Allan Quatermain
Allan is a South African gamer who 1st took up the hobby in 1979. He enjoys multiplayer gaming and the few magic hours he has to indulge in his hobby every day. He enjoys social gaming and hosts a LAN night once a week to keep the magic of hanging out with your friends at the arcade alive in his heart.
So you are wanting to turn your love of gaming into a career that will pay the bills and give you an alternative lifestyle to the normal 9 – 5 grind that life dishes up? Here are a few ways that it can be done without fucking your way into the business. Of course there are probably other ways and you are welcome to list any that I have missed out on in our comments section.
Professional Gaming
Professional gaming seems to really be taking off. It is seriously possible to earn decent money this way but it does take a major commitment as far as time goes. I don’t know about any of you readers out there, but I have always found that it takes around one hundred hours of game play to get really good at a game.
At about 400 hours you generally start getting accused of cheating and at eight hundred hours you become elite. This does make it hard if you have a job and/or family but if you put 3 hours a day into one of the big league pro games and if you can have some buddies that do the same, you will have a team that can compete at the highest level in about 9 months.
As far as I have been able to ascertain, the following games seem to be leading the pack as far as professional gaming goes;-
1 – Dota 2 Prize Pool for 2014 – $10,931,103.00
2 – League of Legends Prize Pool for 2014 – $2,130,000.00
3 – Call of Duty Prize Pool for 2014 – $1,000,000.00
Top professional gamers earn good money. Over 60 have earned more than $100k. The top 15 seem to be these guys:
Fatal1ty – $454,544.98 from 35 tournaments
Flash – $437.114.53 from 40 tournament
Mvp – $377,116.37 from 42 Tournaments
As well as the world championships, there are many local competitions that also offer great prizes for games and opportunities to get sponsored as a professional. Well worth putting in the time if gaming is what you want to do for a living.
War Thunder
War Thunder offer a very lucrative way of making a great annuity income in the gaming industry. If you produce vehicles for the game, you will get a portion of the revenues generated from the sale of the vehicles to other player. If you produce a vehicle which sells for $20, you will get $1 each time someone buys it. There are 7 million players and so the earning potential is amazing.
This is not everybody’s way into gaming as it will require certain skills such as 3d modelling and graphic design as well as intense attention to detail. Your model will be vetted 1st by the War Thunder dev team, thereafter it will be evaluated by the War Thunder community . If accepted, however, each successful model will bring in years worth of revenue.
Game Testing Jobs
I hear a lot of complaints from people who have tried getting into gaming this way, however it still remains a great foot in the door. It really is up to the individual to step up and show that they do have something to offer the company they are working for. Look for these jobs on your favourite search engine or talk to employment agencies.
Make Your Own Games
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a few steps. Check out Game Maker and Stencyl to start out! You can also visit this link for more information. Games do not have to offer the latest and most high tech features to be fun or profitable (check out Adult Swim for more inspiration). For the first time ever, gamers have a few ways to turn their hobby into a money generating activity, will this see the rise of games as an art form rather than just a for profit product?
Read Next: The Death By Suicide Of Console Gaming
