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Microsoft’s Mixer Lures Top Gamer Away From Amazon’s Twitch

Luring Tyler Blevins, who also streamed on Alphabet’s YouTube, is a coup for Mixer, a relative upstart in streaming video.

Microsoft’s Mixer Lures Top Gamer Away From Amazon’s Twitch
Tyler Blevins, known as Ninja, takes a selfie photograph with attendees after winning the Epic Games Inc. Fortnite: Battle Royale Celebrity Pro Am on the sidelines of the E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, California, U.S. (Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, a gaming phenom who draws millions of fans to watch him play via streaming, is jumping to Microsoft Corp.’s Mixer platform.

The move is a blow for Amazon.com Inc.’s Twitch, a rival streaming service where Blevins has dominated viewership over the past two years. At 14.7 million followers, he has more than twice as many as the next-closest streamer. Earlier this year, he set a record of 667,000 viewers watching at once, breaking his own previous record of 628,000.

Luring Blevins, who also streamed on Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube, is a coup for Mixer, a relative upstart in streaming video. Microsoft is betting that Blevins’s appeal will be strong enough to drag esports fans away from the bigger services they’re familiar with.

Blevins, known mainly for playing the battle-royale game Fortnite, will have his first Mixer streaming event Friday through Sunday during the Lollapalooza 2019 music festival in Chicago.

“My roots as a gamer started with Halo, so working with Microsoft and coming over to Mixer felt like a natural next step,” Blevins said in a statement, referring to the Microsoft first-person-shooter game.

Terms of the exclusive contract with Microsoft weren’t disclosed.

To contact the reporter on this story: Randall Williams in New York at rwilliams407@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net, John J. Edwards III, Rob Golum

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.