Who doesn’t have a dream of turning their hobby into a lucrative side hustle that brings them thousands of dollars every year? For some people, this may seem like more of a pipe dream but, if you’re willing to invest some time and money into your dream, you can make it happen.
One potentially profitable hobby is online gaming. For some people, online gaming may be a fun way to spend a couple of hours when you have nothing else to do but, for others, they’re turning this into a viable side hustle that’s bringing them figures in the six digits every single year. Want to find out how you can become the next big thing in online gaming? Keep on reading to discover some of our top tips.
1. Master Your Game
Like any hobby or career, you need to be the very best in your field if you want to start making serious money from it. Online gaming is a large industry that’s made up of a lot of different sub-genres, and you should choose one sport to master. Let’s say you choose poker, a popular online table game that plenty of people have made their millions from. When you first get started with this sport, you may not be the best as it takes time to learn the strategic skills needed to outwit your components and compete with the live dealer. It may take a lot of trial and error to adjust your poker style to win real money from online gaming, but it will be worth it in the end.
Once you learn all the information you need to know about the optimal hands, pot odds, and how to bluff to throw your opponents off, you will be able to start playing in more high-stakes games and have the option to be a bit riskier with your moves. Poker, it’s a sport where you have to take calculated risks to win the big bucks.
2. Enter The Prestigious Gaming Tournaments
One of the easiest ways to make a significant profit in online gaming is by entering some of the biggest online gaming tournaments related to your chosen sport. In these tournaments, you’ll be going up against players from all over the world and, if you think you’ve got what it takes to beat them all, you could be coming home with a generous sum of prize money.
These tournaments are intense and will require you to put a lot of time into training beforehand. We’d recommend starting with some of the smaller competitions first to get a feel for how everything works and to get some more experience before moving on to tournaments that require you to lay a little more on the line.
3. Participate in Game Testing and Reviewing for Extra Cash
New games are being released all the time, and these developers need people who are willing to test the games before they’re launched to make sure it’s enjoyable and spot any bugs that they have missed.
If you love playing games and want to be one of the first people to be able to play a highly-anticipated game before the general public gets their hands on it, sign up for some of these reviewing platforms. You’re not going to be making millions from doing this, but if you’ve got some spare time and want a bit of extra cash, this could be a good opportunity.
4. Start Streaming Your Games and Increase Your Presence on Social Media
Did you know that some professional gamers have been able to build a profitable empire for themselves off of social media? Social media itself can be a huge generator of revenue, just look at people like KSI who started a Youtube channel when he was a teenager and has gone on to receive millions of subscribers and a net worth of around $16 million.
If you’re getting into online games, we’d recommend that you start a Twitch account – this is a streaming service where you can play your games like normal but invite people to watch you. It can take some time to grow on Twitch but, when you have a loyal following, you can quickly start to make some serious money.
5. Focus on Getting Sponsors and Partnerships
Our final tip is to focus on getting some sponsorships and partners to fund your online gaming career. Most professional players will have a main sponsor that will pay them in return for wearing their logo and advertising their product/service.
Every time you see a sportsman wearing a particular watch, or brand of clothing, or even driving a certain car, it may be because that brand is paying for them to do so.
It may take some time to be well-known enough to get a paying sponsor, but once you do, you could be on your way to achieving your goals.
