamed on Mixer.

I know. You can pelt rocks at me now.
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That will just make people not watch it, though. The thing about Twitch is that sometimes, you want the streamer. You have a list of streamers you like, and you support them, talk to them, donate, subscribe, and the games are not as important. That is why even if you buy one streamer, you basically buy just one unit from a big list that anybody has. If I can't watch Ninja, I can watch Pokimane, Northernlion, Dan Gheesling, whatever. There is no easy way to steal Twitch's viewership. The option was to build on a different and new audience, but they didn't want that.
 
SilverX

SilverX

Member
Jan 21, 2018
13,015
Time for another name change. Mixer was a terrible choice to rename the service with. Hopefully they get it right this time.
 
Jessie

Jessie

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,921
This is exactly what I expected. People went on Twitch for Twitch, not for Ninja. His audience moved on quickly because the industry moves quickly.

Streamers being bought out is amazing for the streamers, but horrible for the platforms. It's a massive waste of cash.
 

Deleted member 36578

Dec 21, 2017
26,561
They should stop paying big twitch streamers and spend the money on us regular folk by giving us Xbox market place points for watching things on Mixer. I'll watch a fuck ton of Mixer if they do that.

Also since they want to rebrand Xbox consoles to just be referred to as Xbox, they should rename Mixer , Xbox Live.
 
Nabs

Nabs

Member
Oct 26, 2017
15,695
They tried to treat streaming like Epic treats games. It makes great headlines, but that doesn't last without the platform to back it up.
 
crespo

crespo

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,540
ImaLawy3r said:
What fixes Mixer is something no one will like. It's buying the licenses to stream an entire game exclusively on the platform. Example: Fornite, or Apex, or COD, or FIFA, etc - can only be streamed on Mixer.

I know. You can pelt rocks at me now.
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If they get something like Elden Ring they'll certainly get my screen time.
 
TheUnseenTheUnheard

TheUnseenTheUnheard

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
May 25, 2018
9,647
brokeastronaut said:
They should stop paying big twitch streamers and spend the money on us regular folk by giving us Xbox market place points for watching things on Mixer. I'll watch a fuck ton of Mixer if they do that.

Also since they want to rebrand Xbox consoles to just be referred to as Xbox, they should rename Mixer , Xbox Live.
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If they need to pay people to watch they should probably just give up at that point
 
MBABuddha

MBABuddha

Banned
Dec 10, 2019
490
I mean how many 24/7 video game streaming services could the world possibly need or sustain? In the grand scheme of things it's still a very niche market.
 
TheUnseenTheUnheard

TheUnseenTheUnheard

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
May 25, 2018
9,647
brokeastronaut said:
Isn't paying popular people to play on Mixer inherently paying for people to watch? At least if they directly pay us it cuts out the middle man :)
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No. Not really. Sure they had some personalities come over to the platform but it's not like they did it so people would only watch them. They want people to give the platform a real try and hopefully get them to stick around. If you start paying the audience, it will disappear as soon as you stop paying.
 

Deleted member 36578

Dec 21, 2017
26,561
TheUnseenTheUnheard said:
No. Not really. Sure they had some personalities come over to the platform but it's not like they did it so people would only watch them. They want people to give the platform a real try and hopefully get them to stick around. If you start paying the audience, it will disappear as soon as you stop paying.
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It's kind of the same though in my eyes. Pay us to check it out , give it a try and if we like it we stick around even after the wells dried up.
 
Siggy-P

Siggy-P

Avenger
Mar 18, 2018
11,865
Lobster Roll said:
As it turns out, people just want to watch the personality they like most - on Twitch.

That enormous deal they gave Ninja isn't working out because he doesn't have enough personality to get folks to completely hop platforms outside of his diehard fans (which if you're a diehard of Ninja, good luck to ya). Even if dozens of high-level streamers all jumped to Mixer, it wouldn't matter. Viewers are showing they'd rather browse Twitch and stay in that ecosystem. It's absolutely a "next player up" situation where the viewers will just crown a new cult of personality and hang out in that channel.
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Learnt in Business in Uni that it's all about convenience. The more steps you put in, the less people are willing to engage in it. Even if it's something they want and free.

The viewing numbers of these people like Ninja and PewDiePie and the like shoot up when they hit the front page because it's presented to people. They visit YouTube first then watch the people on youttube. They aren't coming for those people, they are coming for youtube. Add extra steps and they won't take the effort.

People watched Ninja because he was on the front page of Twitch. If you were a Ninja fan and went on Twitch to see he wasn't there the first time he left, why bother taking the time to go on mixer when there's many other popular streamers available instantly right there at your fingertips.
 
Armaros

Armaros

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,901
Forsaken82 said:
I doubt that...If he's pissy about anything, it's not a lack of viewers, it's that the move to mixer didn't offer up the opportunities outside of streaming he thought it would.
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I guess he mistakend his fame for being the biggest streamer for some other reason. Cause without that title, companies dont really have any reason to use him anymore. Espcially if Fortnite is declining as much as rumored.
 
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