5 Ways to Make Money with Your Gaming Hobby

Making money from our hobbies is something that most of us would love to do. For a long time, you could only really do this as a side hustle if your hobby involved creating something. But nowadays, many people are making successful careers from hobbies such as blogging, writing, design, and even gaming. If you love playing video games, the idea of getting paid to do it, either as a side hustle or a career might sound like a dream come true. Here’s a look at five of the ways that you can earn money from gaming. 

Earn Money Live Streaming

Livestreaming is incredibly popular, with platforms like Twitch growing all the time. If you are confident speaking as you play, then this could be a great way to make money while enjoying yourself. On a platform like Twitch, if you can build a large audience, you could monetize with ads, and if you have a loyal (but maybe smaller) audience you can earn through donations, subscriptions, and affiliate sales. 

But building these audiences takes a long time and to realistically earn a good income through ads you’ll need thousands of viewers which could take years to achieve. Another issue with live streaming is that it’s a very oversaturated market, so to do well you need something that helps you to stand out. This could be a style of play, talent, the games you play, or your personality. 

It is, however, easy to get started. You’ll just need your usual gaming tech, including headphones, perhaps an upgraded graphics card from Lenovo.com, and a Twitch account. 

Blogging

Blogs are still very popular and give you a great way to earn money through ads, affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, reviews, and working with game companies and shops in other ways. You will need to build up an audience to do well, but you can do this by writing reviews, walkthroughs, guides, and other recommendations. 

Podcasting or YouTubing

Podcasts are becoming more popular all the time, and podcasting is a great idea if you’ve got a lot to say about the gaming world. You could interview people in the games industry, and other gamers and review new products and games. 

With a YouTube channel, you could post walkthroughs and tests, talk about games, and host interviews. Eventually, you could monetize your channel through ads. 

Enter Tournaments

If you are a very good gamer, you could earn money by entering tournaments and competitions. As well as prize money while you build a name for yourself you could earn money through sponsorships, or at least get your entry fees covered. 

Many competitive gamers make extra money through live streaming or from a YouTube channel. 

Become a Games Tester

Game testing is a great way to make money playing games, but remember, you won’t always be asked to test games that you enjoy or even games that work particularly well. 

To start, you might want to try a combination of money-making methods. It can take time to build an audience, so being present on multiple platforms and at real-life events can help you to get noticed, build an audience, and make more money.