6 ways to earn money as you play games

Playing games can actually make you rich

| Published: Saturday, January 19, 2019, 15:45 [IST]

We all love playing games, some physical, some digital. While physical sports have long since enjoyed a wide niche, the digital playground is snowballing into universe of its own. You have worldwide gaming contests attracting media coverage, sponsors pushing in enticing amounts of money. Crafting a living out of playing games seem to be possible in this era, but how feasible is it? Will it be all fun and no work? Here are six ways you can earn money while pursuing a gaming career.

Live streaming

Several gamers live-stream themselves playing games. If you have a large, dedicated audience, you could monetize by incorporating ads, asking for donations and subscriptions. The trick lies in building a large audience, which is really tough. There isn't a lot to invest - a streaming software, maybe a microphone, desktop and games. Platforms such as Twitch and YouTube Gaming offer live streaming services.

Game Journalism

Writing about games sounds like a good way to blend your writing skills with gaming. Several sites offer freelancer roles to people who write about games - reviews, interviews, covering tournaments. You could start your own site with Patreon support, but it has to be full time. The competition here will be cut-throat.

Tutorials

People are always looking for expert guides and tutorials for multiplayer PvP games. You can publish such guides on either YouTube as videos, or set up a blog/website. You could also sell them as en ebook. But the catch here is that you'll have to invest a tremendous amount of time to offer unique insight to the game, to become an expert. And the higher the popularity of the game, the harder it becomes.

Gaming podcast

A podcast can be supported through ads and Patreon. You can feature professional gamers, journalists, entrepreneurs and set-up discussions, talk about the tricks of the trade, key insights into several games. But while starting out, you won't be able to host these. Building a considerable audience means you'll always have to offer something others won't.

Tournaments

Esports organizations host worldwide gaming tournaments and the prize money is highly coveted. You could get into the top team and earn a living through winning tournaments and garnering sponsorship. But there are several things to consider - stay, travel for example. Getting into any top team is a monumental task. And several times, they aren't paid what they are expecting.

Testing games

At first, this looks sparkly. Who wouldn't test games for a living? But the task can become deadening. You'll have to get into a developing company. The developers will ask you to test for certain issues they want, you'll have to document the bugs, and the pay is almost always sub-par. Considering that most game testers these days test mobile-based games rather than straight up PC games is also a buzzkill.