Farming in-game currency and equipment is another way to earn money from playing video games. Many MMOs have a farmable in-game currency that players can earn within the game. However, this takes a lot of playing time, and players who can afford it would rather exchange real-life currency for in-game currency rather than play for hours. Play Games for Money. Earning money just from playing games sounds like a gamer’s paradise. The dream doesn’t always live up to its expectations; generally, companies that offer money in return for gaming make you test out new games that might be boring or glitchy. 5 Best Ways To Make Money Playing Video Games Published on: September 5, 2018 by Brad Video games are a lot of fun — people love the experiences, journeys, and competitiveness that many of them. But there are ways to make this a little less expensive habit. You can even get paid to play games! There is also another way to make money (and get premium games for free) Paid video game testing! Why would gaming companies pay me to test games? There are thousands of video games available in today’s market. Most MMOs and free-to-play games have some mechanism for exchanging real currency for digital coins or credit, but in the perennial life simulator Second Life, players can turn the “Linden Dollars” they’ve earned in-game back into real money via bank transfer or PayPal (at an exchange rate of more than 200 to one, if you’re wondering).

Video games are a lot of fun — people love the experiences, journeys, and competitiveness that many of them offer. People have a way of getting really attached them, and many of them wish that they could play video games for a living. Well, no one said that you couldn’t, and there’s actually a lot of different ways that you can make money playing video games. Keep in mind that playing video games for money is no easy task — people think that it’s all fun and games, but it actually takes a lot of hours in order to turn a profit or earn a decent wage, no matter what you do.

If you follow along below, we’ll show you the five best ways that you can make money playing video games.

Tournaments

One of the first ways, and a way that you can work on right now, is by getting really good at a popular title and playing it competitively. You can take StarCraft 2 for example. There’s a massive eSports around this community, and players and teams have earned hundreds of thousands of dollars playing StarCraft 2.

It takes a lot to get in the big leagues, but if you can start to do good at a basic level, you can start competing with others online. This can usually net you anywhere between $50 and $1,000, depending on what league you’re in; however, once you can start besting these players, you can start looking at larger championships, such as the World Championship Series. Those same rules apply to any competitive game. And you can actually earn quite a bit of money with competitive gaming. For example, the League of Legends 2017 World Championship netted team Samsung Galaxy with almost $1.9 million dollars in USD.

Streaming

Championships and tournaments aren’t necessarily achievable for everyone, but don’t lose hope just yet, there’s still other ways you can earn money playing video games. One of those is by streaming your games to Twitch while your playing. Twitch streamers can make a lot of money, all depending on how large their audience is. If you have a large enough audience, you can get viewers to subscribe to your channel for a small fee and play advertisements for money. Some companies will even come to you with sponsorships to run during your streams. If you make a good connection with your audience, viewers might even voluntarily donate bits and and money to you just for the sake of supporting you.

Keep in mind that it’s difficult to start up a profitable Twitch channel — you need a lot of viewers to be able to replace your monthly income for your job. You also have to be online a lot, and playing games that are popular and that people want to watch.

Write About Games

Best Way To Make Money Playing Games

Best Apps To Make Money Playing Games

Writing about video games is a little more achievable for most people. It isn’t hard to go around the Web searching for gaming websites that you can send an application into. You might have to write for free when you first start off, but it won’t be long before you can start getting paid for your writing skills. People will want to hear your opinion on the latest news, and will even want to see what you have to say in a review about certain games that launch. It’s a promising career if you have the determination to chase after it.

Test Games

Another way you can make money by playing games is by testing them. Software and game companies will hire people in their QA (Quality Assurance) department to test and make sure that bugs are worked out before launch. Keep in mind that this isn’t the most fun thing to do, as you’ll often be doing some of the same things over and over again in order to try and break the game.

Become a Developer

Last, but certainly not least, you could become a Game Developer. This can take a good amount of schooling and math, but nothing says that you cannot start right now. The best game developers started out by using modding tools to offer their own additions to their favorite games. They get well known within the community, and that’s usually how the career of a developer starts. You’ll definitely need some schooling though, as you’ll need to learn some important concepts such as the game loop, game engines, 3D programming, and more.

Verdict

As you can see, you can very easily earn money by playing video games. It takes a lot of work, and it’s a huge time investment, but unless you’re becoming a developer, you don’t have to invest a lot of money in the process.