Making Money with Video Games

Electronic video games are big business especially the mobile gaming industry. The Newzoo website has an interesting article titled The World’s 2.7 Billion Gamers Will Spend $159.3 Billion on Games in 2020; The Market Will Surpass $200 Billion by 2023. As the title suggests electronic gaming is growing exponentially.

They are very popular pastimes and have even turned into spectator sports in many countries where it is known as “E-Sports”. South Korea is the top e-sports country in the world but other countries are following in their tracks. As of the end of 2019 the total global e-sports revenues have exceed $1 billion. This has not included equipment sales related to e-sports gaming.

E-sports is so popular in China that the Chinese Ministry of Education has included e-sports as one of their formal courses. Combine this with the information that China has about 640 million gamers as of 2019 and you could see a very big growth trajectory in China. Asia also has the most number of gamers accounting for about half the market.

Be a Professional Gamer

Not only is gaming lucrative for companies who run tournaments and events but also for the players themselves. The highest payout for an e-sports team is more than $2 million. This could be a real career for people who are interested in playing games.

This has become such business for some gamers than a famous Fortnite tournament player even famously commented he does not like the game but just the payout it gives him which is just like working a regular job.

Be a Game Developer

If you prefer making video games rather than playing them you can do that relatively easy. There are millions of one man game development studios globally. Just like the mobile app industry however the industry is already saturated with games and most of the top earners are the established game development companies who have the resources to make the best games.

In many game development events there are specific events that highlight the difficulty of earning a stable income and worse even any income from developing games. These are usually small companies or “indie” (independent) game developers that barely survive in the game development industry.

Here are the two game development platforms one should concentrate if ever they want to get a job or produce games that other developers can co-create. They are the industry standard:

Unreal Engine- The best game developer engine you can use to make video games across a number of platforms but you have to pay to use it. It is even being used to now make movies. The Mandalorian Star Wars series uses background sets made up of Unreal Engine graphics. If this becomes used widespread then the market for developers will also spill out into movies.

Unity- It is free to use but you need to pay them a subscription once you reach a certain level of earning. It is popular with Indie and small developers. I have used Unity to develop a few small games for the Android platform. It is easy to learn. I learned to use it by myself by just watching Youtube videos and by researching online.

There are other newer, freeware and simpler game engines that you can use to develop your video games. However, I suggest starting out with Unity as it is popular and there are many helpful YouTube videos and data about it online. There are even many video game development companies looking for Unity Programmers specifically.

Learning game programming just like learning any other computer language mostly just requires logic and perseverance and not a genius level intellect. Once you have learned one programming language it gets easier to learn another programming language. Computer programming is also one job you can do from home.

Other Game Development Careers

If one finds programming game code not suited for them and maybe if they have the artistic side one can also earn from video games by creating digital graphics and sounds for games. Digital artists are also on par with both pay and status levels in game development companies.

Conclusion

As can be seen despite the stiff competition for opportunities in the gaming industry it is still growing and therefore more opportunities are yet to come. One can do a lot of jobs and business related to gaming from tournament organisation, being a professional gamer and by working on the many jobs available at game development companies. The good news is that you can mostly even do it from home.