How To Get Paid To Play Games At Home

With everyone at home at the moment, people are looking for new ways to make money. Why not get paid to play games at home? It may sound like a pipe dream, but it’s absolutely possible to make money from playing games, although as you can imagine, there’s a whole lot of people out there who are looking to do the same. That being said, it’s definitely possible to earn money in this field. While we at GameDevInsider specialize in getting people jobs creating games, that’s not the only way to blend your passion with your career.

Youtube

Gaming content has dominated Youtube for many years now, even as new content comes in and Youtube tries to shift towards more up-to-date content, trying to capture the Vine and TikTok audience, for example, gaming content continues to be dominant. It will be no surprise to those of us that frequent the website, but the biggest Youtubers can earn millions a year!

Youtube Gaming page.

Of course, not everyone who plays games on Youtube will make it to that extent. But there are still thousands of Youtubers who can quite comfortably make a living from playing games on there. You don’t need to be the most original or charismatic to pull enough viewers to make a living, especially if you monetize in other ways besides ads, such as merchandise or affiliate marketing.

Twitch

Very similarly to Youtube, Twitch can be a great place to get paid to play games at home. There are a few differences between the two, but it’s possible to do so on either platform and it will come down to the content you produce and how you want to do it that will decide which one you would want to go for. It’s also possible to combine the two, for example streaming live on twitch and then editing down the videos to be available on Youtube.

Twitch Gaming page.

Twitch is a live stream service, which means you will need to be in front of an audience, live, and you will most likely be expected to interact with your audience and build a strong relationship with them, to keep them coming back. This will appeal to some but put others off. You will also not be editing your videos, meaning less work but also less ability to really stand out from the ground with some interesting video editing.

Competetive Tournaments

Whilst potentially the most difficult way to earn a living, and no guaranteed way of having a steady income, it is possible to earn enough money to live well playing games competitively. Prizes for tournaments can be enough to sustain you for a year quite easily, even for being a runner-up in some spaces. And tournaments are getting bigger and bigger, with prize pools getting as high as $34 million for Dota2 tournaments. Even when you remove the earnings for runners up and split it with team members, you are talking about a life-changing amount of money you could live on forever.

DOTA 2 International Championship

Obviously, with such large prize pools, it’s a highly competitive scene. Not to mention the people who play their favorite game solidly throughout the day that you will be competing with. There is a reason that top players have teams, coaches, and support teams available to them at all hours so that they can focus on doing their absolute best, practicing that one game solidly, all day. Esports may struggle to gain the same recognition as other sports, but that doesn’t mean the competitors don’t undergo a similarly grueling training regime.