Ninja, arguably the most popular game streamer in the world, believes it's time for a new video platform to overtake YouTube as the industry leader.
Tyler “Ninja” Belvins has frequently been in the news lately since he ended his exclusive contract with Twitch and moved to Microsoft's alternative, Mixer, in an alleged multimillion-dollar deal that was reportedly “in the low eight figures.” Microsoft's idea was that acquiring Ninja will bring over all his fans and exponentially speed up the adoption and growth of their platform. Around 15% of Ninja's fan base has followed him to Mixer.
Ninja seems fine though. On the last day of the decade, he released a sneaker in partnership with Adidas and it was reportedly sold out in all adult sizes within just 40 minutes.
Ninja has undoubtedly had success on not just Twitch but also YouTube before Mixer, but it seems he's just about tired of YouTube.
In a recent stream with Tim ‘TimTheTatman' Betar, Jack ‘CouRage' Dunlop and Dennis ‘Cloakzy' Lepore, he addressed the YouTube-exclusive CouRage saying: “Jack, I love you, and if you want me to shut up I will… I feel like if there was ever a time for another video platform to make a move… I feel like now is the time for someone to take on YouTube.” Tim responds that this will “never happen,” to which Ninja agrees, but also stresses that now is the perfect time to do it. “There are so many people complaining, and there's nowhere else to go,” he said.
What's more interesting is the rumor that Ninja shared next: “I've heard rumors, dude, that ads on gaming might be completely removed.” The team fell silent, likely preferring to assume it's not true and pretend it wasn't said.
The comments are made at the start of this video:
