Streaming News: Twitch Picked Up Most Of Mixer's Streamers, Report Shows

Despite Microsoft’s efforts to push Mixers streamers to Facebook Gaming, it appears most of them went to Twitch instead, according to a new report.

Before Microsoft shut down Mixer in July, the company tried to direct its streamers and audience toward Facebook Gaming rather than the leading streaming platform. However, a report from Streamlabs & Stream Hatchet indicates that Twitch has become the ultimate beneficiary of Mixer’s closure.

Twitch’s share of hours broadcast on major live-streaming platforms jumped by over 14.5% in the last quarter. This is nearly identical to the 14.2% market share that Mixer held at one point. The report stated that Twitch “now represents 91.1% of the market share for hours streamed.”

The report, which looked at streaming activity on Twitch, YouTube and Facebook Gaming, directly credits Mixer’s shutdown as the reason for the massive increase.

According to the report, Facebook Gaming only grew by 1% between July and September, from 2.4% to 3.4%. YouTube market share actually shrunk by 1.2%, down from 6.7% to 5.5%.

When Mixer was formally shutting its doors, many of its streamers had already begun sending out links to their respective Twitch pages instead of Facebook Gaming accounts.

Microsoft executive vice-president for gaming Phil Spencer earlier stated that he had no regrets about shutting Mixer down but said he was disappointed that Mixer didn’t achieve what they hoped it would.

Still, it wasn’t all good news for Twitch as The Verge noted that the platforms are actually primarily competing for viewership. In that aspect, Twitch's market share is down from 67.6% to 63.6%. Both YouTube and Facebook Gaming gained viewership in this quarter.

With streaming viewership reaching new highs as a result of people being stuck at home in the face of a global pandemic, the numbers reflect that explosion as total viewership across Twitch, YouTube and Facebook Gaming reached 7.46 billion hours last quarter. That is a considerable jump from the 3.89 billion hours in the same quarter last year.