Any executive telling staff that they won't tolerate "negative feedback" is a surefire way to sink a product or company.
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Report: Morale among Microsoft's Mixer team is at an all-time low
- Thread starter OG_Thrills
- Start date
Any executive telling staff that they won't tolerate "negative feedback" is a surefire way to sink a product or company.
Anyone that can't take negative feedback shouldn't be a manager—I also say this as someone that has seen multiple personal examples of managers using constructive criticism as fuel to gaslight, thus causing piss poor morale and high turnover.
Was waiting for a reply to bust out some equivalent of "that would be the dumbest thing ever". Needed a little indirect verbal abuse for my morning.
Anyway, the long-held belief YouTube isn't profitable doesn't seem to apply anymore. Alphabet intentionally keeps the platform's profitability vague, but the estimate is that it's "fine". Not a blockbuster they'd want to toot their horn over, but fine. In some ways they benefit from the "our video platform isn't profitable but for some reason we've kept it going this long" narrative.
And don't forget, they're turning a profit these last few years, when they've unquestionably been screwing up their own platform the hardest. Two separate Adpocalypses due to their failures in moderation, driving advertisers away in droves. Giving creators almost no support and burning them out in favor of television content. Very little in the way of innovation or improvement in the user OR creator experience (improved closed captioning excepted). Heck, they've only just recently added "Memberships" after seeing years of revenue go to Patreon instead. Now it remains to be seen how the FTC crackdown after Google (an advertising company) utterly failed to follow advertising rules regarding kids, despite prior warning, but if that did drastically change the numbers, that's even more screwed up.
So MS isn't in the ad business. They weren't in the cloud server business until they were. And jamming ads in people's faces that they go out of their way to block may not be the best way to make money anymore. After all, they didn't add Memberships to YouTube for fun. It's because that's an additional revenue stream, that is already part of the Mixer platform. My point isn't "They need to invest a Trillion dollars into building a brand new platform to take on YouTube," my point is "Mixer with some changes and a stronger backbone IS that platform to take on YouTube, and if they can't take on Twitch with Mixer, they might as well swing for that fence instead." Honestly, there's a lot of cross-over for both creators and viewers, so a wider audience for Mixer might result in the original intent of becoming a feasible Twitch competitor along the way.
Mixer viewership isn't the goal, it's subscribers to GP and xCloud. Mixer is a route into that - an advertising arm, effectively.
I hear you but what I'm trying to say is: making a game exclusive to a streaming platform is akin to sending it off to die. Streamers aren't going to switch platforms and risk their communities to play your game. There is no game that Microsoft could make that would change that reality. So effectively, such a move would only serve to curb any enthusiasm about your game and alienate the influencers who could be promoting your content.
This is not the way and I hope nobody on their team thinks like you. Because that is a losing strategy if I ever saw one.
Unless they're going to do constant give-away tie-ins that are only available through Mixer streams of the Xbox games (eg watching X hours of streams or competitive matches grants in-game loot/currency like we see with Twitch Prime, Overwatch League and similar) and/or also provided you with a free monthly sub like Amazon Prime does for being a GP member, Mixer won't be a driver of GP subs. GP is enough value proposition on its own. It can't hurt, but I don't think it will be a big boon either.
They likely already convinced Ninja and Shroud that they have to stream Halo Infinite, and it's gonna look really obvious.
This makes no sense because streamers are advertising games on Twitch. Viewership -> Interest -> Sales, it is a conversion. Why not advertise your games/services on all platforms instead of the one that reaches 2.6% of the audience?
Microsoft co-broadcasted all Gears Esports events to Twitch. That is how "powerful" of the advertising arm Mixer is.
You misunderstand me. I'm talking about giving viewers the ability to play the game immediately on xCloud - maybe even within the same app.
could be!
Ah. I'm not sure how or why that would be desirable in and of itself...but maybe? It's just...that audience is so small.
To clarify: I am saying that exclusivity (like some are arguing to make mixer more successful) is a stupid move if you can't be certain that mixer will take off. You will not only have Mixer as a failure, but also your own games will be seen as a bomb because very few people are watching streams of your games.
What happened in the end of 17/beginning of 18?Ninja's Overall Viewer History:
I know what Xbox's primary goal is. I was responding to someone specifically translating sales to mixer viewers.
Tbf, There's no way they weren't going to Stream Halo infinite, regardless of MS' opinion on the matter.
This is a bummer. I do really, genuinely like mixer both as a concept and actually using it, it's so much more reliable and friendly than Twitch, the support team is super nice and quick, the software is great and the streaming quality is fine as well. I honestly don't know why it doesn't get rewarded for this, like, at all, and it just feels like having a monopoly these days really is everything. I almost wish I'd be an actually active streamer so I could help spreading the word.
I really hope they can resurrect the service somehow, even if I have no idea how. There needs to be more competition than Twitch and.. well, basically only Twitch.
I really hope they can resurrect the service somehow, even if I have no idea how. There needs to be more competition than Twitch and.. well, basically only Twitch.
They did try buying out smaller streamers before (like Renee, for example, who is now back on Twitch). That didn't work out, either.
Archos were bulldozer: I still have my 80GB with a 480x272 screen. Used it a lot in the mid-00s.
Money cant buy everything. Maybe Microsoft will learn that one day. But as long as they swim in money they don't need to worry about wasting another 30 mil.
It's an entertainment product people consume, not a personal relationship. Why should anyone have allegiance to some millionaire streamer?
You'd be surprised how many viewers actually would - openly or for themselves - view their relationship with a streamer as a "personal" one.
who would've though? this forum swore Mixer was the Twitch killer, pretty obvious it was't. With that said, I feel bad for the team. Cant be a good experience when a skeleton crew is already small and then gets budget cut
it won't.
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I'm not a streamer but still use some streaming platforms for occasional speedruns in order to not waste HDD space. It's a bit sad that MS decided to spend money on ninja instead of service quality. I liked mixer but nowadays I've returned to using twitch for one simple reason:
- I can't stream to mixer for some reason from OBS Studio. It just shows the stream is up. Everything is ok on OBS side but broadcast doesn't appear on mixer. I don't know what happened. But basically it is unusable for me nowadays.
Also, already mentioned issue about them removing it from game bar. It was a nice to have it there for a quick stream if needed.
And yeah, the new setup process. You can't stream unless you pass some 5-10 minute unskippable tutorial about toxic behavior and harassment in chat. While I get it that it is a good thing from MS side to explain such things especially considering how twitch chat looks like 95% of the time, preventing anyone from streaming without passing this tutorial is something that will turn off lots of potential streamers from the platform.
- I can't stream to mixer for some reason from OBS Studio. It just shows the stream is up. Everything is ok on OBS side but broadcast doesn't appear on mixer. I don't know what happened. But basically it is unusable for me nowadays.
Also, already mentioned issue about them removing it from game bar. It was a nice to have it there for a quick stream if needed.
And yeah, the new setup process. You can't stream unless you pass some 5-10 minute unskippable tutorial about toxic behavior and harassment in chat. While I get it that it is a good thing from MS side to explain such things especially considering how twitch chat looks like 95% of the time, preventing anyone from streaming without passing this tutorial is something that will turn off lots of potential streamers from the platform.
it also take 24+ hours for them to verify you for streaming before you can start if i'm not mistaken. not sure if that's exactly right but there was definitely something I had to wait for before i could stream.
While I do personally enjoy Mixer as a platform more than Twitch (better video bitrates, less delay, I actually like the smaller community), it's clear that they have a long way to go in order to even be close to a competitor.
I think the hope with the big streamer investment was that Ninja and Shroud and company would integrate with other Mixer streamers, co-stream with them, and lift up their other partners, but that hasn't really come to pass. The Ninjas and Shrouds of the world have had nothing to do with folks who built up an audience on Mixer naturally. Names that come to mind are Covent and Kabby, who have built a decent sized audience and have been invested in the platform long-term, are probably the people Microsoft should be investing in now.
For all you wrestling fans out there, an analogy: you can't be an alternative to WWE by just buying a couple of former WWE stars and building your product around them. You have to make your own stars. Mixer could be like AEW, and strategically use a few former stars to build new ones. But right now, they're looking more like TNA. I hope they can figure it out.
I think the hope with the big streamer investment was that Ninja and Shroud and company would integrate with other Mixer streamers, co-stream with them, and lift up their other partners, but that hasn't really come to pass. The Ninjas and Shrouds of the world have had nothing to do with folks who built up an audience on Mixer naturally. Names that come to mind are Covent and Kabby, who have built a decent sized audience and have been invested in the platform long-term, are probably the people Microsoft should be investing in now.
For all you wrestling fans out there, an analogy: you can't be an alternative to WWE by just buying a couple of former WWE stars and building your product around them. You have to make your own stars. Mixer could be like AEW, and strategically use a few former stars to build new ones. But right now, they're looking more like TNA. I hope they can figure it out.
True. I already forgotten about it. But you need to wait 24 hours after completing this tutorial before you can start streaming
Switching to a different, free video streaming platform is a comically benign change to make if you actually enjoy the content you're consuming. It's like ditching a show because they moved to ABC from CBS when you have access to both.
Not gaming on Xbox or PC... I actually forgot Mixer was a thing. It's like the Bing of Streaming. Or the Zune of MP3 players. Or the Edge of web browsers.
But there are tons of streamers, why go through the effort? Especially with Mixer, a platform that bombards the user with tons of ancillary garbage. If I'm into watching streams, I'm not sure I want to deal with Skills, Mixplay and weird animations.
When a show leaves Netflix, I'm not subscribing to some other service for it, I'm watching something else.
In my experience, when senior leaders in most companies label someone or their contributions as negative what they really mean is "We know this won't work but there is enough money or political capital invested in X that we can't stop, so please just shut up and get on board or we'll pull out the "not a team player" on your next performance review."
Looking at the activity on Mixer is really sad, and it's a bummer because the tech is really good. But Ninja barely pulling 6-8k on that platform seems like a huge waste of money and has to be kind of a bummer for him when it comes to streaming, but great for the cash he got up front.
So "really good but ignored because not popular enough?" You should add Windows Mobile in the mix as well. Post "Evil MS" has a big issue getting products and services "over"
Dr. Disrespect was right, you can't buy a community. I do find it weird we don't hear a lot about Youtube streaming getting a revamp with Mixer out there now with big streamers.
Seems to be just kind of there as an option rather than a go to for streamers.
Seems to be just kind of there as an option rather than a go to for streamers.
A lot of your comparison is more on Youtube Gaming, Mixer is lesser than that
Youtube has its own audience that is way bigger than Twitch, and tons of gaming channels that drive a lot of traffic. I assume they think of streaming as more of an add on to their service these days.
But they do sign exclusives; recently, they had an agreement with ActivisionBlizzard for E-Sports league exclusivity.
I think this is also a reason why initial special offer or free subscription sign ups don't really give a proper picture of potential success. Over 1m subs, but less 10k viewers on Mixer.