Can you REALLY Make Money Playing Games?

[ponygals]

I was watching the TV show iZombie and one of the characters says there are video gamers out there who make money, playing games, leveling up characters, and make a lot of money doing this sort of thing. Is this type of money making with playing video games legit or was the TV show just lying?

 

[samiam144]

Youtube I'd assume??

 

[lampdemon]

Sure, but it's more work than fun, or you could make/use a bot instead. This stuff is usually bannable for most if not all MMORPGs.

 

[Taleweaver]

It's possible, but probably not as glorious as you think it is.

One kind is the type of player who relies on other (richer) gamers who want to pay their way to success. Games that are mainly timesinks, and where some rather pay than spend said time. World of Warcraft was sort of known for 'gold farmers' (google it), who pretty much had an entire industry of people doing all the 'boring stuff' of that game. However, though it made some bucks, it was never a huge amount (after deducing electricity and other costs, the money/hour probably isn't much above minimum wage). It's also somewhat risky, as companies want to avoid this kind of behavior. And with more recent titles actually being more 'pay to win', I'm not sure how successful this entire business practice still is.

The other type is esports. If you look at the prizes of some tournaments, then yes...you really CAN make a lot of money when playing games like league of legends, starcraft 2 or a handful of others. The obvious catch is that you have to be GOOD at the game. And I mean REALLY, REALLY, REALLY GOOD!

Still...The former never payed very well, and the latter is never around upgrading characters. So if that was really the message, then yes: the television show was lying.


EDIT: yes...youtube is obviously another possibility: get a channel that's popular enough, and you'll get money from ad revenue.

 

[dragonblood9999]

Sure, but it's more work than fun, or you could make/use a bot instead. This stuff is usually bannable for most if not all MMORPGs.

yes but up untill 1 year ago u would only get $1.50 for every 1000 views iirc. So if your Chanel is not all that popular you would be lucky to get $50 a month

 

[The Real Jdbye]

It's possible, but probably not as glorious as you think it is.

One kind is the type of player who relies on other (richer) gamers who want to pay their way to success. Games that are mainly timesinks, and where some rather pay than spend said time. World of Warcraft was sort of known for 'gold farmers' (google it), who pretty much had an entire industry of people doing all the 'boring stuff' of that game. However, though it made some bucks, it was never a huge amount (after deducing electricity and other costs, the money/hour probably isn't much above minimum wage). It's also somewhat risky, as companies want to avoid this kind of behavior. And with more recent titles actually being more 'pay to win', I'm not sure how successful this entire business practice still is.

The other type is esports. If you look at the prizes of some tournaments, then yes...you really CAN make a lot of money when playing games like league of legends, starcraft 2 or a handful of others. The obvious catch is that you have to be GOOD at the game. And I mean REALLY, REALLY, REALLY GOOD!

Still...The former never payed very well, and the latter is never around upgrading characters. So if that was really the message, then yes: the television show was lying.


EDIT: yes...youtube is obviously another possibility: get a channel that's popular enough, and you'll get money from ad revenue.

Bots exist for many games to make gold farming easy. It's basically free money for doing nothing at that point. You can even run several bots on one PC.

There's also another option, if you review games for a popular website you would probably get paid.

And of course there's Twitch, which goes in the same category as YouTube, but people can subscribe to your channel and pay you money directly in addition to just ad revenue.

 

[YayMii]

People seem to forget about Twitch livestreams. Some viewers are willing to throw money at streamers that they find entertaining, so if you manage to acquire a good amount of popularity, you can earn quite a bit of money (even just from donations alone). Heck, I've only began to stream with a 'Donate' button recently, and I've already received $5 from a viewer I don't even consider myself that popular, so at the very least, it's a bit motivating.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

People seem to forget about Twitch livestreams. Some viewers are willing to throw money at streamers that they find entertaining, so if you manage to acquire a good amount of popularity, you can earn quite a bit of money (even just from donations alone). Heck, I've only began to stream with a 'Donate' button recently, and I've already received $5 from a viewer I don't even consider myself that popular, so at the very least, it's a bit motivating.

I mentioned it

 

[YayMii]

I mentioned it

Your reply appeared as I was typing

 

[ilman]

Another method could be trading items in WoW/TF2/CS:GO. I've seen some people get at least one expensive knife in CS per month...

 

[Deleted member 473940]

yes but up untill 1 year ago u would only get $1.50 for every 1000 views iirc. So if your Chanel is not all that popular you would be lucky to get $50 a month

1000 monetised views.
Even though I got about a million views last month, believe it or not only 30 thousand was monetised views. That hardly gave me any money; considering 40% goes straight to youtube and then the network I am partnered with takes another 30% due to my contract being old and I am locked in.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Another method could be trading items in WoW/TF2/CS:GO. I've seen some people get at least one expensive knife in CS per month...

That doesn't really count as making money off gaming though. You don't even have to play the game to do that, it's more like stock trading than gaming.

 

[Hells Malice]

Botting in games like runescape can be incredibly lucrative. It's also pretty easy these days.

If Second Life even still exists, it allows you to convert game currency into real money (and vice versa), so players could create custom items and open a shop and make real money off of it. I knew a guy who made a killing off his shop way back in the day, it turned into his real job and it paid very well.

The other would be becoming youtube or twitch famous and riding the gravytrain all the way to the moon.
Actually it's a pretty difficult job in a lot of aspects, but yeah. Twitch not so much since it's fairly easy (once set up) to just throw on your stream and play whatever.