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Comment by sohamsankaran | Hacker News Reader

I wonder what happens to folks like Ninja with big exclusive deals.

>stars like Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, Cory “King Gothalion” Michael, and Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek — will be released from their contracts, and Microsoft says it’s up to them where they decide to go.

>“It’s up to them and their priorities,” says Vivek Sharma, the head of Facebook Gaming, meaning the platform isn’t actively pursuing exclusive agreements with any of Mixer’s biggest names.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/22/21298963/ninja-shroud-mix...

Really surprising move, considering that's the main thing Mixer had going for it. Facebook got the short end of the stick on this deal, considering they'll have to negotiate again with these Twitch streamers.

Now that these streamers have an idea how much engagement and money they'll be losing from switching platforms, they'll probably demand more from FB Gaming for an exclusivity contract. I haven't heard people talk about Mixer being a better platform or experience for streaming, so I'm not sure what FB gets out of this considering Mixer's talent was its most valuable asset.

It’d be very unfair to the streamers if they were forced over to FB Gaming. Good on Mixer and Facebook for making sure that didn’t happen.

Does this mean they don't get paid out for the remainder of their contract? These streamers took a massive brand hit by leaving twitch for so long...

They do get paid out -- I think I read that Ninja receives $30M and can now go back to Twitch.

It seems like they do. https://twitter.com/RLewisReports/status/1275139749716480000

$30M for not even a full year, and not even a gigantic brand hit (they seemed to retain their fanbase pretty well, and did well with Youtube clips) sounds like a great deal.

I'm curious about what the contracts the big streamers signed have to say about contract termination fees.

Apparently Ninja and Shroud were paid in full: $30M and $10M respectively. https://twitter.com/Slasher/status/1275145243478892544

This amount of money is crazy to me. Are these guys really that big of a draw? Are they just so good at the games they play or are they funny/entertaining?

They are entertaining enough to a big group of people and they managed to build and sustain their audience. It's like asking is Robert Downey Junior the best actor in the world. If you don't see the value that just means you aren't the target audience

You've read my comment wrong

2 summers ago when Ninja was really popular I did a back of the envelop calculation on total viewer hours over a year and it was roughly the same as a season of the Big Bang Theory.

Obviously not comparable for a variety of reasons (viewer quality, syndication, youtube clips) but that show was spending 100+ million on just the main cast.

Ninja is really marketable. He has merchandise sitting in Walmart, was on big tv shows like Ellen or hosting a NYC New Years Event.

He's the face of gaming for all the non-gamers right now.

Shroud is just a very good gamer and has a big audience, he's not that marketable compared but still worth a decent penny I guess. He's probably considered the best FPS streamer out there whenever a new game comes out. He's the go to for many.

They were all paid in full because their contracts were bound to the Mixer platform specifically.

Well, if they were paid in full, it's because that's how Ninja/Shroud and their lawyers were able to negotiate the contract. It's arbitrary. The contract could also have just been "contract terminated if Mixer ends".

“No I’m not signing that” is the magic spell to make that line disappear

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