Making money from video games - is it possible?
Earning money from video games is a job like any other. Many people think that if you enjoy playing games, you will enjoy working in this field, but this is not always true.
Of course, many cyber sports disciplines have giant prize pools, such as Dota or Counter-Strike. But to become a cyber sportsman, you must devote ten hours a day to games and invest a lot of money at the start of your career, so today, let's look at other options.
What do you earn from games?
Even though most of the games are designed for entertainment, not for making money, video games formed a multi-million community, which is ready to watch the passage of games, read articles and reviews, cheer for cyber sports teams, buy virtual items and order the pumping of the character in online games. And you can make money from all this.
Cybersports
The first thing that comes to mind is becoming a professional player in popular games. After all, the cybersports market has grown tenfold in recent years, with hundreds of millions of dollars being invested each year. We regularly hear about astounding prize pools that can even attract the attention of presidents of different countries.
But becoming a professional player is a lot of hard work. Top-ranked gamers can earn $10,000 — 15,000 a month and receive interest from tournaments won and advertising contracts. But to become one of them, you must spend tens of thousands of hours in virtual reality, study new strategies, get into closed communities, and look for access to top teams.
Cybersportsmen get thousands of dollars for a reason: they have gruelling training sessions with a rigid schedule before the competition.
In this format, even your favourite computer game can get boring if you play it every day for 12 hours in a nervous environment of competition for victory.
Streaming
Streamers are not paid a salary — their income comes from viewer donations and advertising contracts. The most excellent and popular streamers have multi-million dollar contracts for exclusive broadcasts, but only a few of them exist.
Streamers go on air through special services:
- Twitch,
- YouTube,
- GoodGame,
- Hitbox,
- Azubu,
- Mixer and others.
Reviews and game journalism
You can record your opinions about a game on camera, write articles, make podcasts, and gather like-minded people. The secret to success is to get through the game you're reviewing quickly and release it before the competition. The money will come from subscribers and adverts.
Streamers and bloggers can benefit from perfect knowledge of languages, scriptwriting, editing and camerawork skills. It's not easy but much more entertaining than the day-to-day game.
Mentoring and "driving"
If you're good at a particular game, you can give lessons to less successful players. The scheme is comparable to tutoring: students pay a mentor to learn how to play better and understand the game's tricks and loopholes that will help them win.
Sometimes, you may be asked not to teach but to guide you through a difficult location. Such "drivers" are often found in various MMORPG and browser multiplayer games.
Such services are used by rich people who can afford to invest several tens of thousands of dollars in the game to dress their virtual heroes in beautiful things with swords, armour, and coats of arms. For such people, the game is just a way to have fun and show off to others.
Some players are also willing to pay to have their character pumped up by someone else. They look for offers on gaming websites: type in the search engine "pumping a character in such and such game", and you will easily find them.
Selling game items and artefacts
For many, games are a real second life, where you also want to impress others with your unusual appearance, weapons, and virtual home.
Being a trader means keeping up to date with all changes in "your market". You will have to monitor price dynamics regularly and track the demand and offers of ordinary users and other traders. If you decide to trade items, have patience because it's a long time, and you can not count on immediate profit.
Web3-games
We decided to single out blockchain games, such as Axie Infinity . This industry showed tremendous growth in the second half of 2022; the volume of investments in projects related to blockchain games was in the hundreds of millions of dollars every month. Although blockchain gaming projects have recently lost popularity, some estimates suggest there is room for further growth.
Play-to-Earn (P2E) is not tied to a specific genre of games - they can be adventure, strategy, role-playing and so on. There are a lot of games, and they are all different, ranging from simply pressing buttons in a certain amount of time to completing various quests.
The economy of such games is similar to the classic one but is biased towards selling game items. For example, here are the fundamental strategies for making money in P2E games:
- Creating, combining and improving items.
- Improving abilities and increasing skill.
- Crossbreeding characters.
- Selling passes to compete in arenas.
- Selling cosmetic items.
Generally, the game world in P2E is free, but paid items may be required for character development and earning. Industry experts write that the average player can earn about $200-300 per month for participating in games. Although there are more profitable ways, it depends on the strategy, invested funds and time in the game.
It is believed that in a few years, NFT mechanics will penetrate 90% of games, and with the arrival of significant studios and mass adoption of blockchain games, we will see the growth of the entire crypto industry. Players will be able to monetise their time, and studios will be able to get additional funds for advertising and development, which will positively impact the entire gaming industry.
Along with the influx of new funds and developers into Web3 games, the ideological component of the issue has not been left aside. The concept of P2E was replaced by the abbreviation X2E, which means that users should not just play but also do some socially beneficial actions to get game tokens.
Conclusion
If you play well and understand video games, it is pretty realistic to make good money at it. Professional cybersport requires constant training and thousands of hours of practice, but there are more accessible options for making money in the gaming industry.
You can't just start streaming or doing game reviews and immediately become popular. You must invest a lot of time and effort into your content.
And if you are planning to invest real money in games, it is essential to realize that there is a chance that you will never recoup the invested amount — don't risk your last funds.
