1. Games You Can Make Money On
2. Games You Can Actually Make Money On

Every now and again you read an article, or see something on the social media, bragging about making money playing video games.

Sometimes you hear about it through word-of-mouth.

But is it really a thing? Can you really make money?

It is possible, but there are some caveats. First, banish any idea from your mind that you’re going to make a fortune doing it. Second, it may not be quite as fun and exciting as it sounds on the surface – making money rarely is. And third, you have to be able to separate the real opportunities from the many scams out there.

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With those warnings in mind, let’s take a look at some ways you really can make money playing video games.

Become a Beta Tester

Every video game needs to go through beta testing before it hits the general market. This can be an interesting and fun way to earn some extra money. But be aware you probably won’t be working with popular video games. Instead, it’ll be ones that haven’t hit the market yet. Companies are looking to test their games with real users before bringing them to market.

You may find some of the games you’re working with aren’t terribly exciting, or they may have serious glitches. But that’s why companies look for people to test them out first. Your job will be to identify flaws or ways to improve the product before it goes to market.

The upside of becoming a beta tester is that you can make a lot of money doing it. The difficult part is finding companies who will hire you. The best approach is to develop a strong social media presence, complete with a large following, that might get you noticed by video game companies. If you do, they’ll be coming to you.

Video Game Tournaments

Video games often develop communities, and they can be quite active – and competitive. The competitiveness leads to tournaments, and that leads to prizes. It’s not the same as getting a steady income, but if you have the fortitude to engage in ongoing tournaments, the prizes can be quite generous.

One example is Call of Duty. Thousands of people play this game, but for some, it rises to become very competitive. That’s where the potential payoff is. You get involved with teams and meet up online and either play together as a team or “every man for himself.”

Call of Duty has several different gameplay modes, including online multiplayer as well as zombies. Some of the new games allow for multiplayer campaigns. Whether you work with a team or by yourself, you can go into the playoffs and move on to the championships. If you get into the finals, video game tournaments work very similarly to the regular sporting events. Winning tournaments can result in cash payouts. Exactly how much you can make will depend on the interest in the tournament, and it varies from one to the next.

Take OpTic Gaming (on YouTube) as another example. It’s one of the top performing game teams available, and they are known for winning multiple awards and having some of the best players in the industry. There are a plethora of prizes including small prizes such as gift cards. But cash prizes can run as high as $10 million – if you can believe it.

Become a Video Game Reviewer

If you have an interest in many different video games, you can earn money by becoming a video game reviewer. This is similar to blogging – in fact, you could even create a blog for this purpose. But you can also do it through YouTube, or on popular selling sites like eBay and Amazon.com.

The basic idea is to become a respected review source of video games. As you build up a following, people will come to rely on your opinions. You can earn money by selling the video games you review on an affiliate basis (the manufacturer or distributor will pay you a percentage of each sale you make from your website or video).

There’s no guarantee how much money you’ll make. It depends on the popularity of your site or videos because most of your income will come as advertising. If you’re able to grow your audience into the thousands, you may get video game companies advertising directly. If it reaches that stage, you’ll have a steady stream of passive income.

“Farming” Gold

You won’t make a fortune with this strategy, but if you like playing video games, and you play a lot, it can be a way to earn at least some money while you’re having fun.

Not all video games allow this to happen, but there are a few that do. Two are RuneScape and Counter Strike.

The process works like this…

You can create a character and “level” him or her (raise their skills). Some players will actually pay money for a high-level character that they don’t have to level themselves. In the case of RuneScape, the higher the levels, the more quests you can complete.

The easiest way to do this is to “farm the character.” This means you spend a lot of time leveling up the character, whether it be for a particular skill or for in-game money. You can actually make a lot of money doing this, as some characters can sell for over $1,000. Others sell for as little as $100. It really depends on how much skill you have at leveling, and how motivated you are to play the game.

Become a Twitch Streamer

Twitch is a streaming platform subsidiary of Amazon where you can earn money through the support of your subscribers. Most of the streams involve video games, whether it’s games like Fortnite or something that is played online like Chess, but you earn money through your subscribers.

If you get your subscriber count up and have a lot of views, you can get sponsorships and giveaway opportunities as well. Some of the top Twitch streamers do this full-time and the income opportunities are there. This is how much Twitch streamers make.

You can also post those Twitch videos to Youtube as an additional revenue source.

Work in Customer Service

If you’re a veteran gamer, with experience playing dozens of different video games, you may be able to use those skills to help others – and make some money while you do. Think of it as working on the helpdesk for companies that provide video games.

You can sometimes find these positions by contacting the manufacturers or distributors of video games themselves. They may even have work-at-home positions. You can also try various technology support companies, like Sutherland Global Services. Every now and again they have positions available on video game helpdesks.

Other Ways to Enter the Business

It can be difficult to find ways to make money playing video games.

You won’t find jobs advertised on the job boards.

But there are three general ways to get into making money playing video games:

1. Contact video game manufacturers and distributors directly, and offer your services. You’ll have to be a well-experienced video game player to even attempt this.
2. Become a very competitive video gamer, such that you can get involved in tournaments and other activities that will make you serious money.
3. Become a video game entrepreneur. This is really the business side of video games. You start a website, become active on the social media, or develop a YouTube channel. You become recognized as an expert in the field, drawing many thousands of followers. You can then sell video games on an affiliate basis, or even receive sponsorships from the companies themselves.

YouTube is especially important. In fact, it’s not an exaggeration to say that your YouTube channel is your resume in the video game universe.

So you can play video games for sure, but put your entrepreneur’s hat on, and be ready to turn it into a side business – or something much more.

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It sounds like a dream come true, doesn’t it?

Well, it’s not a dream anymore. It’s now a reality. People have found out how to make money on Twitch just by streaming their gaming sessions.

With Twitch.TV, you can join 3.8 million broadcasters and live stream anything from you playing your favorite game to a tutorial on how to assemble a computer table Ikea-style to more than 15 million daily viewers.

As of 2020, Twitch is the number one esports live streaming service in the world.

It beats direct competitors Mixer, SmashCast.tv, and YouTube Gaming by a long shot.

And streamers are leveraging the power of the platform to make more money than ever thought possible.

How Much Money Do Twitch Streamers Make?

Making money with Twitch can be impressively lucrative, especially if you’ve got the right mix of personality, skills, and luck.

For example, popular Twitch streamer Ninja (real name: Tyler Blevins) has previously revealed that he earns around $500,000 per month from Twitch Prime subscriptions, sponsorships, and partnerships, as well as YouTube revenues from his 5 million subscribers.

Note that Ninja has been livestreaming since 2008.

Nowadays, though, Ninja exclusively streams on Twitch’s rival Mixer. He’s now worth upwards of $15 million, so he’s not doing too bad.

Not everyone will be pulling that kind of money, of course. But it’s still possible to earn some money.

How much cash you can make by will depend on your popularity, number of subscribers, type of content streamed, and the monetization option you choose.

How Do You Monetize Your Twitch Account?

Donations

Donations may seem like an insignificant monetization option, but imagine having a million followers who all decide to each donate a dollar within a span of 30 days.

You’d be a millionaire in a month, just from the donations.

Realistically, though, only a few of your viewers will donate, so keep this as a secondary option for income and don’t depend on this too much.

Affiliate marketing

Another common way to monetize your Twitch account is by joining various affiliate programs and promoting other companies’ and people’s products and services.

You do this by displaying a customized link to a site where your viewers can make a purchase. For every purchase coming from a click to your custom link, you’ll get a percentage of the cost.

This is different from the Twitch Affiliate Program, which you’ll learn about below.

Sponsorships

If a brand is impressed with your content and happens to have the same target audience as your videos, they might ask to sponsor a livestream or two (or two dozen, if you’re really good) so you can get paid to promote their brand to your viewers.

To be seriously considered for sponsorship, whether one-off or long-term, you’ll need to have a huge fan base with specific demographics that appeals to a certain brand. Plus, you’ll need to maintain a solid, reliable reputation.

As you know, these don’t come overnight; it takes a lot of work and a lot of livestreams to build a fan base and a good reputation.

Once you have these, though, it can really open up a huge source of steady income for you.

The Twitch Affiliate Program

Twitch sends an invitation e-mail to any streamer who has been working consistently to produce content.

Those with at least 50 followers, an average of 3 (or more) simultaneous viewers in the last 30 days, at least 8 hours of total broadcast in a month, and at least 7 broadcast days in the last 30 days get an invitation email from Twitch to be part of the Twitch Affiliate Program.

Once you become an affiliate, you can earn by accumulating “Bits” or when people subscribe and support your channel.

You also have the chance of earning from game sales and in-game items that originated from your channel.

Twitch Subscriptions

Once you’re a Twitch Affiliate, your viewers can subscribe to your Twitch channel.

Subscribing to a Twitch channel is more than just following; it’s following with added monetary support.

There are three subscription tiers currently available to users: $4.99, $9.99, and $24.99 monthly subscription.

Twitch also offers Twitch Prime, which is included with Amazon Prime and Prime Video, which viewers can use to subscribe to a channel of their choice for free.

What do viewers get from their subscription? They get unique emotes (or emoji), badges, special alerts, ad-free viewing, exclusive chatrooms, and exclusive competitions.

Which viewers are willing to pay subscription fees? Your genuine fans who truly like and appreciate the content you’re offering.

As for you as a streamer, subscriptions are a good, steady way to make money on Twitch. Also, it’s a good incentive to keep creating content.

Twitch keeps 50% of the fee and the Twitch Affiliate or Partner gets the other 50%.

Ad revenues

Twitch affiliates can earn money with shares in the advertisement revenue generated from video ads shown during their streams.

There’s no set income earned this way, but as a streamer’s followers increase, so will their ad shares.

Traditionally, video ads on Twitch streams are disruptive, but Twitch is introducing changes to make advertising on Twitch beneficial to everyone: advertisers, streamers, viewers, and Twitch, of course.

Twitch affiliates (and partners) are now allowed to take ad breaks and show ads via picture-by-picture so viewers don’t miss any of the gaming action. Enabling ad breaks would also allow streamers to disable pre-roll ads, that is, video ads that play before every stream, for a certain amount of time.

This is similar to the primary way of making money on YouTube, which is through ads. There are also a few other ideas listed there that could possibly be used to make money on Twitch as well.

The Twitch Partner Program

Any Twitch streamer who aims to make it big in the site dreams to be accepted into this program.

Unlike their Affiliate Program, the Twitch Partnership program is exclusive. You’d have to send an application for Twitch to check if your channel is qualified.

There are no published, set criteria on how Twitch Partners are selected, although they are known to consider content quality, average viewership, your engagement with your viewers, and stream frequency and consistency (that is, can they expect new content from you every week on a certain day?).

When you do make it as Twitch partner, you’ll reap all the benefits offered to affiliates, plus live chat privileges, custom emoticons and prefixes, verified user badges, and other exclusive-to-partner perks.

12 Ways You Can Make Money on Twitch

Below are 12 ways people are making money on Twitch to give you some ideas on how you could start and what kind of niches are available on the site.

If you’re just starting out, try and remain mindful of the type of monetization path you’d like to pursue down the line.

Make sure you keep your content relevant to that path to further your chances of succeeding.

1. Live video game, “Let’s Play” style

Twitch.TV is first and foremost the home of esports, so expect the competition among gamers to be fierce.

But if you’ve mastered a particular game and have a unique personality, there’s a good chance you’ll succeed in competing with older, more popular streamers.

The best thing about Twitch is that anyone can do it. Take Mackenseize, for example – she’s been diagnosed with a seizure disorder as a teen.

Now, even if the 25-year-old Hearthstone streamer seizes every once in a while during a stream, her 37,000+ followers continue to support her with every game she explores.

2. Speedrun

Speedrunning is the same as livestreaming any game, except that the goal of “speedrunners” is to complete an entire level or a whole game as fast as possible.

TheMexicanRunner, for example, is a hardcore speedrunner for classic games and has made a huge following with his NESMania quest, wherein he tries to finish every officially licensed game from the original Nintendo Entertainment System at record-breaking speeds.

3. Talk shows and podcasts

Twitch.TV also has streamers who host talk shows on gaming, where they talk about various games, review them, talk about the latest news, gossip, and issues about the gaming industry, and maybe even interview guests and hold round-table

Other talk shows on Twitch.TV do not focus on gaming.

h3h3Productions, for example, is an Israeli-American comedy channel produced by husband and wife team Ethan and Hila Klein.

With more than 570,000 followers, H3’s main content is a mix of commentaries, sketches, satires, and reaction videos about internet culture, YouTube policies, viral trends, and online personalities.

The duo even interviews YouTubers and celebrities.

Because more and more people and content creators are staying at home these days, expect Twitch to have more and more talk shows covering a variety of topics.

4. Play casino games

If you’re not a fan of video games and instead prefer playing poker and other casino games, there’s a special place for you on Twitch.TV.

Whether you’re a fan of slots, poker, or roulette, there’s room on Twitch.TV for you.

The most popular Twitch casino streamers as of 2020 include ROSHTEIN, CasinoDaddy, and ClassyBeef.

5. Radio-style stream

It’s not as popular as esports, but the Twitch Music category is a goldmine for anyone looking to create content or just chill.

Aside from taking advantage of the Twitch Music Library, which houses precleared music for Twitch broadcasters to use in their livestreams, you can also discover other streamers like NoCopyrightSounds who are focused on providing non-stop music to the Twitch community.

Of course, if you have the resources, you can always copy the success of legit radio-style streaming channels of Monstercat, SpinninRecords, and RelaxBeats, among many others.

6. Perform music

When the Music category was first launched in 2016, Steve Aoki, T-Pain, Deadmau5, and other EDM artists supported Twitch and the users embraced them wholeheartedly.

Today, big-name artists like Kanye continue to use the platform as a way to promote their music, increase followers, or simply chill with the Twitch community.

Even if big-ticket artists are sure winners on Twitch, it shouldn’t be stopping anyone with real musical abilities to earn money from Twitch, or even make it big.

There are plenty of hidden gems on Twitch, such as husband-and-wife gamers/musicians Travis and Allie of a_couple_streams, Kyle Landry’s Piano Madness, and a whole lot more.

7. Livestream your art

If musicians can livestream their music, graphic artists can also livestream their art on Twitch.

The Art category on Twitch is one of the most interesting non-gaming categories on Twitch, featuring artwork on different media, physical as well as digital, being created live while audiences watch.

Some watch to relax, others want to learn new techniques they can incorporate in their work, and still others like to see their favorite video game characters or worlds come to being as tangible artwork.

If you do plan to do this, make sure that your “info” section has relevant information and links to your portfolio so that your subscribers can find your other artwork.

Also, if you have a shop where they can buy your art, it’s also important to link to it so they can buy your art.

8. Make crafts

You can find streamers making all kinds of crafts under the Makers & Crafting category.

If you sew or make your own costumes for your cosplay, assemble your own gaming computers, or create jewelry or accessories, this might just be a video category you can get on board with.

Considering this is still primarily a video gaming stream site, you can make more money on Twitch if your crafts are related to games. Not only will more people view your videos, but they’re also likely to buy what you’ve made.

9. Play Magic: The Gathering

The cool thing about livestreaming is that even physical games like Magic: The Gathering can be broadcasted from your home.

And if you’ve been a master-gamer of Magic since it was launched in the early 90s, you can still bring out your card collections and revive the glory of competing against other Magic fans.

However, playing the digital version of Magic: The Gathering, Arena, has been more popular in recent years, enabling gamers who aren’t in the same location to stream their game.

Interested in joining Twitch.TV and earn money from your Magic: The Gathering skills, but don’t know where to start?

Check out the channels of LSV, Caleb Durward (CalebD), Kenji (NumotTheNummy), and Bob Ristau, and see how you can stream your own MTG plays and actually make money.

10. Live IRL

Twitch opened the IRL category to a ton of criticisms, but once the initial shock has passed, many existing Twitch streamers welcomed the idea and use it themselves for downtime, non-game streaming.

Within the IRL category, gamers could eat, sing, craft, cook, play sports, and other activities without being reprimanded for doing so at their respective game-specific category.

Since then, the IRL category has broken into different categories, but you can still tag videos as IRL.

IRL streams can be anything under the sun. Here are multiple examples that actually happened on Twitch IRL streams:

• KitBoga calls IRS, tax, virus, and other scammers and plays along for hours. He uses a voice changer to get into full characters like old-lady Edna and fools scammers for as long as possible.
• Someone doing math homework
• A guy assembling an Ikea closet
• Someone decorating a Christmas tree
• Architect designing a house
• Fully clothed Andy Milonakis streaming from inside a running shower
• Someone staring at a wall (this kid made $100 for this activity)
• A guy making balloon animals for over an hour
• An American reading books in French
• Bounty hunters who livestream while working
• Someone who made two Google Homes talk to each other for hours
• A garbage collector streaming his job on a regular day
• Japanese man going to his local barber, eating out, and taking his viewers to interesting parts of his city
• An Arby’s employee who streams his entire shift

As you can see, IRL is the most flexible and fastest-growing tag yet still provides a way to make money on Twitch.

As long as you go live with your idea and give it your all, you’d be surprised that there will always be a market for anything streamed.

People generally want to be entertained, taught to do things visually, or just get a good laugh from something totally random.

11. “Just chat” with your viewers

A natural offshoot of the IRL category is the “Just Chatting” category.

Just Chatting videos are exactly what they sound like; it’s you just talking to your viewers and subscribers.

You can try to share your views about the latest news about the topic of your streams, educating people about certain issues that are near to your heart, or maybe even just funny stories.

Even merely asking how they are, answering their questions, asking them questions, and at times merely acknowledging your lurkers (i.e., those in the chat, watching but not commenting for various reasons) can increase engagement with your community, keep them coming back, and spread the word to new viewers.

Aside from your regular content on your channel, having a stream under the “Just Chatting” category every once in a while can boost your popularity, and thus your earnings.

12. Cook food (and eat it!)

Another popular non-gaming Twitch category is the Food & Drink category that has all kinds of food prep, meal prep, cooking, baking, and all other videos related to food.

Videos under the former category Social Eating remain tagged as such but seem to have been lumped in this category as well, where streamers eat live on camera and share their meals with the community.

13. Go to work and make money on Twitch

The majority of game streamers on Twitch have some sort of IT-related jobs or skills.

There’s a huge demand for game development tutorials, so if you’ve got the patience, talent, communication skills, and passion to teach programming, coding, web development, photo/video editing, robotics, or any other tech topics, you’re good to go.

Twitch is where it’s at.

This also goes for specific programs.

For example, if you have advanced knowledge of Blender (the 3D modeling software), you can stream how you do things and you’d be surprised at the interest these streams bring.

If you’re under 20, you might want to check out our list of online jobs for teens for some ideas on jobs you could potentially stream from the comfort of your home.

14. Wrestle

If you don’t know it yet, Twitch.TV has been promoting professional wrestling in recent years.

They’ve got several big companies already involved and have partnered with the likes of IMPACT! Wrestling and House of Hardcore to grow a Twitch community around wrestling.

Twitch even joined WrestleCon, giving its partners like Tangent access to stream the slams, dives, and global wrestling action live and share it to other fans.

If you’re a fan, don’t miss Knokx Pro Wrestling Academy’s Twitch channel, where you can watch streamed pro wrestling and listen to the input from the crowds watching to influence matches.

You can definitely get some ideas on how you can run your own wrestling channel there.

Games You Can Make Money On

Are You Ready To Start Making Money On Twitch?

The best thing about Twitch is that it’s free to use for all. You don’t have to set out to make money on Twitch, but why not create an account, start streaming while you game or do your other activities, build a following, and see what it turns into?

Who knows, you may be the next hottest Twitch streamer!

Games You Can Actually Make Money On

Are you a Twitch viewer, subscriber, streamer, or all of the above? Were you inspired by any of the ideas above? Share your story in the comments!