Get Paid to Play Games: It’s Not Just a Dream!
If you’re a compulsive gamer, don’t worry about wasting all of your time in a simulated environment. Games today are getting more and more complex, and you have many options to make money that don’t follow the traditional path of becoming a professional gamer and competing all over the country with the best of the best. When you’re looking for a way to make a little bit of money on the side, you’re in luck because there are many ways you can monetize your hobby, without making the leap from being an amateur in your lounge room to a full-on professional. If you want a few more ideas other than gaming, you can learn the best ways for kids to make money here.
All over the internet you’ll find forums and people claiming they’ve made hundreds of thousands of dollars by playing games, and you’re right – many of these are simply a farce. The good news, is that if you follow some of our advice you’ll be able to start bringing in a little bit of money each week. It’s not a get rich quick scheme, because if you could become a millionaire playing video games everyone would be doing it. If you’re looking for ways to make money online, you can’t miss this course which covers many of the most effective methods today.
Taking your love of video games can make you cash, so check out these ways you can start earning from your favorite pastime today.
Testing
Game testing is where you are employed by a large video game company to play through the games that are in development and report on any bugs or glitches that are discovered in game play. These jobs are not often advertised on typical classifieds, so you’ll need to reach out directly to the major game developers in your area and sell yourself – impressing them with your video gaming skills, who you are, and why you’ll be a great tester. Don’t be afraid to brag, and let them know how many hours a day you play, your achievements across the board, as well as providing proof of your experience.
This can be a fantastic opportunity, but remember there’s also a chance you’re not going to be able to play the games you like. You’ll be employed to test whatever games the company wants feedback on, that’s what you’re being paid for!
Writing Unofficial Guides
Many hardcore gamers consider guides to ruin games, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a massive market of people looking for exactly this, especially for the particularly hard games that everyday users struggle to complete. There’s millions of people who come to the internet everyday to get help navigating through a difficult level they’ve been stuck on, learn useful tricks or even get cheats to help make their game play easier.
If you believe you’re an expert you can monetize your knowledge by making guides for the latest games. As simple as it sounds, you just create an eBook to help guide novice players through every level. If you market them yourself you’ll need skills in online marketing, or you could approach a marketplace like Killer Guides and all you’ll need to do is write the eBook. It’s simple to do, and if you follow a course like this you’ll have someone by your side to take you through the entire process.
Game guides range in price from $29.99-$39.99, depending on both the difficulty and the popularity of the game. With guides typically at about 100 pages in length it can take time to write, but there’s no better way to make money than writing about your favorite games! This technique where you create an informational product and sell an infinite amount is a key part of building passive income streams, if you’re interested to learn more you can take this course on how to be lazy and make money at the same time.
Filming Walkthroughs
In addition to writing guides, there’s a more interactive way you can guide players through the game. It’s actually much more popular to record your gameplay, along with your commentary as you’re actually going through every level in the game.
This is a very effective method to generate an income, just do a quick search on YouTube and you’ll see the thousands of video’s out there that are doing exactly this. Whilst there is competition, it proves there’s an active audience eager to watch your game play videos. The goal is to get a large base of subscribers, and then to put ads up on your channel so you get money every time a viewer clicks the ad. You’ll need to learn the tricks to make your videos rank high, which you can learn through this course.
If you choose this path you need to be very careful with the terms and conditions of YouTube. There are a couple of requirements you must meet in order to be able to display ads on your walkthroughs, such as having a running commentary throughout the video, as well as not only just showing short snippets of the game. All of your commentary needs to be tied to the live action that’s being shown, and it has to provide educational or instructional value. To protect an accidental breach of the terms of YouTube (and subsequently having your channel closed), you should build a backup website to complement your channel, just in case you ever have a problem with YouTube.
To really make your videos a success you’ll need to check out your competition and do something a little bit different to what’s out there already. If your videos are entertaining and useful, you’ll start to build up an audience base. It can be difficult at the start, but once you reach around 10,000 subscribers you’ll have no difficulty keeping the momentum going. Your target is to get thousands of people watching your videos every day, as this will lead to a massive advertising income rolling in.
Sell Advanced Characters
Games today are taking more and more time to build up the skills and abilities in your character so that you can fully enjoy the best the game has to offer. This has led to an underground market where players level up characters and then sell the advanced profiles for cold hard cash.
World of Warcraft is a classic example, as it can take hundreds of hours to get your character fully equipped and maximized on each different skill set. Although typically forbidden in games, characters are traded and transferred for anything from $5 to one of the most famous sales of a World of Warcraft character for $10,000.
eBay was previously a major player in this marketplace, but has since restricted the sale of in game items and characters. Luckily you can find many different marketplaces still online where the trading of accounts happens quite regularly, Player Auctions is one of the largest. Make sure you check the terms of service for the game your playing. Some games don’t allow players to sell their characters.
To really find financial success from playing video games you need to discover a niche that is yet to be tapped. If you think you can make money from building World of Warcraft tutorials in 2014 – I’m sorry to say but you’ve missed the boat. You’re better targeting the newest games coming out and be the first person to create a walkthrough, unofficial guide or tricks and tips in how to effectively play the game. Being one of the first people to put it together will give you a ready audience, and if you continue to produce quality content you’ll be miles ahead of any competition.
If you’re serious about it you can definitely make an income from playing your favorite video games. Try one of our different methods and start making money from your hobby today!
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Last Updated February 2017
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