5 Ways Gamers Earn Money

5 min readJan 5, 2018

You would have heard of people telling you that gaming won’t earn you a living, or that you can’t earn any money while doing it. Well have you heard enough? The next time someone tells you that, remember to show them this article because today we’re going to share with you some ways that you can earn money and monetize your gaming skills and experience.

Before we start the list, we must still emphasize that, just like any job out there, being able to monetize your gaming assets will still require effort and patience. Just like any business out there, reaping what you sow takes time and a stable business is never guaranteed.

#1. Getting Paid to Test Games

One lesser known avenue where you can earn a bit of cash doing something related to gaming is the testing of games. Before game developers release the final product, they would need different sections of the game to go through rigorous testing. This requires a large number of game testers to play certain parts of the game over and over again, in the hope that a glitch or bug will occur during the playthrough, allowing the developers to analyze the glitches and work out fixes for them.

However, this job can often be boring and repetitive when you are replaying the same section over and over again. And the biggest negative factor is that salary is often low or even at minimal wage. This kind of job is suitable for students looking for some part-time money during their term break or school holidays.

#2. Farming for Items and Gold

Since the 1990’s, farming in-game currency in a game to exchange it for real-world money later has always been around. The term has since then been coined as ‘Gold farming’. Diablo 2, the popular action RPG, had a black market system that allowed players to sell the in-game currency for cold hard cash, although now Diablo 3 has its own in-game auction house. Another popular game that had gold farming is World of Warcraft.

However, the value of this in-game cash or gold may not be worth as much in real life. At one time, you had to farm 300,000 gold in World of Warcraft to maybe sell it for just $100. Luckily, platforms such as Steam makes it easier for the trading of in-game items. Items in games such as Counter Strike: Global Offensive can sell for about $5-$20 or more per item, even though getting the drops of these items still require effort and patience.

#3. Publishing Game Guides and Walkthroughs

Do you feel that you know a game literally inside-out? Well we have good news for you! If you are really skilled and experienced in a video game, you could write your own e-book and publish it on Kindle or your own website.

The key to being successful in this method is to be the first-mover in the game. When a video game is first released, you would be competing with many others in the field to gain as much experience and knowledge quickly in order to monetize through this method, so you have to be ready and poised to take on the challenge.

#4. Recording ‘Let’s Play’ Videos

Most of you by now would have heard of or even watched one of these Let’s Play videos. They are basically a recording of the player’s in-game playthrough and often accompanied by commentary by the player. Think of PewDiePie, Markiplier and these famous Youtubers that often publish these Let’s Play videos. Twitch is also an excellent platform for you to become a partner and start publishing your playthroughs, although the difficulty arises from gaining viewership. You have to be interesting enough to capture your audience’s attention and entertain them. So if you’re a natural born entertainer, this might be a good option for you.

Here’s a video of PewDiePie playing a walkthrough of Uncharted 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzrUVbvGNeM

#5. Sell Your Characters

You have cashed in hours after hours into your favourite MMO and now you have a better video game to play, so what do you do with your high-level game character/s? You sell them of course! There are always gamers out there who would like to acquire a high level character in the game in exchange for money rather than time and effort. There are platforms such as Player Auctions that pay you a profit for your character/s. However do not expect exorbitant payoffs because only the best of the best characters will fetch a high price.

Bonus Tip: Bountie!

By now we hope you have had read about us in our Whitepaper. We aim to help players monetize their time playing competitive video games too!

Final Thoughts

We hope that you have learnt some new ways to earn money doing what we all love: Gaming. It will take time and effort, but just like anything else in life, success rewards the hardworking. Together, we hope that we can break the stigma that gaming is a non-viable avenue for earning money or an income and hopefully, you will find success in doing what you love. Cheers!

What’s Bountie?

Bountie is a platform for gamers in Asia to make a living while playing their favourite games, a big eco-system of gamers, merchants and game developers.