Microsoft officially has pulled the plug on its interactive live streaming service Mixer in favor of…well, Facebook Gaming. With the untimely demise of Mixer, the company’s live game-streaming efforts appear to have come to a standstill. Meanwhile, the Redmond-based company has joined hands with Facebook Gaming to help streamers successfully transition to their new live-streaming home over the next few weeks.
Microsoft pulls the plug on Mixer
“We’re grateful for the collective work from the Mixer community in creating a welcoming, supportive, and positive place from day one,” said Phil Spencer, Head of Xbox.
The reason behind closing Mixer operations is the lack of capacity (or should we say unwillingness?) to scale the service for streamers.
“It became clear that the time needed to grow our own livestreaming community to scale was out of measure with the vision and experiences we want to deliver to gamers now, so we’ve decided to close the operations side of Mixer and help the community transition to a new platform.”
Now that Microsoft has announced its partnership with Facebook, Mixer streamers can find themselves a new home in the form of Facebook Gaming. Doors are open for interested streamers to join Facebook Gaming. What’s more, all Mixer websites and apps will redirect users to Facebook Gaming starting July 22, 2020. Microsoft says 700 million people play a game, watch a gaming video, or interact in a gaming Group on Facebook.
Microsoft Teams will make use of Mixer’s technologies and investments in livestreaming, real-time interactivity, and video distribution technology to build some new content-delivery experiences in the future.
How to transition from Mixer to Facebook Gaming
Mixer Partners will receive partner status with Facebook Gaming as well. If you are a Mixer streamer, you can visit FB.gg/Mixer to connect your Mixer account. All you need to do is follow the on-screen prompts. Go to facebook.com/gaming/mixer. Now, you can either choose ‘Connect Mixer Account’ or ‘Learn More.’ To connect your Mixer account, you will need to authenticate yourself by signing into your Mixer account.
Once viewers transition Facebook Gaming, Facebook will show Facebook Pages for all the available Mixer channels they follow. This way, viewers can easily follow their favorite streamers on Facebook.