Making money while playing games is the latest internet craze and everyone’s dream job. And with so many stories of it happening more and more, everyone has the same idea, “Why Not Me?”. This idea led to thousands of gamers starting their own youtube channels expecting large payouts. But the truth is that it isn’t as easy as it looks. The people that make money working at home put in just as much as anyone else, if not more. With that being said it does not mean it is an impossible task. If you are a dedicated person and have something to offer the world, you can potentially make money playing games.
6 Real Ways People Make Money Playing Games
Streaming
Game streaming is the most lucrative and most fun method of making money playing games. But it is also one of the most difficult to be successful at. Every year thousands of gamers start their own unsuccessful twitch channel expecting fast results and a faster payout. What they fail to consider is that most profitable streamers put in a lot more work than it looks. To be a successful game streamer, you have to be dedicated to the end goal and be prepared to not make money for a long time.
The most important part is deciding on a streaming routine and sticking to it. If you don’t follow a schedule then you will have a hard time finding people to watch you regularly. Even if you gain fans, they will not know when they should tune it. The second important part of being successful is finding your niche. If you are working alone there is no way you are going to compete for the big words. What you have to do is go after some of the more obscure niches and work your way up. The easiest way to do this is to play a game that no one else is playing. The final important factor in successful game streaming is charisma. You have to give people a reason to watch you. Most streamers exaggerate their best qualities and tone down their worse to create a streaming persona.
Life of a game streamer isn’t all fun and games like most people believe. It takes loads of work and an absorption amount of time to get started. You have to treat it like a real job and if you do, then real money can be made. This is why so many gamers turn to it as a way to make money playing games.
Creating Game Guides/Walkthroughs
Creating your own video game guides and walkthroughs is a great way to make money playing games. It is almost like streaming, but rather than just entertaining the viewer you are also teaching them. Every year games are released that confuse gamers and leave them puzzled and looking for answers. By making a guide/walkthrough you will provide them with those answers. This method of content creation also allows the creator to have a lot more control over the final output. Making it perfect for unconfident creators searching for their voice.
Unlike streaming, the key to making money with walkthrough videos is to produce large amounts of quality content. While volume always matters, streams earn income from loyal followers and walkthroughs do through people looking for answers. Instead of capturing the views of random people, you are now looking for people seeking help on a particular topic. Not every gamer will get stuck on the same part of the game. So you have to produce a large number of videos focusing on each of the topics. To produce good content with this method you will also need to extensively edit your videos. If you are willing to spend the time needed to produce content on a regular basis, you can make money.
eSports Tournaments
eSports is a highly talked about, but rarely used, method of making money playing games. This is because to make money in eSports you have to be the best of the best. Despite this, the extremely large payouts of eSports tournaments have been drawly the attention of thousands of potential winners. This means that every year the competition becomes more fierce and difficult to compete with. In 2018, the winning team of the annual Call of Duty tournament took home an amazing $1.5 million for winning.
As stated above, to be successful at making money through eSports you have to be extremely talented. Not just good but great. You have to know all the secrets and shortcuts, and exactly how and when to implement them. Most competitive gamers have a practice routine and play the game until they are sick of it. If you believe your skills are really that good you should try getting picked up by a known team. It hard enough to find one person of eSports quality, much less an entire team of them.
Record Gaming Reviews
The market for game review videos is declining with the rise of streaming, but money still can be made. If you had a great personality you can essentially make money just talking about your favorite games. Talk about the mechanics or the plot, whatever you want, and give it a score. Another problem with this method is that it already had some major players. Most games have been reviewed but several people if not more already. But if you add your own personal flair to the video and bring up interesting points you have a chance. People love hearing about other people’s opinions on topics they find interesting.
Most video game reviewers tend to follow the same simple formula. They share basic facts about the game mixed in with a few jokes and finish up giving their final score. If you think you are a funny person that formula could work for you too. As the saying goes “if it isn’t broke, then don’t fix it”. If you aren’t funny and you can break the mold and go for a more serious approach. The key is finding your own gimmick.
Farming Gold and Items
Farming video games is a real method of making money while playing games. The problem with this method is that it does not pay very well. Most game gold farmers nowadays live in China because of the country’s low minimum wage. The concept is pretty straight forward, selling virtual gold for real-world money. If you have a high-level character in a popular game, you could repeat older levels and acquired a vast amount of in-game gold. You can then turn around and sell that gold on an online gold market for real money.
To make money farming gold and items in video games all you really need is a high-level character and a strategy. Sometimes this means repeating specific levels that have the highest enemies counts. And sometimes this requires building a character of a specific build allowing for large amounts of POE damage. The goal is to be able to move through a level a fast a possible while collecting anything of value the enemies drop along the way. If you can plan a strategy that will allow you to collect enough gold to sell for real profits, what’s stopping you?
Make Your Own Game
This one feels like a bit of a stretch, but you will have to spend countless hours playing your game to debug it, so we thought it counts. By learning to code or downloading a game making software you could potentially make millions. The most important part of this method is coming up with a great concept. You will be spending a large amount of time making the game so if you are unsure as to if it will sell, I’d reconsider. On the other hand, if you think you really have a good idea it worth taking the shot. You could even build a demo and look for crowdsources opportunities.
Predicting what will make a good game is something I can not do for you. Games of all sorts turn into global hits and what you think is a good idea good have big payoffs. Some tips to make a marketable game are to make it look good and play smoothly. This means to not rush on the in-game art or the coding. How a game looking pulls people in, and how it plays keeps them. Both very important aspects of selling a game.
Do you make money using any of the methods mentioned above? Do you know of a method to make money playing games we did not list? If you answered YES to either question I would love to hear about it in the comments.
