With the large increase in mainstream popularity of video gaming in the 21st century, competitive gaming in the form of eSports has blossomed over the last few years. Playing video games at a high level became a viable career choice as many professional gamers amassed millions just by playing their favorite game and being good at it. This left many players who are passionate about gaming wondering about all of the methods they can use to make gaming their full-timeeSports job.
Join the eSports industry
If you’re someone who is very skilled in a certain multiplayer game that has a developed eSports industry, there is no reason why you shouldn’t attempt to kickstart your career as a professional player. In order to reach success by playing an eSport competitively, you need to join a certain organization and start competing in large tournaments and join professional leagues. Games like Counter-Strike, League of Legends, and Valorant all host large tournaments with millions of dollars in prize money that’s distributed among the top-ranked teams.
To put things into perspective, the overall revenue that the eSports industry makes exceeds 1 billion dollars and it’s expected to gross over 1.6 billion by 2024. As a professional player, your earnings can exceed millions but they will depend on your skills and marketability, given that your main income will come from your eSports contract and external sponsorships.
Overall, you need to be well-liked and extremely skilled if you want to make it in this industry, which is something you should take into account before making a radical decision.
Stream on Twitch
The alternative path of becoming rich by playing eSports competitively is by becoming a popular Twitch streamer. If you’re unfamiliar with Twitch, it’s a platform where you can broadcast yourself playing a game to an audience that can financially support you by donating money or subscribing, which in return provides them with new chat emojis and other unique features. Once your channel has grown enough, you can join the Twitch affiliate program which provides you with additional revenue.
In the last 10 years, Twitch became the leading platform when it comes to video game broadcasting, and its revenue was over $2.6 billion dollars in 2022. Generally, the formula to success on Twitch is much different than the one in eSports, given that you need a lot of luck, great gaming skills, and a specific personality in order to succeed and attract viewership.
There are certain types of gamers that generally have an easier time attracting viewers because of their unique skillset:
- Professional players / high-ranked players – they are always popular because of their skill and viewers watch them because they want to improve
- One trick ponies – these players always get attention because of their niche picks and strategies
- Funny personalities – your good sense of humor can be a difference maker, especially if your skills aren’t good enough to bring in viewers on their own
- Attractiveness – given that streamers often stream with their camera on, being good-looking is sometimes enough of a reason for people to watch you
Become a YouTuber
Being a YouTuber often goes hand-in-hand with being a Twitch streamer, given that most Twitch streamers also have an active YouTube channel and vice versa. Gamers and eSports personalities post various types of videos on their YouTube channels that range from highlights taken from their video games to general discussions unrelated to gaming. The types of videos one would post on YouTube depend on the type of content they usually make, their gaming personality, and the types of viewers their videos attract.
Generally, the money on YouTube is mostly earned by advertisements that pop up on your videos or by having an external sponsorship. You should keep this in mind as the videos that receive the most ads and sponsors are children-friendly and contain no strong language or profanities. Apart from these methods, you can also earn money by becoming a YouTube partner, selling your personalized merchandise, or by having your videos watched by YouTube premium users.
Become an elo booster
There are a lot of players who are extremely skilled in the particular game they’re playing but they lack the time or motivation to become professional players. Luckily, there is a large market for players like this that has developed over the last few years and it’s in the boosting business. If this is your first time encountering the term boosting, it refers to hiring another skillful player to boost the virtual rank of an account by consecutively winning games.
Given that a lot of players lack the required skills and dedication to make it to the top of the competitive ladder, a lot of those players resort to hiring these boosters to help them reach the highest ranks instead. As a result, a lot of players who are very skilled in certain games make a living by playing video games and boosting accounts every day. This job, in particular, is easy for the best players as they’re always playing against inferior opposition.
That being said, boosting is against the terms of service when it comes to most multiplayer games, which is something you should look out for as you can be banned if you’re spotted boosting.
Start coaching
Coaching is the common alternative to boosting, as it allows skilled players to make money by sharing their knowledge with low-ranked players who desperately need help to improve. In comparison, it’s much safer than boosting as it doesn’t break any terms of service and you cannot get punished for coaching in any way. In addition, coaching allows you to form long-term relationships with your customers and often provides you with a network of returning customers.
When starting out, it’s best to provide free/cheap coaching sessions until you gain enough positive references in the community. It’s best to conduct them via Discord, as it allows the person you’re coaching to share their screen and communicate with you easily. Over time, if you dedicate yourself to coaching, you will be able to build a clientele and even create content based on your coaching on platforms such as YouTube or Twitch.
Game Development and Design
If you have a background in programming or design, you could develop and design games to sell or license. Indie game development has become increasingly popular, and there are numerous success stories of independent developers creating successful games and earning a significant income. You can create games for different platforms, including mobile, console, and PC, and you can sell them directly to consumers or through marketplaces like Steam or the App Store.
Entrepreneurship and Sponsorship
Finally, you can make money from esports and gaming by becoming an entrepreneur and seeking sponsorships or investments. You could start a gaming team or organization, host esports events, create gaming merchandise, or even develop gaming-related software and hardware. You’ll need to have a strong business plan, networking skills, and a passion for entrepreneurship to succeed in this field as there are many people who have already highly capitalized by monetizing their assets in the esports industry.
