People generally think that playing video games for the better half of all-day while at home is not a sustainable income source. This is where Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf comes into the picture and debunks this mindset.
Kyle is a professional Fortnite player. At the age of sixteen, he was crowned the Fortnite World Cup Solo champion and won a cash prize of $3 million. This is enough to validate that any person of any age can earn money through video games if they’re enthusiastic enough!
However, it’s not all fun and games, pun intended. Like every other job, you will have to put in hard work, and only through sheer determination can you make a living out of this hobby. With the vast number of games coming out now and then, there are many ways of earning money. Here are a few:
Getting Paid To Play For Someone Else
Many companies hire skilled gamers on a professional basis. These include corporations that associate themselves with the gaming industry or even game developers themselves. Additionally, regular players who sometimes don’t have enough time on their hands to level up characters usually end up paying other players to do the job for them.
Selling Accounts
People buy and sell gaming accounts all the time. This is an excellent way to make big bucks if you’re a hardcore gamer. For instance, Genshin Impact is rapidly increasing in popularity. If your familiar with the game, you can buy genshin impact accounts, level them up, and re-sell them for a profit. However, this is extremely grindy and time-consuming. Alternatively, you can invest in well-played accounts and re-sell them for an even high profit.
Streaming
Another popular way of making money that many professionals are using is streaming. YouTube and Twitch have become increasingly popular streaming platforms over the years in the gaming community. Millions of viewers are active on Twitch every day to watch streams of their favorite streamer playing a video game. If you have a large audience, you can get paid by donations made by the viewers.
Streamers lie-stream the game, post walkthroughs, hold contests, and create all sorts of content that gamers love to watch. Some of the views end up donating money, while sometimes viewership is gated with a subscription fee. Additionally, you can also earn money if some company sponsors your channel via paid promotions.
However, streaming is not easy. Having a decent number of viewers is hard to maintain. You need to produce a steady stream of quality content to keep the viewership up. Are you ready for committing that much time?
Gaming Guides
If you’re not a streamer, then you could try making gaming guides and publishing them on Youtube and Patreon. Not many websites and channels make useful guides on single-player and multiplayer games. Some are difficult to understand, while some are just plain bad!
The key to successfully running a channel or website dedicated to game guides lies in creating content that is easy to understand and provides gamers with useful information. Lore videos, how-to guides, and top-10 are extremely popular. Youtube channels can be monetized after you reach a specific subscriber count. Patreon, on the other hand, is excellent for posting exclusive content as it has a subscription model.
Game Tester
One of the most underrated ways of making money from gaming is to become a game tester. Many games are now MMOs, and there are way too many variables to look into before a game is finally released. Here’s where game testers come into the picture. The job entails playing alpha and beta versions of yet-to-release games for quality assurance purposes. This includes class balance, game mechanics, UI/UX features, quest design, and identifying bugs.
However, you will have to build your reputation as a credible resource with sufficient expertise to become a freelance game tester from home. Having a diverse knowledge of games helps.
Game Journalism
Unlike conventional journalism, game journalism is a task that a=can be carried out from the comfort of your home! Game Journalism is another way of making money while you play video games from home. As a game journalist, you will get paid for curating content for publications related to video games. You can buy a game that has been recently released, play it, and review it. If you’re writing for an online or offline publication, you’ll get paid accordingly. Alternatively, you can opt to become an influencer by enhancing your authority in the field by producing quality content. However, this isn’t an easy feat to accomplish. It requires hours and hours of playing numerous games and understanding them thoroughly.
Resource Farming
A new method of earning money from gaming is by farming resources to sell them to other players in a game. Yes, gold farming is an actual profession! A large number of people play a game, farm it’s basic courency, which is usually gold, and then sell that to other players for real money. This is extremely popular in MMO RPGs such as World of Warcraft and Runescape. However, game publishers are now actively taking steps to ban this practice. So you might want to avoid taking this route altogether!
Conclusion
As the gaming community is increasing every day, ways to earn money from gaming are also growing. Naturally, spending hours gaming is a prerequisite to maxing the benefits of using the hobby as a revenue stream. Additionally, monetization is possible with advertisements, sponsors, and donations. And if you’re good enough, you could land a full-time job with a big shot game publisher. Now, doesn’t that sound like fun!
