Streamer Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins has spoken out against fans and fellow streamers who have criticized him for his dwindling viewership figures on Mixer compared to Twitch, particularly from Turner ‘Tfue’ Tenney.
In their most recent public bust-up, of which there have been many, Tfue mocked Ninja’s viewership on his new platform of choice, which has seen a significant drop since his high-flying days on Twitch.
It’s no secret that Tfue and Ninja don’t see eye-to-eye, but Blevins has not taken kindly to this dig at his channel’s numbers, speaking out during a stream on June 2.
For a recap of Ninja and Tfue’s turbulent history, first watch our breakdown of their rivalry:
After a viewer prompted Ninja to comment on his concurrent viewing numbers, he said “I don’t care. So many people, it’s their number one roast. Both times Tfue tried insulting me, he’s talking about ‘how I need clout, my views are going down.’
“Taking pictures of the lowest that my stream numbers are every day. Dude, I’m still pulling on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, millions of views. When I upload Fortnite to YouTube, I get millions of views.
Seemingly responding directly to Tfue, Ninja continued, “I’m doing just fine man. Just because my livestream numbers are down because I’m on a platform that contains less than 5% total hours livestreaming watched a year.”
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He went on to say that pulling 10,000 concurrent viewers on Mixer is akin to pulling 80-90,000 viewers on Twitch, due to the already larger viewership base that naturally exists on Twitch.
He also highlights Michael ‘shroud’ Grzesiek, another of Twitch’s most popular channels who moved to Mixer. “The fact shroud and I can stream tournaments and pull 10,000 viewers or more on Mixer […] is incredible.”
He also criticized other figures in the scene for mocking Mixer in general, in particular calling out esports journalist Rod ‘Slasher’ Breslau, who has often joked about Mixer’s comparatively low viewers.
“I’ve said this before, like Slasher dude, he’s trolling, but it doesn’t matter,” Ninja explained. “Every time there’s a huge live event going on, he’s like ‘2 million viewers watching on Twitch, 1 million on YouTube, seven and a half on Mixer.”
“Moving to Mixer was massive, and it wasn’t just for me,” Ninja concludes, “I didn’t do it just for me either. One of the main reasons was that if we do this, it’s going to set the precedent that a lot of platforms are going to have start paying to keep, and paying people to move, platforms.”
While Ninja’s viewership has undoubtedly seen a massive drop since moving to Mixer (as has shroud’s), he clearly still feels it was the right move in the long run, and not just for himself. Many speculated that he simply moved for the financial incentive offered by Microsoft’s platform, but he argues there is more to it than that.