Introduction
If you’re somebody like me who has been gaming since you were a small child, I’m sure you’ve thought about ways to make money off one of the things you enjoy in life the most, gaming.
Whether you are playing mobile games, gaming with friends on the couch or online on your computer, there are many opportunities you can take to monetize your gaming hours to make a living off gaming.
Rush Royale Mobile Game Youtube Channel
Stardew Valley Youtube Channel Example
A few ways you can make money by playing games online are:
- Creating a Youtube channel
- Streaming on Twitch/Youtube/Facebook
- Creating a gaming blog
- Becoming a Journalist
- Entering Esports and professional gaming competitions
- Playing mobile apps that will reward you with real money/gift cards
This guide will be focused on Youtube, there will be separate guides for the other methods.
You must always make your content as good as it can possibly be. If you simply want to make money, your content will lose quality and you will likely give up during the process. But by making fantastic content your top priority and getting feedback from your audience, your readers/viewers will return, increasing the money you make from ad revenue.
Note – The Business Mindset
There is some very important information to understand, and it may not be what you want to hear, but I want you as the reader to be successful so you need to understand what you should expect starting this journey.
Be prepared to invest heavily in your business, which means both time and money. Treat it like a full-time job and it will pay you back handsomely.
You are turning your hobby into a business by starting this adventure. If you like to play video games in your downtime to relax, know that you will be playing video games as a job to earn money. You must treat your Youtube channel as a business if you want to make a decent living without wasting all your time editing and uploading content for little gain in the end.
It is important that if you are just starting, only focus on choosing a single platform at first. Don’t worry too much about your Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok socials just yet, however, you should make accounts on every social platform to save them.
You need to make sure you build a solid foundation on one platform, before trying to manage a variety of media streams (unless you hire people early on). We will outline all the steps you need to take in our blogs to comfortably make an earning no matter which path you take.
Making a living off gaming will take a lot of time, patience, and effort. This is very true for any industry. There will be times when you won’t see the progress you expect, but by taking the correct actions, making good decisions, and growing your audience, you will see plenty of success.
I won’t lie to you, the gaming industry does not make as much money in ad revenue compared to many other niches such as finance and education due to buyer intent, but it is a very successful niche for you to get started in because the opportunities are endless.
Ad revenue is lower because the average viewer will not spend as much money on products that are displayed on the screen, therefore advertisers do not spend as much money on ads.
However, this is outshined by the fact that you can make an incredible amount of content on any game and there are a limitless number of games out there, so you can always build an audience. And, playing games unlike talking about real estate or studying new subjects is certainly way more fun, I’m sure you agree!
Youtube Content Creation
For anybody wanting to make a living off gaming in the most fun way possible, creating a Youtube channel is by far the best way to go for several reasons. I will list a few here:
- You can play on your terms without the pressure of streaming or live viewer interaction.
- You can use the power of editing to give your viewers a unique experience that makes your channel stand out.
- Your videos will continue to make revenue years after they have been uploaded.
How Do You Make Money Gaming on Youtube?
People earn money on Youtube through ad revenue, generated from ads placed between videos. To do this, you need to be part of the Youtube Partner Program. To be eligible for the program, you need to have 1,000 subscribers, viewers need to watch more than 4,000 hours of your content over the last year and you must have no Community Guideline Strikes on your channel.
The amount you will make on your Youtube content is based on a few factors
- Watch time – viewer retention
- Views
- Interaction (Comments, likes shares)
The main goal of any platform is to ensure that users stay on its platform. Therefore the highest ranking factor for ad revenue on Youtube is watch time. The longer viewers watch your videos, the more money you will make.
Advertisers like to focus on videos that are longer as some adverts require the user to be watching for a certain length of time for the adverts to work, which does not work well for shorter content. Although Youtube Shorts can generate a lot of views, they do not generate a lot of money because the content is too short for suitable advertisement. Viewers a likely to have a shorter attention span and dismiss ads.
Viewer interaction is key to getting your videos exposed to new subscribers and viewers, which turns into more watch time and therefore more ad revenue. For this reason, people always tell you to like and subscribe to their videos because it most certainly helps them get exposed to the youtube algorithm.
Sponsorships
When your channel receives some authority and is deemed professional, sponsors may approach you to advertise their products for payment. We’ve all seen the Nord VPN and Raid Shadow Legends adverts everywhere. Depending on how large your audience is, sponsors could pay you between $2-25 per 1,000 views or give you a flat payment of $250-2000.
It is important that when you comply with your sponsor and choose to advertise their product, you naturally fit the sponsorship into your video and don’t stray the viewer too far away from the original video concept.
How Much Money Can You Make From A Youtube Gaming Channel?
The amount you will make varies on many variables as the ones mentioned above. If you’d like a rough estimate on how many views you must achieve daily/monthly, factoring in the amount of engagement (likes/comments/subscribes) you obtain, check out the calculation tool on this website.
Here you can even enter the URL of a video or a channel to estimate how much the channel or video earns.
Don’t take their values to heart, but you should have a base understanding of what to expect when you reach certain thresholds of your channel growth.
How to Choose which Game(s) to Play for your Youtube channel
It is important that when choosing the game you wish to make content on, it is a game you are willing to sacrifice. By that I mean, there will be a possibility you will no longer enjoy playing the game because it is now part of your job. As I mentioned earlier, when you turn a hobby into a business, you will start to lose the enjoyment of the game and will still be forced to play it.
If your channel will be focused on playing many games, this is not a big issue. However, you need to make sure that your audience has subscribed with the intent of you switching games often and not just for one game they like. Here are some points to help you decide:
- Choose a game with an active community. Active communities are great for engaging new players and retaining old players. This will help keep your content alive.
- Don’t pick a game you have just started playing, as you don’t know how quickly you will put it down, and you will be uneducated in it.
- Pick something that you know quite well to keep your audience engaged by mentioning details about the game that they wouldn’t know.
- Pick something you’re good at. People love watching experienced players (Speedrunning).
- Sandbox builder games such as Minecraft, Animal Crossing, or Stardew Valley. People love a unique touch on a game they are familiar with.
Choosing a Content Type
Firstly, you need to decide what type of content you want to produce for your channel. Here is a list of Youtube gaming video ideas that you can make a profitable channel from:
- Reviews
- Playthrough / Let’s Plays
- Guides
- Game Ranking / Top 10’s
- Speedrunning
- Theories
I will explain and give examples of these content types further below.
If you have never created any videos, I would recommend watching other Youtube channels that you enjoy to get an idea of how you want to edit and portray your videos.
Speaking about edits, it is important to get yourself set up properly before you partake in this adventure,
Youtube Setup
Audio quality is the most decisive factor when it comes to a good quality video. If you have brilliant audio quality, viewers instantly think that you are professional. Coupled with an engaging speaking voice, you can instantly get fans on the spot.
When starting this journey, you must have everything you need before you get started, so that you can optimally spend your time focusing on producing quality content without too many blockers. Making content is time-consuming enough, you don’t want to get stuck or held back during the process.
I must stress, that you certainly don’t need an amazing setup and the latest tech or production tools to produce content for your viewers, but audio and quality are always a welcome bonus.
The most important factors will be your script, editing direction, comedy if you have humor, gaming skills, basically any attributes that have nothing to do with a computer and only you personally.
I do, however, have some recommendations for your gear to get you started if you don’t have the necessary items you need.
Microphones
As I mentioned, microphone quality is very important. And if you’re not thinking of recording your voice while you create videos, though optional, I would reconsider.
Recording your voice will help your channel stand out from other channels in the same niche. Everybody loves a human element. The most important element of music is the vocalist because the ear is sensitive to other human voices.
Viewers can instantly connect with nuances in your voice, you may be softly spoken, you may have an interesting accent, you may be naturally funny as you talk and commentate, this can draw in more of an audience than your actual content itself! On top of this, a high-quality microphone can raise your perceived personality to the next level and turn viewers into fans.
Here are 2 microphones I recommend for Youtube channels.
Razer Seiren Elite
Average price: $90
If you’re looking for a cheaper, more budget-option microphone, I recommend the Razer Seiren Elite. This is a microphone developed by Razer and made specifically for streamers. It has a high-pass filter option built into the microphone to cut out any unwanted background sounds to add clarity to your vocal.
You can view this product on Amazon by clicking this link.
HyperX QuadCast S
Average price: $140
If you have a bit more money to spare for a more premium microphone at a very reasonable price, I would then recommend the HyperX QuadCast S. This is the same microphone that I use at home for work, audio recording work and it is beautiful.
It comes with an in-built pop filter behind the shield to clear out unwanted hisses while you speak and a shock mount to absorb vibrations to avoid audio disturbances. It also has 4 different polar options to change how much signal is picked up by the microphone in different directions, so you can place the microphone wherever you like and it will record perfect audio.
You can view this product on Amazon by clicking this link.
Cameras
Do you need a camera to be a YouTuber?
You don’t need a camera to start a Youtube channel, but it will enable you to connect with your audience. Certain types of media do not require a camera such as Synthesia piano tutorials so people can play along, but for most content having a camera will help you build trust with your viewers, resulting in faster channel growth.
Cameras do not come cheaply. You can use your smartphone to record yourself, but if you want to give your videos a professional feel, you need a camera with long battery life, sharpness, lens quality, resolution, and the list goes on, but you don’t need to worry about too many factors for the sake of making Youtube videos.
Ossyl 4K Digital Camera
Average price: $150
Specifically designed for Youtube, this Ossyl digital camera is perfect for anybody getting into the world of vlogging and recording. With correct lighting and some post-fx processing using brightness, saturation, and vignette, you will be very satisfied with the results.
If you’re not shooting videos, the 48MP camera quality absolutely shines here, the images look incredible! Outside of your gaming channel, since the camera is compact and lightweight, it is perfect for taking images for special occasions such as weddings before you go back home to shoot more gaming footage.
The user interface and controls are very smooth. The settings are easy to navigate and all make sense in their contained folders so you’ll never be confused by the options provided, impressive for a camera of this price range.
Cons – The camera does lack autofocus, so staying somewhat still throughout your video is suggested, which should not be a problem for gamers. It’s hard enough trying to get us to leave our seats in the first place. Also, it can lack a bit in framerate so some shots may look a little bit staggered, otherwise, at this price, the camera is incredible.
You can view this product on Amazon by clicking this link (This is a US product, be wary of shipping fees).
Game Reviews
A great choice for your channel consistency and interest from your viewers.
Game reviews are one of the most lucrative channel types in the gaming industry as people are likely interested in purchasing games when they search for your video, so advertisers are willing to pay more money to display their adverts, increasing your earnings from ad revenue.
You’ll likely have come across huge channels such as IGN during your gaming years which produce tons of gaming reviews. They are at the absolute top of their game and currently have 250 employees.
For people that like to play a large variety of games, game reviews are an absolutely perfect business model. You are less likely to get bored of the content you make and you don’t have to change your video style much because people are interested in your thoughts and opinions on the new game you are playing.
It also opens you up to gaming studios approaching you about news games they have released, giving you a free copy of the game, plus a negotiated amount of money just to play and review it, in hope that the studio will get some sales off the back of your review.
Take a game like Vampire Survivors, for example, a game developed by a small Studio and would get buried by the swarm of games that are released every day, but gained notoriety when huge gaming channels played the game and everybody purchased it. Youtuber Splatter Cat initially played the game, exposing it to the masses and now it has more than 100,000 ratings!
How To Review Games
You have great flexibility and plenty of options when deciding how you want to review your games. You can either take an analytical approach, a comedic approach, or a nice blend between the two to create unique and interesting content. Just make sure you choose one path, work hard, stay consistent and dominate it.
You should always be completely genuine when reviewing games. It doesn’t matter how much you like or dislike certain aspects of the game, the flow of natural emotions and opinions that you convey to your viewers will help you stand out as a Youtuber. You want to stand out as a personality that people will engage with so they continue to come back.
To get started, these are a few points you should always consider when reviewing a game:
- Controls
- Story
- Difficulty Scaling
- Replayability / Repetitiveness
- Game Systems
- Art and Animations
- Development History
- Music
- Glitches
Pick and choose every aspect of the game you would like to cover and rate them all followed by an overall score will give your video enough substance to be interesting from beginning to end and allows your audience to connect with your honest opinions.
Examples
Some great examples I recommend are long-time video game reviewers the Angry Video Game Nerd & SomeCallMeJohnny. These veteran Youtubers have been reviewing games for more than 10 years and are still going strong because they always have the option to play something new. Two different characters, both very entertaining to watch.
Playthrough / Let’s Plays
Best potential earnings on Youtube if you have a consistent audience.
Let’s plays can be a fantastic way to start a Youtube Channel. For starters, it is the longest form of content you can publish to Youtube in this genre as many of your videos will be at least 1 hour long. This is fantastic for your viewer watch time which you need to be as high as possible to earn more money.
However, it can be hard to keep your viewers entertained as you play through the game, so it helps to have an engaging speaking voice and the ability to analyze and speak about interesting moments that happen on the fly.
Example
Long-time Let’s Play Youtuber chuggaaconroy made great success playing a variety of games by keeping his energy high throughout his videos. He has a very entertaining personality and engaging voice, so you can even listen to his videos in the background without watching them because you are interested in his commentary.
Games such as Animal Crossing or Minecraft are fantastic for Let’s Plays and playthroughs because you can simply talk about your next step and steer the flow and direction of your gameplay. Viewers also remain very engaged by observing unique/creative twist you add to the world.
Games where you have to make decisions such as Telltale’s The Walking Dead or Horror Games are brilliant as they bring a natural ebb and flow of suspense and excitement and are great for those that hate playing horror games but enjoy watching other people brave enough to play them.
Being exceptionally good at a game is also perfect for playthroughs. People love to see the best of the best playing their favorite games, and people remember you for your skill for many years to come. I haven’t played League of Legends for more than 5 years, but I still vividly remember many players such as Faker, Cowsep, Trick2g, Bjergsen, and Doublelift. Being skilled can lead to endorsements and sponsorships.
Guides
Great for reliable and consistent views because people need information.
Game guides are solid in the gaming industry. Every gamer wants to know how to be the very best at the games they play. Gamers want to know secrets, collectible locations, tips and tricks, tier lists, literally everything you can detail about a game.
Unlike certain games where you have to be invested in it before watching other people play, many players may need to know specific information to get past a tough section of a game, or on the other hand, they may want to know how to spend their in-game resources efficiently.
Which Game Guides Should You Make?
Before you freely pick what you’d like to make guides about, I would suggest searching through Youtube to identify what content people have already covered whilst checking the quality of the content. There is little point in covering very similar content as somebody else unless they have not explained the well in the video and you think you could do a much better job.
It is always best to cover something in the market which has not been covered.
Take Uncharted 4 for example, there is a tough Founder’s Sigil puzzle section that you are presented with at a certain point in the game that plenty of people will need help with. You can simply make a short video of how to get through the puzzle and everybody stuck with the puzzle will flock to your video for help. If you choose a popular game and target a specific problem that people have.
Another example is a game such as Clicker Heroes. This is an Idle Game that requires you to spend your resources in the most efficient way possible to increase your damage so you can advance through levels rapidly. There are many components that you must take into consideration such as transcending, items, pets, and skills.
Trying to consume all this information at once is difficult for somebody who has not played the game for a long time, so they will look straight to a guide that will make their decision-making easier.
You could make a separate guide on each element of the game, or make 1 huge guide about the game’s progress. It is always better to make longer guides, but you also need to remain consistent in publishing your Youtube videos.
Clicker Heroes Transcending Guide
Game Ranking / Top 10’s
The best option for consistent entertainment.
Everybody loves a tier list and ranking system. We all want to know the best and the worst of everything for a couple of reasons.
- We want to know if other people’s opinions align with our own.
- We want to know the content that we should consider avoiding or content that we must play because we missed out.
A huge benefit of creating ranking lists is the videos are usually very entertaining from start to finish, keeping viewer watch time high, and enabling you to earn more money from ads. However, it takes some time to put these videos together as you will have to play a variety of games at different stages to get your content, unless you ask for permission to use content from other people.
Youtube channels such as Super Coin Crew take a variety of games from the Nintendo universe and make videos of anything Pikmin or Mario facts to the best and worst enemies.
One of the top channels on Youtube ‘Watch Mojo/Mojo Plays’ stormed this section by making top 10 videos on literally anything they can get their hands on and have been very successful with it.
There are so many ranking videos that have not been touched on yet, you just need to think outside the box a little bit to create unique and unheard-of content. I will give you some fantastic examples that you may not have thought about that will guarantee interested viewers.
- Top 10 Unpredictable Boss Transformations.
- Top 10 Weakest Pokemon Abilities.
- Top 10 Worst 100% Completion Rewards.
- Top 10 Christmas Themed Seasonal Updates.
- Top 10 Retired Speedrunners.
- Top 10 Esports Personalities.
- Top 10 Glitches That Ruined a Game.
- Top 10 Moments in the Walking Dead.
Esports
Highest earnings if you are good enough to compete, but short life-span of competitors.
The world of Esports is incredibly lucrative indeed, there is a lot of money to be made for gamers via tournaments. The entire Esports market generated $1.14 BILLION throughout 2022 which is insane, and truly illustrates how far gaming has come over the years.
It is a highly competitive space that requires a lot of your time and focus to hone your skills in a particular game almost every day. For most people in Esports, it is their full-time job as they do not have the time to focus on anything else.
Currently, in 2022, the most profitable games in order by tournament prize money are:
- Dota 2
- Fortnite
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO)
- League of Legends
- Arena of Valor
- Player Unkown’s Battleground
- Starcraft II
- Overwatch
- Hearthstone
- Rainbow Six Siege
You shouldn’t simply choose the game with the greatest prize pool, you should:
- Choose a game that you are naturally good at and enjoy.
- Check how many tournaments in that game so you have a chance of competing in it.
- Check if competing requires you to travel.
By thinking about these points, you should be able to select a game that you have a chance of competing in based on the number of available tournaments. You should always check how good your competition is before entering.
A game that has a ranking system such as Dota 2 or League of Legends should give you an indication of how well you perform within your region, and if competing will be worth your time.
If you cannot travel to gaming venues, consider trying to compete in a different game.
To see which games have tournaments you can compete in, check out this link https://www.esportsearnings.com/games.
Speedrunning
Brilliant for obtaining current fans and a strong viewer base.
If you are particularly good at a game already, consider Speedrunning. The best speedrunners of any game may get the opportunity to showcase their skills at Games Done Quick, a charity gaming event where the best of the best get together and obliterate their games.
This is a brilliant Cuphead run by The Mexican Runner
Speedrunning is a grey area for monetization. Sure you can be the very best at a game, but it needs to have enough current followers for you to gain enough traffic and supporters. This also tends to be an avenue for live streamers instead of purely Youtubers, because viewers want to see live reactions and want to engage with the Speedrunner while they are pulling off their skills.
Also, it used to be a lot more lucrative years ago but has started to fall off in popularity over the years, but you can certainly still make money, though I would advise that you first explore the other options.
Before thinking about Speedrunning, you need to consider the fact that you will be restarting a game thousands of times over before you will be good enough to speedrun it. There are an enormous amount of tricks to learn like frame perfect timing, glitches that require you to be at the perfect angle, and everything that needs to be incredibly specific.
By the time you reach speedrunning mastery, you then need to have the willpower to continue speedrunning the game, discover new ways to decrease your run time, and continue engaging with the speedrunning community for any new tricks others have picked up.
This is a very tedious task for people who are not prepared, but the best players will remain in people’s minds for decades. It is often that people who stop speedrunning a game lose their popularity quickly unless they speedrun a similar game.
I used to spend a lot of time watching Zelda Ocarina of Time speedruns many years back, and I will always remember the legend Torje for his fantastic Ocarina of Time speedruns.
If you’d like to learn more about speedrunning or know more about what it takes to compete in certain speedrunning categories, check out speedrun.com. All official speed runs are submitted here.
Game Theories
The best way to make your gaming youtube channel stand out, best potential channel growth.
Game Theories are the most unique and creative outlets out of the gaming Youtube categories for your channel.
It requires you to critically analyze a game and give your opinions as to what the story, secrets, and design of the game could imply underneath the hood, and this can be absolutely anything. The theory doesn’t have to be too accurate, but it must have enough facts to create a compelling story.
For example, let’s look at the most popular game theory channel ‘The Game Theorists, hosted by Matthew Robert Patrick (MatPat). He created interesting game theories that are as simple as ‘What is Ash Ketchum’s REAL Age?’ or ‘How DEADLY is Mario’s Blue Shell’, then some more obscure topics such as ‘Is Link Dead in Majora’s Mask’.
There are endless angles that you can take on a game to make an interesting theory, it just needs to make sense. The more you can take in-game dialog and have it make sense with your theory, the more engaging the video. Remember, if you want to make more money making Youtube videos by playing video games, your content has to be as good as possible.
Conclusion
If you’ve read this far, congratulations! You should have a huge number of ideas to get you started on your gaming Youtube Channel. The next step is to go through the process of creating your channel, adding graphics, and editing your videos, then pressing upload.
You must always be on top of your schedule so you can consistently release videos. Keep a running log of the content you want to produce in advance so you keep up your momentum and increase your channel at the fastest rate possible. Consistency is key to channel growth.
Be patient and enjoy the process, continue to research to improve your video quality, your voice-overs, and general entertainment.
Best of luck to all gamers! Thank you very much for reading!
