How to start making money by playing video games: 3 main professions and 3 high schools to turn your hobby into vocation
Yes, it is possible to make money playing video games.It is possible to live on it.
The proof of this are the headlines that appear almost every day on your mobile.For example, in February of this year you discovered that the famous streamer Elrubius won 2,092,950.50 euros in 2019. Ibai, another famous gamer, can afford to rent one of the hamlets of the footballer Samuel Eto'o.And then there is the competitive panorama: an 8 -year -old boy who plays Fortnite was hired for $ 33,000 a few weeks ago by a team of eSports.
If you are Gamer and when reading this type of news you have thought "I also want to turn my fans into work," then you have three main paths that you can explore to start earning money departure.Eye: every time you will have a section on risks and difficulties.And it is that the promise of living of gaming is very juicy, but hides hundreds of hours of effort (and luck) that usually omit in the headlines that attract your attention so much.
As a simile, think of your favorite role -playing games.Normally there are three basic classes, those of a lifetime: warrior, sorcerer and rogue.Choose the one you choose, you know from minute 1 that will cost you hours, missions and game overs reach the right level to overcome the villain on duty.Well, the same thing happens with these three paths: do not frustrate if there are many overs game along the way, they are part of the process!Continue and continue with the game.
Streamer
Business Insider Spain
In January 2021, Backlinko stressed that Twitch has 140 million unique visitors every month, a jump compared to the 55 million monthly users of 2015.
There are therefore at least 140 million people who want to see live broadcasts from games to games.Twitch users (or other stream services) want to entertain themThe good vibes that transmits ...
Sometimes it is not necessary for Gamer to play;Retransmissions are increasingly fashionable in which streamer simply speaks to his audience, as if it were a podcast or an opinion bulletin.
How to start earning money
The key is to become a Twitch member.Partners have access to the service monetization program.To ascend to partner, it is necessary to meet certain requirements.These requirements change over time.At the time of writing this article, they are these:
Twitch has systems to let you know when you have met these requirements to become a member.
Once you are a member, you have access to donations.You can ask your followers to donate money.To encourage them, you can bet on creativity and promise that if you reach one thousand euros (for example) you will make a 10 -hour marathon streaming.Or you can inform that part of the donations will be invested in improving the equipment that allows you to perform the retransmissions.
However, the usual thing is that donations are voluntary;When the viewer feels comfortable with streamer, donating is his way of thanking him and guaranteeing that he is still active.
In addition to donations, you can get income from the advertising that Twitch will automatically place in your broadcasts, from users who subscribe to your channel to get exclusive emojis (for example), or you may attract a brand and do youAn affiliation agreement.
Exact figures?It depends on the strength of your channel.Lolfinity, a portal dedicated to League of Legends, estimates that you can earn between $ 500 and $ 20,000 per month if you have between $ 15,000 and 500,000 followers and between 5,000 and 50,000 subscribers.
Challenges
The streaming career will test your patience, your resilience, your creativity and, above all, your desire to renew you.To begin with, there are no successes that occur overnight: all the streamers you know became famous over time and after a lot of errors and tests.Does Emgrefg sound, the streamer who broke records on Twitch at the beginning of 2021?He started nothing, like everyone else.And he is just an example.
In addition, competition in the streaming world is hard.More stream channels appear every day, and everyone points to broadcast the fashion game.As a result, there are many streamers that have not yet obtained a single follower or spectator.
In 2018, The Verge portal launched an interesting report (in English) on the streamers with literally spectators.Here are an appointment of one of them:
"It is exhausting to play in an empty room day yes, day too, without results. It is difficult to stay with the positive mind when you do this five days a week and nobody enters."
You will have to work hard and surely your effort will not reap fruits until much later.You will have to analyze which games work, but also which games almost nobody covers and could be interesting for spectators.You must improve your way of speaking in public, your sense of humor, your improvisation skills.Can you find the best hours to do streaming?Or what is your potential audience?
First steps
There are many first steps that you can take to be streamer.For example, before even creating a channel, do normal games and speak as if you had spectators.Record, first only audio and then with the webcam for example.First control your diction, your vocabulary, your improvisation.Nobody likes to listen to, but it will help you improve.Then, the same but with your facial expressions, your gestures, if you remember looking at the camera ...
When you think you are ready, analyze the fashion games to discover the best titles you start on Twitch.The same with fashion streamers: follow them, devour their content, discover why they work and why not others.Classify them and look for a hole that must still be filled: that can be your niche.
Auronplay, Ibai, Rubius or Thegrefg: the 10 Spanish streamers that you should follow to understand how Twitch works
ESports player
Reuters
Estports or electronic sports have become one of the fastest growing businesses in recent years.Currently, there are millions of people who want to see online competitive games of popular games such as League of Legends, Dota 2 or Counter Strike: Global Offensive, to name a few.It is the football of the new generations.
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As a result, there are teams of professional players, as if they were football players, and there are tournaments, championships, training academies, quarries ... almost everything you can find in traditional sport exists in eSports and if not, it will end up existing in few years.
If you are the crack in Fortnite, in Dota 2, in Valorant ... this may be your path.
How to start earning money
To start, you can connect this path with the above, with being streamer.If you know that you have talent in certain games or genres (the Moba who are so fashionable, for example) but it does not call you the world of eSports, then you can open a channel on Twitch and get attention with your feats.Over time, you will get enough spectators to start earning money.If you are interested, read the section above.
In case you want to bet on 100%eSports, the tournaments award will surely be your first source of income.At the time of writing this article, the first phase of the Call of Duty League 2021 (focused, specifically, in the COD video game: Black Ops Cold War) recently ended.The winning team, Atlanta Faze, has achieved $ 200,000 prize, the second 120,000 and third 80,000.
More figures.In 2019, the Fortnite World Cup awards amounted to 30 million euros, 3 of which Kyle Giersdorf, 16, took them.The popular Dota 2 distributed $ 34 million in its latest edition of the The International Tournament.Until the electronic version of the Magic card game hides award: almost 9 million dollars were distributed throughout 2019.
Obviously, you will not start winning these juicy awards, but having these figures as a final horizon may motivate you.
Once you start winning tournaments or notice in the world, more monetary routes will open.For example, you may end up being hired by a professional eSports team, as happened with the 8 -year -old previously mentioned.The salaries range depending on the country and the type of game, but the average is 3,000-5,000 dollars and the most top players can collect $ 15,000 per month.
The other possibility, perfectly complementary to the previous one, are sponsorships.Each there are more brands and companies that want to enter the world of eSports.Some brands want to sponsor a player or team because their products are directed to the young audience that attracts these electronic sports.Other brands, such as banks, make a proactive commitment: they want to be in the minds of the youngest so that, when they think of adult issues, they have them unconsciously as the first option.
Challenges
The first great challenge of this path is exactly the same as you would meet if you wanted to be a professional footballer or tennis player: you will discover that there is always a bigger fish.When leaving your comfort zone, where you may be the best in Dota 2 or Valorant, you will run into people who beat you in certain aspects of your favorite game.There will be no choice but to accept defeat, analyze how to improve and train.
In addition, it will have a lot of patience.Surely you will begin in amateur tournaments, where the highest awards may not reach or pay the displacement to the place where the tournament occurred.The award may not be in cash, but you return home with games, microphones, webcams ... or there may be no prize.
How much they begin to rain offers of eSports teams, it will have to cautiously analyze each of them.How many recent victories do they carry?Can you talk to your acquaintances and relatives to know how team members really are?As with tournaments, you may start in an amateur team.In this type of teams, the ego is the order of the day due to the absence of a coach or a mentor that properly leads to the players.There will also be chaos: members of members every week, tournaments that do not leave because Fulano or Mengana works or has an exam ...
"I would not be surprised if eSports were Olympic sports in 2024 or 2028," says Tony Parker, a former NBA player who has been in the electronic sports business for several years
First steps
To start, discover the game or the genre that is good and 100% bet on it.In this case, when you diversify less chances you have to emerge.Today, it is important that you are a Ducho playing one of these genres: Moba (Dota 2 and League of Legends especially), to Shooters (Counter Strike, Call of Duty, Overwatch), fighting games or good card games(Hearthstone and Magic).
Once you have chosen game or gender, you must look for tournaments and online communities.Your best option is to download Discord, the chat tool par excellence in the gaming world, and look for Spanish communities oriented to your games.There is usually a section dedicated to amateur tournaments or to create equipment.The other option is to search non-official websites such as Smash Bros Spain, where you have all the news about tournaments or last guides.
Beta Tester
Getty
Do you remember the mega-political of Cyberpunk December 2077, 2020?One of the most anticipated games of the decade appeared and its launch was a disaster in part to the amount of bugs and errors.Today, the game is still unable to buy through the PSN Store, the PlayStation console virtual store, due to its unfinished state.
Surely the situation of the game would be different if your company had given more time to the beta testers to try the title and look for their mistakes.And this is the work of this curious profession: play once, and again, and another ... to early versions of the games to ensure that everything works perfectly.In case it is not so, game testers notify developers so that they can solve errors.
Of the three main roads mentioned here, that of Beta Tester is the most veteran, the one who has almost always been present;And it does not matter how the way of playing changes: it will always be important that there is someone who watches that the game on duty lacks obstacles.
How to start earning money
There are two clear ways to earn money testing games: either sign up for the increasingly frequent apps and services dedicated to paying the user to try a game, or work professionally as Beta Tester.
If what you want is to win a bonus, consider services as Beta Family.It is a service that allows app developers to ask for beta testers to verify errors.Being a global service, you will find more normal applications than games.You will start earning money once you get a minimum of $ 50 per month.There are no regional restrictions, but developers can request testers from certain countries, and that reports are written in specific languages (especially English).
If what you want is to make a living as Beta Tester, the way is exactly the same as if you will look for another type of work: you have to investigate jobs of job offers, directOn LinkedIn.
While with the first alternative you may, over time, get $ 100-200 per month, if you work professionally as a game tester, your salary will range between $ 18,000 and $ 30,000, always depending on who you work for.
Challenges
If what you are looking for is a bonus, your greatest challenge will be irregularity.You may have weeks where you can try several games and there are months where you only find offers to try traditional apps.But if what you want is to win an extra money, I shouldn't worry too much.
When to be a professional game tester, you have the same challenges as when you are looking for other jobs: the demand for work, competition with other candidates, the conditions of the contract ...
You have to add an additional challenge: to land a promising company.Most likely, you find more offers related to mobile games, so mentalize that the initial salary will not be what you expect, and that a series of commercial failures of the developer can mean its end.If you expect to fall in Nintendo, Blizzard or Microsoft immediately, you will get a great disappointment.
Then you will have to ask yourself a big question: do you have the necessary skills to highlight as a candidate for game tester?To start, you will surely need an advanced level of written and oral English to correctly communicate errors.In this way, how do you defend you writing technical reports?Do you know how to communicate correctly?Although it is not always a priority, sometimes it is requested to have programming or video game design due to the early state of many games.And if the latter is not requested, CV with experiences such as those mentioned highlight more than the rest.
Finally, even if you have everything necessary to be Beta Tester, it is a type of work still unusual in Spain.You will have to be ready to do networking to proactively create the job offer instead of waiting for it to appear in Infojobs.Or you may even have to consider working remotely for a company in another country.
First steps
If you want to work professionally as a game tester, start trying normal apps or games in Beta Family or similar services.Voluntary developers you find in LinkedIn to test your applications.Why?To start having a CV directed towards that sector.Any work experience, retail, will help you land in this world.
In that sense, you will not only have to customize the CV: new searches in job offers, look for contacts on LinkedIn, recycle with programming courses ...
No te preocupes si parece mucho porque, ¡buenas noticias!, estás en Business Insider Spain; el medio que no solo se abarca el mundo de los negocios establecidos, ¡también tiene contenido para ayudar a establecer trabajo!
Check articles to polish the CV, nickel the work interviews, get the whole game to LinkedIn ... and nothing to disregard tips for when everything seems lost.Taking care of the mind while looking for work is essential.
Other ways to earn money by playing video games
The warrior, sorcerer and rogue;The streamer, the eSports player and the Beta Tester.Although these are the three main professions, as in role -playing games, there are a lot of secondary or derivative classes.
Here are other methods, in case the main ones have not convinced you at all.Keep in mind that everyone requires patience, tenacity and luck.
