How to Make Money playing Games: the best ways
In today’s world, it is definitely possible to make money playing video games. But the truth is, doing so is quite a challenge.
Many of those who go this route will give up in a few years (or months) because the side job kills the fun of playing video games. Instead of turning what a person loves into a career to make some money, they end up hating what they once loved. It is a risky field due to the crowded market. But every success has a story, there are hundreds of people who have tried and failed over and over again until they made it.
Making your primary income heavily based on gaming is not something we recommend unless you are young and single and ready to commit to it for a few years knowing that it might all be for nothing in your early days.
Here are several possible ways you can start making money playing video games.
1. Earn money through live broadcasting
Anyone can broadcast their gameplay in real time for the world to see. You should aim to build a large audience (which you can monetize through ads) or a loyal audience (to monetize from donations and subscriptions). The biggest live streaming platform is Twitch, but YouTube is also an option.
Why is it hard to make money by podcasting
It takes a long time to build a target audience with live broadcasts. You can’t expect to get 10 simultaneous viewers for several months, and you may not get 100 simultaneous viewers for years. The truth is, most streamers never get to that point — And to make a living streaming video games, you’ll need thousands of regular viewers.
Broadcast oversaturated footage of what you’re playing. Why should someone watch you when there are so many other popular content streams to watch? This is the hard part. Stand out with your own brand of humor content or personality, by being a world class gamer, or by playing unique games that no one else is playing.
Getting started
Fortunately, the barrier to entry for live broadcasting is relatively low. All you need is a decent computer, some games the viewer wants to catch, a fun personality, and streaming apps. Make sure your internet upload speed is fast enough to handle streaming, as well as support the specs of whatever game you’re playing.
For PC gaming, we’ve gone over how to get started with Streamlabs OBS, which is a great option for beginners. If you’re playing on a dedicated gaming rig, you need a capture card, which is an additional expense.
2. Experience with gaming journalism and blogging
Do you fancy yourself a writer? Either join an existing website or create your own website and start writing news, reviews, and interviews of a particular new game, genre, or field. If you are writing for an existing website, you can get paid on a per article basis as a freelancer. If you start your own site, you can monetize your traffic through ads, Patreon subscriptions, or similar.
Why is it hard to make money blogging
As with most types of journalism, game journalism is competitive. Many users want to write about games for a living! If you’re writing for an existing website, chances are you’ll be working for next to nothing while you build your job profile and prove your skills. If you start your own website, it will take years to build an audience from which you can earn enough to live off of.
Journalism can be intense. To write news, you will need to make use of all kinds of sources around the clock to get the latest updates before others. Reviews and interviews take a lot of time to do right. All in all, daily writing can be a huge drain on mental energy.
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Look for vacancies on mid-sized gaming sites. Forget major gaming sites like IGN for the time being, and ignore startups that don’t have a readership. Make sure you have some writing samples on hand. Submit your request (writing samples included) and I wish you the best. If you don’t have any prior work to offer, consider volunteer writing for smaller sites first.
We don’t recommend launching a gaming site until you have several years of experience writing for an existing website. Writing day in and day out is hard enough. How about running a website on top of that? This is a whole new level of effort that can easily lead to burnout.
3. Create video game guides and tutorials
Many newcomers to certain games like to read the guides that are provided, especially for multiplayer (PvP) titles. Thus, there is a market for making money by providing useful information that these people would like to learn.
There are several ways you can provide game guides, such as creating a website for written guides, uploading video guides to YouTube, or publishing guides as e-books. The first two are often monetized through advertising and/or donations, while the e-book route generates revenue through sales that can be made.
Why is it so hard to make money with guides
Anyone can write a directory. To make any kind of money from it, you need to create guides for popular games — But the more popular the game, the more competition you will have. To set your gaming lessons apart, you’ll need to provide more insights than others can provide, which means investing a lot of time and setting yourself up as an expert.
Furthermore, you will need strong writing skills. Guides should be dense and comprehensive, but also entertaining and understandable. Formatting skills are essential, whether you’re publishing ebooks or writing for the web.
As an example, GameFAQs has a “Bounty Program” that rewards you with money for being the first person to write a comprehensive description of a game. These directories are paid for at least about $200, which sounds pretty cool. But when you factor in the amount of time you’ll need to spend perfecting the game and explaining every little aspect of it, you’ll earn far less than minimum hourly wages.
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Find a popular game, find out what problems players have, learn the ins and outs of that problem, and then teach others how to overcome it themselves.
In massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), target gold clues, leveling clues, and raid clues. For first-person shooters like Overwatch or Valorant, go to the build guides and mechanics guides. And for individual games, you’ll likely have the most success with guides focused on topics like earning a specific achievement/trophy.
4. Host a podcast or YouTube gaming channel
Do you have much to say? Try creating a daily, weekly, or monthly gaming view. The roundtable discussion can be opinion-based, a series of interviews with notable players, tips and tricks about a particular game, or anything else of interest.
Podcasts and YouTube videos can be monetized through ads, sponsorships, and other forms of YouTube monetization. In particular, this format can also be supported by Patreon subscriptions.
Why is it hard to make money with gaming discussions
You will need to build a large audience before you see any revenue. Your offer must be convincing enough for the player to trust. If it’s boring, superficial, of poor production quality, or inconsistent, the show won’t work.
In a way, this is like a mixture of guides (No. 3) and live broadcasts (No. 1). You need the knowledge and insight from the creator of the game guide, as well as the diligence and charisma of broadcasting.
On the plus side, the content of the podcast doesn’t have to be as deep as a game guide, and your personality doesn’t have to be as special as a broadcast. You can dedicate a channel to gaming news about a specific genre, for example.
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We’ve written about starting your own podcast and starting your own YouTube channel. Which you will find are good resources to start with.
5. Instant gaming tournaments and getting ad sponsorships
Tournaments are common for first-person shooter titles, such as fighting games. Of course, the more popular the game, the higher the prize pools. If you are skilled enough to join an electronic gaming organization, you may be able to earn a decent salary through earnings and sponsorships. Most of the competitive players also make use of the live stream (No. 1) for extra income.
Why is it so hard to win money with video game tournaments?
Not everyone has what it takes to win. You can be a world class player and still get eliminated early in the tournament and leave without any winnings. Even if you earn some cash, that may not cover the cost of hotels and flights. If you are not always on top, then forget about living off the winnings of the league tournaments.
Moreover, the field of electronic games is still relatively young. Even if you get a position on a esteemed team, the “salary” may be less than minimum wage. The field is plagued with many fraudulent companies that take advantage of gullible players. Stories of players not getting what they were promised have popped up from time to time.
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Find a popular PvP game with a lot of tournaments and a lot of interest from eSports organizations. And you have to practice and practice and practice some more. As you improve, connect and challenge other pro players to get your name out in the open. Consider starting small local tournaments for popular games, such as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. or CS:GO.
Being quite realistic, you will probably have better luck (and make more money) pursuing a career as a non-competitive player. This way, people will enjoy watching you even if you are not the best at all.
6. Earn money by testing games
Games go through various stages of development before they are released. Close to the time of completion, the developer needs some strangers to get an experience of his games with new eyes. As a player, your job is to check everything the developer wants you to look at, including finding and documenting bugs and other issues.
Why is it difficult to earn money by testing games
These days it’s not too hard to become a tester, but it can be a mind-blowing job. Playing in a way that intentionally breaks games gets boring quickly, especially if you have to keep checking the same places after every game review.
The pay is not great (on par with minimum wage or slightly better). And unless you can land an inside position at a big game development company, most of the game testing websites on the web are only for mobile games, and they aren’t as exciting as the versions for full game consoles and PC.
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For on-demand play testing, look for services at websites like PlaytestCloud, BetaFamily, and BetaTesting. Being an internal tester in a company is tougher. You will have to browse job boards, research companies for job postings, submit applications, and hope for the best. Looking for independent studios in your area can be a good way to get your foot in the door.
7. Selling accounts or digital items
If you’ve spent enough time in some games, you may be able to “trade” your account or in-game items to other players. For example, you can resell some Steam trading cards earned by playing games to players who want to collect them. Although you won’t make huge money from this, you may be able to earn enough to cover your next game purchase.
You may also be able to sell accounts. For example, in Overwatch it is considered a practice to use a “smurf” account (a secondary account well below the player’s actual skill level). Since you have to reach a certain level to play competitive matches, players who want to cheat may look to buy an account to save themselves time. Likewise, a player may pay you to improve their account rank if you are more skilled than they are.
There are other ways to promote your services; You might use websites like Fiverr to sell your Game Services to interested people. Maybe someone is single and just needs a game partner to hang out with for an hour, and they’ll pay for the privilege.
Why is it so difficult to make money from games in this way
While this form of gaming income requires less dedication than most of the above options, it’s still not perfect. Unless you already have additional accounts or rare items, the amount of time you have to spend to earn them makes it hardly worth pursuing.
Putting too much effort into a game just to earn new cards or reach a certain level is tedious, just like testing a game. There is no guarantee that someone will want to buy what you’re selling.
Depending on the terms of service for a particular game, selling your account or other items may be against the rules. Always make sure you’re not doing anything wrong before you try this.
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Find games you like to play and see what items sell for a good price. A site like PlayerAuctions helps connect buyers and sellers to acquire gaming items.
Making money playing video games is still a success
Games are fun because they give us a way to escape from reality. When games become your job, that aspect of escapism disappears — and most likely the fun will too. do you like playing? Think carefully before turning it into a potential career. You may regret following these ways to make money playing games.
If you still want to move on, chances are the discussed here are the best gaming-related ways to make a living right now. There are other video game jobs out there, but they don’t involve as much actual gaming as the above.
Of course, there is always the option to create your own game and earn money through sales, as well as in-app purchases or ads. But developing games takes a long time and requires an entirely different set of skills.