Ninja has returned to Twitch, one year after signing a $50m Mixer deal

Popular streamer Ninja has returned to Twitch, one year after signing a $50 million exclusivity deal with the now-closed Mixer.

At the time of publishing almost 100,000 people were watching Ninja stream Fortnite with another streamer, Dr Lupo.

The Twitch stream was announced on Ninja’s Twitter profile last night, but there’s no indication that the streamer will be signing exclusively with his former platform.

Ninja – whose real name is Tyler Blevins – reportedly received a payout in the region of $30 million following Microsoft’s decision to close Mixer and release him from his exclusivity contract.

Blevins is then said to have turned down an “insane offer” to move to Facebook Gaming, which is where Mixer’s members and sites were migrated to last month, according to esports consultant Rod Breslau.

Commenting on Mixer’s closure in June, Ninja said he was considering his next step. A month later, he briefly streamed on YouTube, although no official partnership was announced with the platform.

Ninja had some 14 million followers on Twitch before joining Mixer in August 2019.

Microsoft announced it was closing Mixer and transitioning all users to Facebook Gaming in June.

From July 22, all Mixer sites and apps redirected users to Facebook Gaming. Mixer Partners were granted partner status with Facebook Gaming, and Microsoft said it would honour and match all existing Partner agreements “as closely as possible.”