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In today’s digital world, you can earn money by playing online games. Unbelievable, right?
There are dozens of apps and sites that allow you to get compensated for playing games online. If you enjoy playing online games and have skills, then consider getting paid for doing what you love to do.
In this guide, we take a look at 6 quick ways to earn money playing games online.
Selling digital items or accounts
You can flip or trade the in-game items you get while playing a game with other players or turn them into currency. If you spend a substantial amount of time in some game, you gain digital assets. These digital assets or in-game items can be swapped with other players for profit.
A good example of a digital asset is an NFT. Blockchain games or NFT games are the latest discovery in the gaming industry. You can now buy digital and physical items using NFTs to move to the next level in the game or sell to other players via any market.
Try games journalism
Games journalism can be tiring and intensive, but it’s one of the best ways to earn money playing online games.
If you consider yourself a writer, launch your own site or join an existing one and begin writing interviews, reviews, and news for a particular genre, industry, or game. After setting up the site, you can use Patreon subscriptions and paid ads to monetize your traffic. Besides, you can get paid as a freelancer on a per-article basis if you choose to write for other sites.
Games journalism is very competitive, with thousands of people earning a living by writing about games. It may take several years to build an audience that can earn you good money if you launch your own site. If you join an existing site, you’ll probably be paid lowly while proving your skills and establishing a portfolio.
To get started, send your samples to intermediate-sized gaming sites with open positions. If you don’t have samples, consider volunteer writing to help you gain experience.
Become a YouTube gamer
You’ve probably heard of PewDiePie, one of YouTube’s well-known gamers. He has over 100 million subscribers and thousands of videos, ranging from game live streams to reaction videos. He earns thousands of dollars from YouTube ads, and his current net worth is over 15 million dollars.
While it may take several years to get as many subscribers and money as PewDiePie, it’s never too late to start.
It’s worth noting that you don’t have to be a pro to become a YouTube gamer. You can build a large following without being good at gaming. The key requirements to becoming a successful YouTube gamer are being relatable, entertaining and consistently creating content that the audience wants to see.
Most YouTube gamers earn money from sponsors and ads. If you have a good number of subscribers (say over 1000), organizations will pay you to promote their products.
Create video tutorials and game guides
New players to certain games enjoy reading tutorials and guides, especially for player-versus-player (PvP) titles. Creating such guides and tutorials can be a way to earn money by providing newcomers with the information they need.
When writing a guide, you can adopt several routes such as publishing guides as eBooks, uploading YouTube video guides, or developing a website for written guides. You can monetize the last two using donations or ads, while eBooks earn money through sales.
Start by figuring out the challenges faced by players in a popular game. Find the solution to these problems and create a guide to teach players how to overcome them.
To set your tutorials apart, provide more insight than others. This will require you to invest a lot of time in the game to successfully set yourself as a pro.
Participate in gaming tournaments
Gaming tournaments are a great way to earn money and showcase your skills. They provide a platform for PvP titles. Of course, the more popular the game, the higher the prize.
Games such as League of Legends, Fortnite, Calls of Duty, and Dota 2 pay out large sums of money every year in tournament prizes. If you’re skilled and can win in tournaments, you can earn a livable salary through sponsorships and winnings. Besides, most pro gamers also earn additional income from live streams.
Become a pro game tester
Games pass through several development phases before being released. Developers need outsiders with fresh eyes to playtest their games when they are near completion.
Your work as a playtester is to play the game and test all its features, find issues and bugs, perform matrix testing, and tell developers your opinion of the game. This means that you’ll need to do thousands of tests before giving your report and getting paid. However, if you’re highly detail-oriented and analytical, you can make it a full-time job.
Conclusion
Online games can be fun because they allow you to escape reality and experience a fictitious world. Don’t let your talent go to waste. Instead, look for a way to get paid by winning competitions and competing with other gamers. Good luck!