Make Money Playing Games

  

Most people spend money to play video games. A small segment of the population actually does things the other way around: They make money by playing video games. If you’ve ever wondered how you could turn your gaming hobby into a paying gig, you’ve come to the right place. Here are four ways you can make money playing video games.

  • Numerous methods to make money online. Whether it is making money by freelancing.here is a way by which you can make money by playing online games.
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Play For Something. Make money playing video games on Players' Lounge. Madden, NBA 2K, Fortnite, Call of Duty, FIFA, & more!

1. Streaming

Thanks to the advent of video streaming sites like Twitch and YouTube Gaming, some lucky (and smart and talented) people are raking in cash by broadcasting their video game play sessions on the internet. It’s a good job if you can get it.

How to do it: Turning streaming into a lucrative business is a bit more complicated than it might sound at first blush. After all, building up a sizable audience willing to watch — and, ideally, pay for — your content is no trivial task.

First you need the gear. While PlayStation 4 and Xbox One let you stream games over Twitch using their built-in apps, most pro streamers use a game capture box and a PC to do the heavy lifting. And once you have your gear, you’ll also need to be charismatic and entertaining if you want people to keep coming back to watch you. Once you have that down, you’ll want to start streaming on a regular schedule so viewers know when they can tune in to catch you. Oh, and having a background in business won’t hurt, either, since once you have an audience you’ll probably want to work on partnerships and promotions.

Make

For a detailed look at all aspects of how to stream, check out this article from Tom’s Guide.

2. eSports

Source: Capcom

If you’re exceptionally skilled at certain games that are big in the competitive multiplayer scene, you can make money by competing in tournaments. Games like Dota 2, CounterStrike: Global Offensive, and Street Fighter V are all popular eSports games with tournaments that offer millions of dollars in prize money to the best players. You can find a list of eSports games, with information about their tournaments and prizes, here.

How to do it: This is one of the tougher ways to get paid to play video games because it’s all based on how skilled you are at the games in question. To get started, you’ll have to get good a game and start competing in tournaments. You can win money all by yourself in solo games, but for team-based games you’ll have to join up with a team. Many eSports players also earn money from sponsorships by companies like Red Bull and Adidas.

3. QA testing

Every major game developer has a team of quality assurance testers on staff to play games at various stages of development and comment on them. The thing is, QA testers don’t play games like normal customers do. They’re looking for bugs, so they have to spend lots of time in each section trying to “break” the game. Then they file reports based on their experiences.

How to do it: Look at job board postings at major development companies like Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Nintendo, and any other company that makes games you like. The downsides of QA testing are that you’ll almost certainly have to live near the studio to be a QA tester, and it’s an entry level job that doesn’t pay much.

4. Writing

Hemingway definitely would’ve written about video games if he’d been born later. | Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

If you have a talent for the written word, you can get a job writing about video games. Of all the jobs on this list, writing about games involves the least amount of time spent actually playing games. You’re being paid to produce words rather than to put time into video games. People who write about games spend much more time doing research, interviews, reporting, email, and actual writing than they do playing games.

Still, playing games is an essential part of most video game writing gigs, so if you enjoy shaping words into sentences and paragraphs, it’s a great way to get paid for doing two things you love. Also, writing about games means you’ll get many games for free, usually before they’re released to the public.

How to do it: If you want to get started writing about video games, the best thing to do is to start writing, period. You’ll need writing skills before anyone will pay you money to write about video games (or anything else, for that matter). Start a blog or start contributing to blogs on big gaming sites. Once you’ve written a few articles that prove you can write and you know what you’re talking about, start pitching story ideas to editors at gaming sites, using your blog posts as clips. If they’re accepted, you’re on your way to a job writing about video games.

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More from Entertainment Cheat Sheet:

Many people dream about transforming their gaming hobby into a career, but few realise just how feasible it is now to make a start in professional gaming.

However, with the arrival of Twitch, it's becoming a lot easier to start making money playing games. Big investors are also changing their attitude to the professional gaming industry - it's quickly becoming a multi-billion dollar business.

In this article, I'll focus strictly on ways to make you money without ever having to leave your home, which is the opportunity most of us wish we had!

Here are your options:

Game Testing (Sites That Will Pay You to Play Games)

We all play a lot of online games in our free time, so why not get paid for it in the process?

There are numerous sites such as Gamesville, Bananatic, LaLa Loot, Clip2Play, Cash Dazzle and Bingo! Zone that are looking for people to check out new games, earn a certain score, reach a certain level or win specific tournaments.

My advice would be to stick with just a few games at first, because it will take you some time to get good at a certain game and get paid a bit more than what you'll get in the beginning, so take your time and don't spread yourself too thin trying out a lot of new games at once.

You can also look for game testing jobs, which require you to look through games that are in development phase and find bugs and problems. You can find such jobs on PlaytestCloud, BestReviewApp, MyAppAware, BetaFamily, and ErliBird.

Game Journalism

As a gaming writing you will generally get paid per article, if you write for an already established site. Alternatively you can also create your own blog site and make money from ad revenue. However, starting your own publication might be very slow going at first. Usually it takes several years for a new website to break even and eventually start making money. And even longer to establish a highly profitable business.

Assuming you do choose to find work with an existing publication, you'll still need a strong portfolio of articles that you've written. These don't need to have been published yet, just evidence how talented you are at writing.

Finally, you should contact as many gaming publications as you can, including examples of your work. Be honest with them that you haven't been published yet and make sure you communicate how enthusiastic and knowledgeable you are. Once you do get accepted, make sure your name is included as the author - then you'll be a published gaming writer!

Guides and Walthroughs

Guides and walthroughs are really popular especially when a new game comes out. Newbies like to read through guides or watch them on YouTube, so if you consider yourself an expert in a game, and have a lot you'd like to share, you could either create your own YouTube channel and make video guides of popular games, or write articles for established websites. You can also publish them on your own blog if you have one.

Podcasts

You can do podcasts on popular games and gaming subjects. You don't have to know everything about gaming. You could simply voice and share your opinion with your audience, engage with them and even invite some guests on your podcast and discuss a certain topic together.

You could have daily, weekly or even monthly podcasts, but you will also need to have a strong following in order to monetize your videos.

Streaming (How to Make Money On Twitch)

When we think about game play streaming, most of us think of Twitch and YouTube. You are probably quite familiar with YouTube and the fact that you can make a lot of money from ads and sponsors, but there are lots of you who haven't heard of Twitch yet, and believe me when I say, you are really missing out.

There are a few possible ways to make money from your Twitch channel. Some of which allow you to make money from the beginning, so let's check them out!

Get paid to play games free online

Ask for Donations

Once you sign up to stream on Twitch (for free), you have the option to add a donation button on your channel, so your viewers can give you cash if they like your streams.

They can donate you anything from a dollar to hundreds or thousands of dollars in a minute. While the latter doesn't happen too often, some Twitch streamers have been lucky to receive such donations. (Remember: Even though they're called 'donations', you will have to pay taxes for the money, no matter the sum).

The best part about it is that you don't have to subscribe to Twitch or have a specific number of followers in order to qualify. You can have a donation button as soon as you create your channel.

Collect Subscribers

If you put in a bit more work and level up, you can expect to get a bigger payoff. Once you get at least 500 regular viewers and a steady following you can apply (for free) and become a Twitch Partner. Once you become a partner you can make a lot more money on Twitch.

One of the benefits of becoming a partner is that you could have a 'Subscribe' button in addition to your donation button. People who really like your channel and your streams, and would like to see you succeed, will most likely subscribe to your channel. Twitch pays around 50% for each subscriber, which is about $2.50/month.

If you want to get more followers and subscribers you can increase your chances by marketing yourself on social media, and you can also set up a YouTube account and post your videos there as well. That way you can get more popular in the streaming world and more people will want to subscribe to your channel.

Tip: Post highlight reels and best moments/best kills from your streams on YouTube and make people want to check out your channel on Twitch. Try to interact with your viewers, thank them for their donations and make them feel important to you. Use your humor, charm or whatever it is that makes you unique, so that you can stand out from thousands or millions of other streamers out there.

Collect 'Bits'

The online currency known as 'bits' was announced by Twitch In 2016. It is a type of tipping system called 'Cheering' that allows viewers to award their favorite streamers. Just as a reference, 100 Bits are worth $1.40.

Viewers earn Bits when they watch ads, or purchase them using the Amazon payment system.

Later on they can use their bits to gift a player they like by typing 'cheerxx' right into that player's chat bar ('xx' is where you type in the amount of Bits you want to give).

Earn Ad Revenue

If you're already a Twitch Partner and have gained a lot of subscribers you can start earning money from ads as well. Your channel could bring you around $250/month per every 100 subscribers.

How to Get Started on Twitch

  • You have to be at least 13 years old to sign up on Twitch. You can do so by entering a username and password, or connect using your Facebook account - it's that simple.
  • Set up your PC, laptop or console properly.
  • You can get your personalized key to stream from your laptop or PC, simply by clicking the 'Stream Key' link on your Twitch dashboard. If you're streaming from Xbox One or a PS4 you'll need to follow different instructions, which you can all easily find on Twitch.
  • You'll also need to invest in a good video camera if you want people to see you while you play, and a microphone to share your reactions with them, joke around and have fun.
  • Finally, you need to have a PayPal account or you can also use Amazon to collect the money you'll make from your streams.
Games

How Much Do Twitch Streamers Make?

There isn't one definite answer to how much money Twitch streamers make, so in order to get a grip of the amount of money you could make, I'll take one of the most famous Fortnite streamers as an example.

He's known to millions of people around the world as Ninja, and you might probably know him from the time he played Fortnite with Drake and broke the Twitch record for a most-viewed stream. The number of his subscribers is increasing by the hour, so if we estimate that Ninja earns $2.50 for every subscriber who pays $5, then we could roughly calculate his monthly earning to around $350,000, and that's without calculating in donations from his viewers and sponsors, as well as ad revenue.

Although his story is very inspiring to all streamers out there, and those who are considering this as a way to earn a living, or at least some extra pocket money, the truth is that Ninja didn't become famous overnight. He started streaming his game play at least 7 years ago, but reached his peak with Fortnite. He became so popular that even Drake played with him last month.

Make Money Playing Games On Phone

He has become one of the biggest game streamers right now and there's no stopping him. His popularity is increasing as he gets more new subscribers on YouTube and on Twitch every hour.

What Makes a Good Streamer?

If you want in on the fame that comes with being a popular game streamer these days, then you should focus on a few very important and easily applicable things.

Make Money Playing Games On Ps4

First of all, just to clear everything up, you need to know that being a professional streamer doesn't mean you have to be the best at a given game. In fact, what most streamers that are popular on Twitch and YouTube do, is they record their day-to-day gameplay, nothing scary or hard about that.

Make Money Playing Games On Facebook

People that view streams aren't just interested in new strategies and stuff like that, they also want to be entertained. If you want to be a popular streamer you need to interact with your audience, and make them want to keep coming back to watch even more of your streams. You need to offer them the chance to get away from their daily worries and activities, and make sure they have fun watching your streams.