Ninja's return to Twitch may not be permanent
Ninja is back on Twitch, but Amazon's platform may not be his ultimate destination.
Tyler "Ninja" Blevins livestreamed on Twitch overnight, pulling in over 100,000 concurrent viewers at one point. Though some took this to mean that Ninja has returned to his former home on Twitch, this may not actually be the case.
Just like Ninja hosted an impromptu livestream on Youtube in July, last night's Twitch stream was similarly a way to test the waters. As many have already noticed, the "subscribe" button wasn't available on Ninja's stream, meaning he's not yet a Twitch affiliate/partner.
According to esports insider Rod Breslau, Ninja has not reached an exclusive agreement with Twitch, Youtube or any other streaming platform.
Both Ninja and Shroud are without a streaming platform right now, and Breslau's sources say the two are looking at deals with Twitch and Youtube, but all of that is in the negotiation phase.
Both streamers, of course, previously streamed on Mixer, after the Microsoft-owned platform inked exclusive deals with them in the hopes it would drive up adoption. With Mixer's shutdown, Ninja and Shroud are both free agents.
Before Mixer, Ninja and Shroud both built their names streaming exclusively on Twitch, so a return to Twitch makes the most sense.