Ninja Announced He’s Leaving Twitch For Streaming Competitor Mixer

Ninja is leaving Twitch, a blow to the streaming service and likely another big payday for the most famous Fortnite player in the world. Tyler Blevins, the government name for the super video game streamer who got his own New Year’s Eve party in Times Square to ring in 2019, announced that he’s headed to streaming service Mixer exclusively.

Blevins announced the decision on Twitter with a video he shared on Thursday, staging a fake press conference where he answered questions about the move asked by reporters that were actually just him in various costumes.

He later shared a less professionally filmed video that explained a bit more about the decision, stating that he wants to get back to his “roots” as a streamer.

“I have been holding on to this for quite some time,” Ninja said, “I’m just super excited to let everyone know. I’ll be streaming on Mixer full-time now and I’m honestly at a loss for words. I’m freaking out in the best ways. I feel like I’m going to get back to the streaming roots.”

Twitch is the go-to streaming site for gamers of all kinds — it’s basically a generic term for video game streaming at this point. But it’s not without competitors, including Mixer, which Blevins is heading to exclusively. According to The Verge, Twitch shared a statement about the loss of its biggest streamer.

“We’ve loved watching Ninja on Twitch over the years and are proud of all that he’s accomplished for himself and his family, and the gaming community. We wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors,” Twitch said.

Mixer is a streaming service is owned by Microsoft and was first called Beam when it launched in 2016. It was rebranded a year later, and 2019 seems to be the year when it makes a big push to compete with the likes of a Ninja-less Twitch and sites like YouTube.