Tyler Blevins, better known by his online persona Ninja, reportedly received 20-30 million dollars to move from Twitch to Microsoft's Mixer. Ninja had made a huge name for himself as a Twitch streamer by playing games like Fortnite. Prior to his retirement from Twitch he owned the most subscribed channel at 14 million followers.
Ninja began his video game career in 2009 when he began playing Halo 3 professionally. During this time period he played for several professional gaming teams like Team Liquid and Luminosity Gaming. He eventually began streaming H1Z1 in 2011 and then moved to playing PUBG. In 2017 his skills at PUBG were so well-developed that he actually won the PUBG Gamescom Invitational Squads classification. This, combined with the fact that he began streaming the newly released Fortnite shortly thereafter, propelled him to internet stardom on Twitch. By March of 2018 Ninja had over 2 million subscribers to his Twitch channel. Fortnite even made a skin in game that was based on Ninja's likeness.
According to CNN (via GameSpot) Mixer paid Ninja anywhere from $20 to $30 million to leave Twitch. This information comes from Justin Warden, who is the CEO of marketing and talent management of company Ader, who claims to have an inside source that informed him of the deal. This will be a multi-year deal for Ninja, and it is likely that this is the largest deal a streamer has been offered for streaming exclusivity. While Ninja was forced to leave behind his followers on Twitch, he gained over one million followers on Mixer in less than a week - though part of that was due to the free subscription promotion Mixer ran to celebrate his addition to the platform.
Ninja isn't the only big streamer to leave Twitch recently. In the last year there has been a very large exodus from the popular streaming site as competitors entice streamers with large exclusivity deals. For example, streamer Disguised Toast recently abandoned Twitch to begin working with Facebook Gaming. Disguised Toast had gotten offers from Twitch, Mixer, and YouTube as well before deciding that Facebook was the most lucrative deal. Other streamers that have retired their Twitch accounts recently include Shroud, Valkyrae, and FaZe Ew0k. At this point Twitch has lost the majority of it's top video game streamers.
Twitch has long been the undisputed leader of video game streaming. Millions of fans tuned in every single day to watch their favorite streamers play video games. As the market grew though, a significant portion of large tech companies decided to use their checkbooks to take Twitch's highest profile stars. While Twitch has attempted to counter these offers, they obviously haven't been able to keep up with the amount of money that streamers are being offered. This trend of major content creators departing the platform could very well be the beginning of the end for Twitch - and the rise of Mixer to take its place.