5 Ways Gamers Can Make Money

You're sick of your 'rents having a strop every time you game in your room for an hour or two. You hear your mum repetitively saying: "You should be doing your homework" in your fever dreams. You wish being paid to game wasn't just a pipe dream... 🎮 

Well, ugh, gaming is actually far from a pipe dream nowadays. Riot Games’ League of Legends Championship Series was the third most popular sport in America, behind footy and b-ball. There's a tonne of people creating careers through live-streaming video game content on Twitch and YouTube. 2019’s Fortnite World Cup shook the world into taking video gaming seriously after 16-year-old Kyle Giersdorf won $3 million in front of a packed stadium.

So tell your 'rents to bugger off (but nicely please) the next time they tell you to switch off the X-box. You're preparing for a thrilling, successful life.So here are some ways gamers can make money. 💰

1. Prize Money 🤑

Prize money is the oldest and simplest form of making dosh as a professional gamer. Think of it as playing golf or tennis. If a player places high enough in a tournament, they receive a portion of the tournament’s prize pool. This is more popular for single-player focused titles, however, team competitions in major tournaments (such as Dota 2’s The International) often share prize pools with the players who competed on behalf of the organisation.

So get practicing! 

2. Streaming 👩‍💻

Streaming on Twitch rn is the most popular way for non-competitive gamers to make a living in the video game world. Twitch streamers can earn smackeroos by becoming a partner, which allows channels to charge subscribers a fee for access to content. 

A streamer with 2,000 Tier 1 subscribers alone can take home roughly $5,000 a month (2,000 * $2.50). Meanwhile, a popular streamer with twice the subscriber base and higher rates can earn $14,000 a month (4,000 * $3.50). Oh and don't stop at $14,000. Monthly earnings can be higher which is genuine madness!

3. Game tutorials, reviews and guides 👾

Newbies love watching guides, especially for multiplayer player-versus-player (PvP) games.

If you wanna be Yoda in the gaming world, you could create a website for written guides, upload video guides to YouTube, or publish guides as ebooks. The first two are often monetised with ads and/or donations, whereas the ebook route earns bank through sales.

Speaking of Youtube, many professional gamers have editors reduce down a full, eight or ten-hour streaming session into a ten to twenty-minute Youtube vid.

4. Sponsorships ⭐️

Sponsorships are a high-paying source of income for both professional players and streamers. 

Beverage brands such as Red Bull, Monster Energy, and Mountain Dew, and computer companies such as Intel and AMD, all have sponsorships with high-profile players and teams. In turn, the organisations and players endorse their sponsor’s products on their Twitch streams and social media, use their products, and feature in commercials. Pretty neat huh?

5. Test games 🕹️

This sounds like a dream right?!

See, games go through a many phases of development before they're released. Developers need outsiders to playtest their games with fresh eyes so as a  playtester, your job would be to to suss out everything the developer wants you to look at, which includes finding and documenting bugs and other issues.

The gaming world has come pretty far since Space Invaders, so get amongst it!