Ninja announced his permanent move from Twitch today, surprising every one and leaving behind the biggest streaming audience in the world in hopes they will follow him to Microsoft's Mixer. Microsoft had thrown their hat into the ring by acquiring Ninja and finally representing legitimate competition for Twitch, while on Mixer, Ninja will have virtually zero competition whatsoever.
Whether Ninja pulls in big number on Mixer or not, it's safe to assume that the deal he made with Microsoft was substantial enough to take the leap, at least for the next few years. You can trust this was a smart financial decision for Ninja, but another, possibly even stronger motivating factor to the deal is one that the casual audience may not even realize: Ninja's just not the top-dog on Twitch anymore, and that really, really bothers him.
If You're Not First, You're Last
Ninja is by far the most famous pro-gamer, that's undebatable. From appearing on Ellen to doing the floss dance on the Times Square NYE show, Ninja is as about a household name as someone that's famous for being good at a video games can be. It may be difficult to believe then that while Ninja is still huge, he's no longer the biggest name on Twitch and in fact, isn't even the biggest name in Fortnite.
There are a million and one ways to analyze Twitch views. Twitchmetrics does a pretty good job of presenting a variety of data, and one of the best ways to compare streamers is by their month-over-month growth. Just in the last month, Fortnite holds the top spot, while Fortnite World Cup winner Bugha is number two (expect to see that name come up A LOT in the coming months; he's going to be a bonafide star in the game.) The number three spot is someone who's channel has been growing steadily over the last couple years, and represents the single greatest threat to Ninja's popularity: Tfue. And where is Ninja on the list? He's number 16.
Granted, there's a lot of fraud going on on Twitch right now, and many of the top 10 spots are (most likely) using bots to boost their numbers. So lets compare each streamer to themselves a year ago. 2018 was the year of Ninja and the peak of his popularity, he averaged 70,000 viewers in each stream and peaked at a staggering 616,693 viewers. This year, Ninja is averaging just 36,000 viewers and peaked at 257,993 viewers in January.
Tfue's numbers, on the other hand, are only getting stronger. While he averaged 26,000 viewers in 2018 with a peak of 152,000, so far this year he is averaging 50,000 viewers and has peaked at 290,000. Tfue is 2017 Ninja right now, growing at an accelerated rate, nearly about to break into mainstream fame. Ninja, on the other hand, despite having double the followers of Shroud and Tfue, is bottoming out. If you watch his stream, it's clear he knows it, and he hates it.
Ninja Vs. Tfue: The Cycle Of Twitch Life
There are some identifiable reasons why Tfue's channel is out-pacing Ninja's. First of all, Tfue may very well just be better at the game. Tfue plays Fortnite competitively for Faze Clan and has pulled in over half a million dollars from tournament wins. He qualified for the Fortnite World Cup last month, which Ninja did not, and he plays Fortnite on his stream exclusively while Ninja has evolved into more of a variety streamer. Tfue is the more serious Fortnite player, which means Ninja is the casual.
People like to give Ninja a hard time about Tfue's popularity because he tends to react in a way that says, "I know you're joking, but it's true." Streamers have seen Tfue's growth happening and it's easy to connect his rise to Ninja's inevitable fall, and the ribbing clearly makes Ninja insecure and defensive.
It isn't just Tfue that Ninja's worried about either. When Dr Disrespect returned from his E3 ban, he joked about gaining more subs than Ninja. Rather than laughing it off and moving on, Ninja tried to defend himself as if this was a legitimate attack on his brand. It's clear from these clips that Ninja needs to be in the spotlight, and Microsoft is giving him the opportunity to do that once again.
An Oasis Called Mixer
So, Ninja is jumping ship and going to the smaller pond where he can be the big fish he's used to being, and honestly, who could blame him? He's most assuredly getting a multi-year contract worth tens of millions, he'll be the face of Mixer and will be able to help shape the platform's future, and frankly, Mixer is kind of just a better platform than Twitch.
It's more feature-complete, more stable, and has deeper pockets than Twitch. Microsoft has a lot invested in Mixer, the only thing they don't have is an audience; securing Ninja is going to start to fix that problem immediately. It's a great situation for everyone, including viewers, because competition breeds better products. The only one losing here is Twitch, and after everything they've put us through this month, I hope they're going to step up and become a platform worth staying on. If Microsoft starts buying all the big names like Epic is doing with Steam, there's nothing Twitch can do to stop viewers from going with them. If that happens, we'll all have Ninja to thank, and in the end, that's all he wants anyway.