passive income gaming

Playing video games to make money is still a fairly new concept in today’s market. But those who are aware of the opportunity, know exactly what it is all about. They know they can earn passive income every month from their favourite hobby.

How can you make passive income from gaming? There are many ways of making passive income gaming. You can make extra income by selling your old accounts, selling special characters, live-streaming, building up a monetized YouTube channel, becoming a game tester etc. You should be passionate about gaming and have found a niche that corresponds to what you like and what your audience wants.

This guide is specifically made for beginners and amateurs looking to understand how to make passive income through video games. There are many ways of making money passively gaming, but we have listed five main ways that beginners can make money while doing what they love. We will also uncover some of the best gaming platforms available today and how you can leverage them to boost your passive income. Let’s dive right in.

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53.66% of Project 24 members are making $500 to +$7,500/month! Learn more here

1. Blogging [READ THIS]

Don’t skip over this idea because you have heard it before. We are not talking about vlogging or blogging about your day. By blogging we mean actually answering questions people ask in Google. And as a gamer, you know exactly what people are looking for. Rick and Jim from Income School in their blogging course called Project 24, they teach how you can make $1000 a month blogging by following their tested method which consists in 60 clearly defined and actionable steps. The steps include choosing a good niche, writing 30 articles based on competitive research, and creating authority (EAT) on YouTube.

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According to Income School, you should aim to make $1,000/month with 30k page views on your site. They also state in their timeline that by following their methodology, you can lead you to making over $7,000 by month 24!


Learn More About Project 24

As a gamer, you can answer people’s questions about the game you are playing. If you follow the right methodology, you will attract traffic to your site that you can monetize in a variety of ways. Learn more in our blogging guide for beginners below.


Read Our Blogging Guide

2. Sell Your Accounts & Special Game Characters

Today’s video games include creating plenty of characters and accounts, in case you are an experienced gamer you probably have plenty of gaming accounts and characters that you do not need anymore, so instead of having idle accounts, you can sell some of them on dedicated marketplaces.

Player auctions is one place where players can sell old accounts for a profit. Although you may not make a ton of money, it is still a good way of generating income. PlayerAuctions is an online marketplace that you can use to buy or sell gaming characters and accounts. You can also get CDkeys, Skins, gold and coins from the site depending on the games you are playing.

The site provides a safe and simple experience for gamers willing to trade their accounts and characters on the online market. PlayerAuctions is a trusted trading site with top-notch security features that has a good rep within the gaming industry. It is good for any buyer willing to trade with others and make some real money.

Selling your old user accounts and developed characters is a good means of making some passive income. It is possible to find buyers online who are willing to pay a good amount of money just to avoid the hassle of having to undergo the long and tedious process of building up their game and characters on their own.

3. Make Money Live Streaming

Live streaming is a huge opportunity these days that allows you to build a community of like minded gamers. Some streaming sites such as Twitch create opportunities where you can get paid to play online. If you are good at the games you play, you will enjoy getting paid to showcase your skills to the world. There are some good and genuine accounts out there that will pay you a good amount of money to play video games in front of a live audience.

You can use your account to create walkthroughs of your favourite games, collab with and help out other players. This can make you a good amount of passive income from ad revenue once your account is monetized. Some experienced gamers are even approached by companies with endorsement offers. If they align with your values and goals, you can make good money from these types of offers.


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Twitch is one of the best online streaming sites worldwide, you get the chance to interact with new and experienced gamers worldwide, and they even have an app. Other games will watch you as you take part in battles, adventures and quests on a real-time basis. All you have to do is to sign up, stay consistent, and grow your account. Learn more about how to make money live streaming in our guide below!

Read Our Gaming Guide

4. Becoming a Game Tester

For those of you who love playing new video games, this could actually be a good way to earn some extra income. Video games undergo a series of tests before they hit the market, this is usually to test for glitches and bugs within the games. This means that video game developers require quite a number of people to help them look for improvements while correcting the flaws. Becoming a video game tester will give you a chance to try out new games while occasionally making money. It is an easy and fun way to make some extra income off your hobby. Big gaming companies will hire experienced game testers where they pay good money. If you have a large following on YouTube or Twitch, your chances of getting accepted as a game tester will be higher.

5. Online Gaming Tournaments

Video games have continued to evolve over time. Most gamers play video games through online platforms or online communities. These communities are highly competitive, occasionally game developers hold gaming tournaments that involve lots of people and have lots of prizes to be won. You can take part in some of these tournaments and make a decent amount of cash in return.

To take part, you have to be really good at the game that you are playing. Some games require team play while others prefer individual skills. You also get a chance to meet and interact with some of the best players in the world and it is usually a good way to make money while having a good time.

Gaming companies follow some of these tournaments keenly and use them to recruit potential game developers and testers. Video game tournaments have prizes ranging from gift cards to large amounts of cash.

6. Conducting Video Game Reviews

You can make money from video games by becoming a video game reviewer. This is a good way of generating a passive income without having to necessarily have to actively play video games. Conducting video game reviews is similar to blogging and requires technical know-how of the video game that you intend to review. You can get this from other similar reviews or by playing the game yourself.

To become a successful video game reviewer, you will require a large following on your channel. You can use YouTube or other more specific gaming sites such as twitch in order to do this. You should also be able to build on your audiences and generate enough hype that will make people listen to your opinions about the game.

Becoming a video game reviewer requires patience and consistency, you can earn income by monetizing your account from advertisements, subscriptions and donations. You can also have extra passive income by getting video game companies to advertise directly to your channel.

7. Creating and Selling Gaming Assets

If you have any development or design skills, you could also create and sell your gaming assets. You can sell functions, source code, objects and game designs to create passive income streams. Assets for mobile games can be worth $50-$100, while models, 2D images, and 3D images are worth much more, depending on their complexity. Assets can be created with many different tools, such as Blender, Maya, Unreal Engine, Unity, Visual Studio, or whichever tools you have the most experience in. There are many online sources available for you to package these assets and offer them to other devs, so they can modify them as they see fit. Your assets can be sold in the Unreal Engine Market, Unity Asset Store, TurboSquid (3D models), Game Art 2D (sprites, GUI elements), through your website, or on freelance sites. Learn more in the video below. If you are a developer and want to learn more, check out our guide below that contains 34 passive income ideas for developers.


34 Passive Income Ideas for Developpers

8. Donations on Patreon

Patreon is an online service that allows content creators to get paid for their work from people who follow them. The service is ideal for gamers looking to make some extra cash from the content that they create online. It works by having a good number of patrons who donate through the site to content creators. Patreon is a good way of earning some extra income from the content that you share with others online.

Why should you pick a niche?

Making money from gaming is generally a broad concept since there are so many types of games and platforms. From classic consoles to cell phones, you can become a monetized gamer as long as there are people playing the game who want to be part of your community.


If you want to make a passive income video games, you should focus on a few niche games. Finding a niche allows you to focus your energy on a single idea, which will increase your chances of success. Before deciding on your venture, make sure it is something you love and identify a market with high demand. Then create the videos or content they are looking for. Watch the video below where we explain how to find a niche using Google Trends.

How Passive is Gaming to Make Passive Income?

Video games are a passive way of making money but the degree of passiveness varies depending on the type of service you choose to offer. Becoming a game tester, for example, may require some more of your attention compared to trading in your old accounts. So when you make your choice you may need to run your idea until it can run on its own. No matter what it will take time for the idea to become passive, but if you stick to it, you can make good money passively.

Scalability

Regardless of what you may choose to engage in, making money from video games is still a scalable passive income source since you can access international audiences. You can do most of the work alone, but eventually, you should collaborate with others in the community to expand and scale your reach.

Start-Up Costs

For most gamers, the startup costs are low, especially so if you are experienced and already have all the equipment you need. The most costly thing you will have to invest in these ideas is your time to get started, grow your accounts and following. You can also decide to buy developed accounts and start off from a point of advantage (but of course that will cost money).

Difficulty

Although it may seem difficult at the beginning, video games eventually get easier as you get better. Some people have imposter syndrome because other gamers are better than them. You do not have to be an expert to build your audience. As long as you are having fun and a bit further than others in the game, you will find people who will want to follow you. Also, there are many online platforms, videos, walkthroughs and other tools and services that can help you master the skills required to play the game quickly and easily.

Time

Making money from video games will most definitely require a good amount of your time. You may even have to make over 1000 videos to build an audience large enough to sustain your venture. After a few months of dedicated and focused gaming, you can eventually start earning good money passively from your business. You may need to make 3 videos a day for a couple months to get started, but once things are rolling, you can scale back and make just a few a week. You will still need to have a lot of motivation, patience and skill before your idea grows.

Risk

Considering the initial investment, making money from gaming is a good venture with minimal risk. Make sure you only use trusted sites when dealing online, for instance when selling your old accounts make sure to operate with trusted dealers. Also watch out for copyright issues. When in doubt, contact the company that created the game for more info.

Seasonality

You can make money all year round by playing video games. This depends on what you want to do some services such as streaming games and trading accounts will work for you most of the year and is a good way of earning a passive income. So this venture is not very seasonal.

Return on Investment

Making passive income from video games has a good return on investment long-term. Although it might take you a couple months to start earning passively, the potential income you can make is huge. According to Newzoo, the gaming industry is growing exponentially, over 100% a year. In 2018, it has reached a whopping value of $135 billion. That’s an astounding amount of money. Some gamers have managed to literally become millionaires well before 30. The concept is still fairly new and can give you good returns on invested time and money within a few years if you work hard and stay focused.

Related Questions

How do video gamers make money? Video gamers can make money in a variety of ways including live streaming, blogging, trading their old accounts or characters they built up, selling game assets, testing games, participating in tournaments and more. Anyone can create a YouTube or Twitch account and build up an audience to start making passive income.

Do people play video games as a career choice? Yes, the gaming industry is a well-established community and has plenty of opportunities for gamers and other creative users on the internet today. Video game testers are highly experienced gamers with the good and technical know-how of the games moves and features. They are especially important to game companies because they provide a human touch that can identify glitches that automations cannot find. Game developers will pay good money for these services and are on a constant lookout for the best gamers.

For how long does it take for me to start getting paid off playing video games? This greatly depends on what you choose to venture in. Buying and selling accounts will get you paid faster but is more of a short term means of getting money with a short profit margin. Other ventures may be more long term and may require a large amount of time and investment but once successful they will generate a good amount of returns. Every good investment requires time and video games are of no exception.