The evolution of games has made excellent progress in the last decade. From games like Snake, and Brick Games to games like League of Legends (LOL), and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), a lot has changed. While games used to be completely considered a waste of time, a few people have turned the tables by proving that you can earn while gaming, i.e., gaming entrepreneurship. With the recent trend in Gaming Entrepreneurship, a lot of people have joined and are willing to join this $160 billion industry.
For entrepreneurs who want to jump into this pool, here we are going to discuss a few ways you can consider if you want to earn money with games/gaming.
How to Start Gaming Entrepreneurship?
1. Game Development
The biggest entertainment moneymaker of 2020 was video games, surpassing both movies and sports combined. The gaming industry, which was valued at $162.32 billion in 2020, is expected to reach $500 billion over the next five years. Such a boom in the gaming industry signals that it’s a good time to join. By teaming up with good programmers, and creative thinkers and using game engines link Unity and Game Maker, one can easily set up a first step towards starting a game industry. With the arrival of digital marketing, sales and distribution, it’s now easier than ever to reach a bigger audience. The important things you need to know before starting are the gaming platforms and the game genre. When deciding the types of games that you want to make, first of all, you should be familiar with different platforms like console, PC, browser, mobile, etc., and genres like action, adventure, role-playing, simulation, strategy, etc. These different categories of games have different target customers, and the profit that can be generated also varies.
2. Gameplay Live Stream
One of the popular services you can provide to the Gaming Community is by streaming your Gameplay Live. You can earn just by streaming your gameplay.
Now, this may sound easy, but things are pretty complex and to make a good earning from it, you have to be patient. To get started you can start live streaming on Facebook and YouTube. Once you make a base, you can join Twitch which is currently the most extensive live gaming platform with an estimated 1.2 million concurrent viewers.
Here are additional things that you should consider if you start the Gameplay Live Stream. Making a gaming setup is expensive. Things like Gaming consoles, Controllers, CPUs, a microphone, and a speed internet connection may rack up your bills high. Since you will not be earning immediately, make your budget tight. Also, there are thousands of Live Streamers, don’t try to copy one. Make your style, interact with your viewers, learn yourself, and help your viewers too.
3. Set your foot to the YouTube Podcasts or Tutorials
Now, if you are not so camera-friendly, you can step into the world of YouTube where you can try launching different Podcasts or tutorial videos.
Few things you might want to consider while making these videos are:
- Target new players
- Make Your videos beginner-friendly
- Stay open to criticisms and improve accordingly
- Practice a lot to improve your gaming
- Make your videos simple and useful
In this part, you can do anything other than host a live-stream video. You can offer certain tips and tricks that most beginners don’t know about. You can also review the gadgets on which they can play games, or you can just react to others’ gaming videos.
To start this, you can provide gaming news to the global audience, or just start with a specific game title. You don’t have to record yourself playing the game or saying something.
In this category, it is very hard to gain a huge amount of followers and usually takes a longer time to start earning. Remember, the key to success is consistency and patience. If you gain a specific amount of followers, you can also ask them to join a Patreon Subscription program on YouTube, to help you financially.
4. Create Gaming Guides and Tutorials
This is different from hosting live-stream videos or doing podcasts on YouTube. Now, you should remember that, in every game, there are three types of players: a professional type, a mediocre type, and a beginner. You should focus on the last type, which is the beginners’ type.
To make an earning through gaming entrepreneurship, set up a blogging website or use Medium and write your gaming guides. To write a proper guide, improve your writing skills, and make content with zero or only a few grammatical errors.
Your gaming guide should sound like a beginner and point out the mistakes that as a beginner you made. Don’t try to overdo and make things complex and also leave a space for players to find a few errors on their own.
After you have written your guides, share them on Social media like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to gain traffic. Join a Medium Partner Program and earn from it.
5. Participate in Tournaments for Sponsorship
To participate in tournaments and get sponsorship is very competitive and tough. A lot of professional gamers will be participating in tournaments from all over the world. To make your way to the top, you need to be an excellent gamer and thinker, and sometimes you need to have the best team as well.
There are usually, two types of Tournaments: Player Vs Player (PvP) and multiplayer games. One of the popular types of multiplayer competition can be Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) games.
Last year, the cumulative prize pool for the PUBG competition was over US $6.9 million, which is considered one of the largest pool prizes that year. Similarly, popular games like League of Legends (LOL) also have some big pool prizes. The size of the prize depends on the popularity of the game.
6. Being a Beta Tester
Another way of earning money while gaming is by signing up to be a beta tester of the games. Normally, game companies upload their new features and new version in the beta version of the game. A company can also hire individuals as a beta testers on their own, or individuals can also sign up to be a part of the beta tester version.
What happens in the Beta version of the game is, usually the games are incomplete in the beta version. To make the game perfect, the company pays beta testers to play their games, find errors, and bugs.
On the other part of the table, the company also provides testing guides to their testers to make the test efficient.
7. Virtual and Augmented Reality
Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are completely different things rather than just playing games and earning. VR and AR are quite booming in the gaming industry with an expectation of making a profitable budget of $300 Billion by the year 2025.
Entrepreneurs who are trying to step into the gaming world can contribute by making a better headset, VR box, hand controllers, sensor-equipped gloves, and other equipment. VR Technology allows players to experience gaming action in an FPP mode.
While AR wraps the environment of the user by perfectly blending Visuals and Audio into the user’s encircling, the perfection of AR now makes a thin line that just separates reality from the digital world. The advancement boomed in such a way that now people can make real money while playing through AR.
Few companies that reward players with real-time money are Captive and Scavenger Hunt AR. The Captive has created an augmented world where players can get real prizes by playing. While Scavenger Hunt AR even advances by pairing it with a blockchain and awarding the players with real rewards like a signed LeBron James Shoe.
Key Take-Aways
Advancements in Technology have made eSports and Earning a possible career now. The huge gap in these two aspects has cleared now and people can make a career in gaming and earn a decent amount from it.
However, gaming is a high-end expense or investment. It costs a fortune to arrange some proper consoles, in-game purchases downloadable content (DLC). If you want to make a decent earning through gaming and make yourself a successful Gaming Entrepreneurship. Always remember to be Consistent, Patient, and Open to getting the result.