Technology
Is It Game Streaming’s Turn for a Labor Revolution? – WIRED
After the demise of Mixer, livestreamers are taking a closer look at what their platform partnerships should look like.
Before streaming, QueenEliminator used to bartend. You know youre going to make money and more tips on a weekend, she says. Streaming is far more volatile. On a good day, 30 people might subscribe at $5 a person. One persons donation might start a train that earns her a plush $500. Other days, she might only get 15 subscriptions and no donations.
I can stream every single day and every single day is different, she says.
QueenEliminator says that, in the beginning, Mixer was transparent and communicative. A couple of times a week, she interfaced with her partner manager, an employee assigned to take her feedback and help her use the platform. There were focus groups, too, in a Discord server just for Mixer partners and employees. Over time, though, she and other streamers began to feel less heard.
There were so many dead promises. Broken promises is the correct term, but these were dead promises, she says. Mixer streamers wanted fans to be able to buy and gift multiple subscriptions to their friendsa major contributor to Twitch streamers income. The feature never came. Streamers wanted better viewership analytics, so they could actually understand who was watching them and how they could improve. That never happened, either. QueenEliminator began to feel discouraged. I felt like I was stuck there, that I was controlled. I hated it. I had no voice, she says. I felt like my life was not my life anymore, or that my career was not in my control.
Apparently, that sentiment was grounded in reality. In a harrowing Twitlonger post calling out racism he had experienced at Mixer, former Mixer community acquisition manager Milan Lee detailed an instance in which his boss, who worked with Mixer partners, described the partners as slaves and herself as the slave master in a meeting. I own their content. I control their success on our platform, Lee recalled her saying. (In a reply to his tweet, Mixer wrote, Our goal is to build a positive, welcoming, and inclusive team and community. To those sharing your stories; it’s unacceptable that we did not provide that for you. We’ll be vigilant in addressing this more diligently in the future. Microsoft did not respond to WIREDs request for comment for this story.)
In an interview with WIRED, Lee explained that the racially insensitive comment, and Microsofts reticence to hold his boss accountable, is endemic of a value problem. All these
