We Finally Understand Why Ninja Left Twitch

It's now been over a month since Tyler Blevins, better known as Ninja, left Twitch behind in favor of Mixer and what we presume are greener pastures. But Ninja's departure wasn't without controversy on Twitch's end, and it seems at the time, Ninja's wife Jessica had a lot to say about the way Twitch treated her husband.

After Ninja departed Twitch, the platform took over his page and used it to promote other streamers. As a result, viewers who weren't aware of Ninja's departure were instead shown completely unrelated feeds instead. And making it worse, one of the accounts Twitch promoted at Ninja's former URL happened to be one broadcasting very adult content, leading some out-of-the-loop Ninja fans to see some things they weren't quite ready for.

A very upset Ninja took to Twitter to apologize to his fans and call out Twitch for their actions. "Well now, there was a p-- account that was #1 being recommended on my channel, and I have no say in any of this stuff." "so for anyone who saw that, for anyone whose kids - or who just didn't want to see that - I apologize, and I'm sorry." Twitch claimed it was an experiment gone wrong, though according to Ninja, this "experiment" was limited solely to his URL.

Twitch CEO Emmett Shear apologized for showing adult content to unsuspecting viewers, but not for commandeering Ninja's old page, though they eventually put Ninja's Twitch content back where it belonged. Ninja's wife, Jessica Blevins, offered up her two cents as to what Twitch was doing in the wake of her husband's departure.

"Twitch is doing PR control right now but it seems their intent from the beginning was to try to kill Ninja brand. They say promoting other channels on his page wasn't of ill-intent, but here is a Twitch co-founder saying RIP with a winky face to Tyler's transition.

Petty." Her accusation that Twitch was intentionally trying to damage the Ninja brand would be tough to prove, except for the fact that Twitch took unprecedented action when it "borrowed" Ninja's URL for the purposes of promoting other streamers. The platform doesn't seem to have done that at any other point, with any other streamer, making it certainly look like a very petty move indeed.

And that's not all Jessica Blevins had to say about her husband's time at Twitch and his future with Mixer. In an interview with Business Insider, she dished on the factors that led to Ninja's departure from Twitch, and what Microsoft has done differently that still — to this day — makes her feel good about the decision.

"With the wording of how that contract was going, he wouldn't have been able to grow his brand much outside of gaming." Not only that, the couple took Tyler's mental well-being into consideration. How happy was he streaming on Twitch? As it turns out, not very.

Jessica said, "I could tell you, as his wife, the last few months on Twitch, he just didn't seem like the Ninja that I knew. He didn't seem as enthusiastic, as loud, as hyped-up about wins and motivated to stream. It really seemed like he was kind of losing himself and his love for streaming." And then, like the perfect match in a romantic comedy, Mixer appeared to make Tyler and Jessica Blevins forget all about Twitch and how it had mistreated them.

Twitch and Ninja weren't able to hammer out a new deal despite months of negotiations. On the other hand, signing on the dotted line with Mixer took just a few weeks. Blevins said, "This is the first time we really felt like this is what's right for the brand." She added that the move to Mixer "was a leap of faith, and Microsoft's been nothing but amazing to us." It makes you wonder: will other Twitch streamers hear the good word about Ninja's experience with Mixer and try to get a deal themselves? We know that some have expressed interest jokingly in some cases about leaving Twitch for its rival.

Dr Disrespect famously said he'd leave Twitch if he got a deal like Ninja's, even though no one at the time had details on the deal Ninja got. It's also possible, though, that Mixer signing Ninja to an exclusivity deal is a one-off thing. He is, for the most part, a family-friendly streamer who can go on daytime talk shows and prime-time singing competitions and appear wholesome.