How Can I Be Successful Streaming Video Games Online For A Living?

I currently rank 10 out of 400,00 playing a popular game online. I’m quitting my job next week and want to make a living and successful career playing video games on an online platform like Twitch.tv

How and can I make a lot of money doing this?

First off, congratulations on your ranking, that is quite an achievement and one you should be able to capitalize on.

I do feel that you can be successful at streaming video games on Twitch.tv but I feel there are some main factors and more work involved than just playing for others entertainment, integrating ads, getting donations etc.

The main idea I get is about well-rounded self-promotion, across platforms. Mainly intergrading with Youtube but ideally expanding into your own niche blog and tying it all into major social media. In this way you find new viewers funnel them to your main money-making site.

The first idea I get is persona, you already know how you are on video, but simply being aware of what people are responding well too. Perhaps you have a tag-line. Either way, you want to listen to your audience and interact with your following to some noticeable degree. Simply doing this will make you much more personable.

Next, ideally, you would find a sponsor that resonates with you, perhaps you reach out to a brand that sells a fancy controller, headset or other item you visually use. People are impressionable and if you make something look cool or attribute the features to smooth gameplay etc. other people are going to want to buy it. Either way, I’d look into some some brand/s to contact about promotion for guaranteed income in exchange for using on your channel and/or to make a higher commission off sales than you would from YouTube’s integrated ads.

If this idea does not work for you, then I’d Google search that brand name + affiliate directly before researching the Amazon commission.

Either way, whom you choose to offer subscription and/or affiliate ads though is most important as these things are not created equal. For example, PPC or Pay per-click ads may only make you a few cents per-click but people that offer an affiliate item on Amazon get paid a commission no matter what that person orders within the next 24-hours and in some cases up to 90 days if items are put in their cart and purchased within a certain window of time; and some of the highest commissions come from electronics, being your niche.

In this way, you should do your research and ideally talk to other streamers or simply watch their videos and see what platforms/items they are using to decide what a good starting point for you is. This may take some trial and error but can be very lucrative.

If you are going to ask for donations, you should offer your audience something in return. Perhaps you give shout outs in upcoming videos or offer something donations require to keep getting.

• For example: perhaps you make weekly walk through for levels, cheats, hacks or achievements. In terms of residual income, you could then re-use this content by offering it in Ebook’s and/or embed your videos with transcribed text on a blog with affiliate ads.
  • Suggestion: If you do have a niche blog, I would also suggest you have an IFTT network set-up so all your content gets syndicated to your social media profiles automatically though your RSS feed so, you don’t have to share your content manually. This also helps to build your following and backlinks.

On the topic of offering your own subscriptions, you could offer exclusive access to pre-recorded videos/content (like hacks, cheats) or simply just organize all that material and sell it as packages for certain games.

The idea here is to re-purpose the really good, high in-demand niche material you create so more people find you as well as what your offering in terms of making income, be it ads, downloads, subscriptions etc.

I’m going a little overboard now but, another idea I get is geared towards networking with other popular gamers, perhaps you use a platform like Zoom to connect using a double screen and talk about what’s trending or hold your own split-screen tournaments. Just make sure you use a server to ensure that your gameplay is smooth. I’ve heard you can start a valheim server pretty easily, so you should be able to find a server that can handle your game too. Quality content will attract more viewers, so you need to make sure that your videos are up to scratch. In this way, you will each have a quality MP4 file to upload to YouTube to expand your audience to theirs and vice versa.

So to answer your question, yes I feel you can be successful streaming video games on Twitch.tv but the big factors involved are having a consistent persona and choosing the right affiliates/products, granted you have a large audience base. Also, you can make more money by expanding/promoting yourself using some of the ways discussed.

In terms of making 1K per-month, I feel nearing the end of 2017 and going into 2018 is attainable.

I see you as someone that has a strong sense of independence, I don’t feel you’d be happy relying on an employer or solely on a 3^rd party like Twitch.Tv. You are best suited to do what you can on your own by being an entrepreneur and ideally one in the spotlight or in a leadership role. I feel like up-until this point it’s been a lot of trial and error so, again I go back to the idea of knowing how you want to brand yourself and staying with that consistently as you branch out. I feel you on the right track career wise, I’d suggest you mainly focus on one game to start and really create a lot of content to create your foundation with first.

Overall, I feel your best suited to be a self-made personality, I feel you like the attention and guiding others so, I feel your success is in specializing in a niche and promoting new products or methods within it and this is what I expect you will continue and learning how to perfect. In the next year, I expect you will have a much better foundation built and be more organized in terms of what you will offer your audience and have that steady income with less upkeep than is required now. If you were to work a day-today job than, I’d say you’d be suited for a leadership role like management, freelancing or contracting but, ideally, you would work for yourself.

Love to you, Holly Joy