Mixer, Microsoft’s Twitch Competitor, Adds Game Sales

Twitch has long allowed its transmitters to generate revenue from their channels through things like subscriptions, virtual tips and game sales. Microsoft is adopting one of those features for its own game playback service, Mixer, with today's "Direct Buy" release.

The addition will allow streamers to promote purchases, including game titles and other content, which are available for sale in the Microsoft store. It can support things like basic games, specific editions of games, downloadable content, add-on packages and more. All these elements can be purchased directly from the Mixer channel of the serial transmission, without having to leave the transmission.

In total, there are more than 5,000 games that will be available through Direct Purchase, including the titles of Xbox, Windows 10 and Xbox Play Anywhere, as well as downloadable content.

To use Direct Purchase, the Mixer broadcasters will first have to activate the feature and then select the content they wish to promote.

When a viewer makes a purchase, the digital content will be automatically added to your Xbox or Windows 10 game library for later download. No tokens or codes will be required for that to happen, says Microsoft.

Microsoft will pay the streamers 5 percent for each purchase from their channel. This is the same percentage that Twitch pays its members and affiliates, for the sake of comparison. But unlike Twitch, which makes the option to sell games available for both its medium-sized and superior streamers, Mixer is opening the function only to partners. (Those requirements are here.) More streamers will have access in the coming months.

The company had announced last month that direct purchase was coming along with other monetization features such as tips. However, right now it is being displayed in preview mode.

Over the next few days, the feature will begin to appear with some Mixer partners, and will end up being widely deployed on the platform in the coming months.