Welcome to Part 1 of The Updatables. When Ninja signed an exclusive deal with Mixer back in August 2019, it started a bidding war for individual creators between Twitch, Youtube, Mixer and Facebook. This is a concise and curated resource with everything that's going on in the Streaming Wars. Besides exclusive deals with streamers, teams, tournaments, leagues and media players, you'll find the platforms' main developments and partnerships adding value to their product.
Ninja (Tyler Blevins) signs an exclusive streaming deal with Mixer. The first of its kind.
A multi-year deal worth $30 million. Ninja's agency, Loaded, negotiated the contract.
Shroud (Michael Grzesiek) signs an exclusive deal with Mixer.
A multi-year deal worth $10 million. Shroud is also represented by Loaded.
King Gothalion (Cory Michael) signs an exclusive deal with Mixer.
CourageJD (Jack Dunlop) signs an exclusive deal with Youtube Gaming.
Twitch makes Twitch Studio Beta available for everyone.
Ewok (Soleil Wheeler) signs an exclusive deal with Mixer.
DisguisedToast (Jeremy Wang) signs an exclusive deal with Facebook Gaming.
ZeRo (Gonzalo Barrios) signs an exclusive deal with Facebook Gaming.
Twitch secures multi-year exclusive deals with some of their biggest streamers:
Twitter releases their 2019 Gaming Report. Most talked about gaming personalities:
Valkyrae (Rachell Hofstetter) signs an exclusive deal with Youtube Gaming.
Google partners with Activision Blizzard, giving to Youtube exclusive broadcast rights for:
Juked.gg announces $800K pre-seed funding to build the TV guide for esports.
For the first time, we're able to watch streams from different platforms in the same spot.
Ronda Rousey signs an exclusive deal with Facebook Gaming.
Pokimane (Imane Anys) signs exclusive deal with Twitch.
DrDisrespect (Herschel Beahm IV) signs exclusive deal with Twitch.
Twitch introduces a new category: Twitch Music.
Twitch introduces a new category: Twitch Sports.
Twitch partners with SoundCloud.
Typical Gamer (Andre Rebelo) signs exclusive deal with Youtube Gaming.
Facebook Gaming launches a tournaments platform for esports amateurs.
Twitch introduces Twitch Parties.
The owners of the agency Loaded launch Popdog Beta, a platform where you can watch every single stream from Twitch, Mixer, and Youtube in the same spot.
With streaming platforms signing exclusive deals left and right, people have been jumping from one website to the other. Popdog joins Juked into the race to centralize streaming.
The Switch to Twitch — Spotify for Artists' Product Lead, Tracy Chan, joins Twitch.
Facebook launches Facebook Gaming on Google Play.
ESL and DreamHack partner with Twitch.
Twitch introduces a new category: Esports Directory.
Twitch introduces a new look for channel pages.
Twitch introduces giftcards.
Twitch secures multi-year deals with some of their biggest streamers:
Twitch Studio Beta comes to Mac.
Microsoft's Mixer dies, Facebook Gaming buys it.
Facebook offered double for the original Mixer contracts of Ninja and Shroud, but both of them and their agency Loaded rejected it and forced Mixer to buy them out. Ninja made $30 million and Shroud $10 million. They are now free agents, the biggest W we've ever seen so far.
Ninja (Tyler Blevins) comes back to streaming, this time on Youtube. No exclusivity yet. Peaked at 160K viewers.
The rapper, Logic, announces his retirement from music and signs exclusive deal with Twitch.
T1 signs an exclusive deal with Twitch.
Ninja (Tyler Blevins) streams again with Twitch, still no exclusivity yet.
DrDisrespect (Herschel Beahm IV) was banned from Twitch back in June 27. On Aug 6, he returned to streaming on Youtube without exclusivity, didn't even show his face on stream and peaked at 335K viewers. His real comeback was on Aug 8, also on Youtube, peaking at +500K viewers.
Facebook Gaming launches on iOS.
Amazon introduces Prime Gaming.
It makes sense given that they have the opportunity to bring streaming, developing and a gaming products store in the same spot. Amazon's gaming category exploded in revenue during the first semester of 2020, so now they're feeling ambitious.
Shroud (Michael Grzesiek) re-signs an exclusive deal with Twitch. Peaks at +500K viewers.
Ewok (Soleil Wheeler) re-signs an exclusive deal with Twitch.
King Richard (Richard Nelson) signs an exclusive deal with Facebook Gaming.
Twitch introduces Versus (BETA).
Competition tools for tournament organizers, players and viewers from all backgrounds. The Beta goes out first to collegiate leagues, game developers, Twitch Rivals and Twitch Creators.
Ninja (Tyler Blevins) re-signs an exclusive deal with Twitch.
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