It is no big secret that times are tough financially for everyone. The cost of living keeps rising and wages are seemingly stagnating. Which is why more people are looking for extra income streams to boost their finances. And you might not be aware that you can make a good bit of money from gaming.
There are multiple ways you can turn your gaming hobby into a second income stream. Some are harder than others. But these routes are often more lucrative too. We have put together this guide to help you get started in the business of gaming. We aren’t going to be looking at actually making video games as this would fall more into a second job territory.
Winning Tournaments
Pro-gaming is a very appealing career for a lot of people. Getting paid to play your favorite games? Sounds like a dream. But the life of a full time professional gamer is no easy task. You would have to stick to a regimented schedule of training, exercise, and diet. And the game you play would very soon become more of a job than a fun escape.
But you can still earn money from smaller gaming tournaments. A lot of cities host regular entry level events that offer a modest prize pool. And, while the competition won’t be easy to beat, it is definitely more manageable than at a high level tournament.
Usually it is games like League Of Legends, Dota 2, Call Of Duty, or Overwatch that have tournaments with a good payout. You will most likely want to enter as part of a team, which does mean having regular training sessions with your friends. If you did eventually want to veer more into the pro gaming scene, this is a great way to get your foot in the door.
Running A Gaming Server
Online gaming has become a staple of the industry. Most games are built around multiplayer. And there are countless thousands of active private servers running at any one time. Running your own gaming server is a great way to enjoy gaming with your friends in a more personalized environment. And it can also be a good source of income.
Let’s look at Minecraft as an example. Unless you are playing local multiplayer, you need to join a server to play online. Mojang does allow you to hire a server directly from them, but we recommend going through a different server rental company. Setting up a server is fairly easy these days. There are a lot of useful guides for getting it running and installing mods.
Running a paid server does mean you will have to offer something more than a free server offers. For example, if you are running a Minecraft server, you will want to offer the game modes people want. Right now Bedwars and Factions servers are extremely popular. So you could run a server that alternates between the two modes.
You need to ensure your paid server has a good mod team behind it. If people are paying for a space on your server they won’t want to have to deal with trolls or rule breakers. Or bad mods. So make sure you properly vet all your mods before handing them the reigns of power.
Secondary Item Market
A lot of games, particularly on Steam, have in game cosmetics that can be traded or sold. Games like Team Fortress 2 or CS:GO have built a huge community around people buying and selling these items. And some of them sell for a lot. One hat in TF2 was sold for $18,000 worth of keys. And a gun skin in CS:GO sold for roughly $400,000.
Chances are you won’t be making that much money. But, if you are smart with your trading and lucky with your item drops, you could make an extra hundred dollars every month. And, every now and then, you might be lucky enough to find an extremely rare item that could give you a big income boost.
Steam also has a trading card system. These cards are awarded to you for logging playtime in certain games. The cards, when combined, give you cosmetics for your profile. But they can also be sold on the Steam Market. This isn’t the most lucrative side hustle. But it can earn you enough to buy some new games. Our advice is to always put your cards up for a couple cents lower than the market average to ensure it sells.
