Making money playing video games isn’t a pipe-dream anymore.
If you are good and have a certain amount of charisma, you can earn at least part of your monthly income streaming your gameplay for donations or affiliate marketing, or entering into competitions, or building up your character sheet to turn around and sell to noobs who don’t want to do the work themselves. Another thing you can do to make money is to put your knowledge and use it at sites like Bookmaker where you can wager on the outcome of top pro matches.
How to Stream from Your Android Phone with Ease
You may be only be thinking of top titles on your PS4, Xbox, and PC … but viewership on youtube for mobile games has been through the roof. Kids will spend hours watching people play simple mobile games while committing commentary on top of the action. When you think about it, mobile games are perfect for streaming because they are built for instant gratification, not long-form content –WoW, for example.
First, get the ‘Play Games’ app from the Google Play store. Once you have it installed, it will house your games. You’ll need to scroll down to find the games you already have, and upon selecting the game you want to play, there will be a little red button (record). Click the button, and it will pull up the quality settings, either 720 HD or 480P SD.
Select your quality and hit ‘Launch.’ Voila! Just like magic, you have a little bubble in the bottom corner where your camera will pick up your face. You can turn the camera off with the camera icon, and of course, mute the microphone as well. But, this is so easy! Your gameplay and live voice over are instantly recorded together and streamed live to your associated youtube channel! If you have an older phone, say a Samsung S9, it is recorded as a video to your storage, and you just upload the file to the youtube channel of your choice.
Streaming Gear & Tips
Now if you want to become a pro streamer that makes a full-time type of income, you need to treat it like an actual business, because that’s what it is, a business.
Ok, so the first thing is to reinvest your money, especially when you are just starting out. The point is that if you spend your first $50 in donations to your Twitch channel or YouTube Live on Pizza, you’ll never see that cash again. But if you spend that fifty bucks on something that can help you make a hundred bucks, well now you’re in business!
So what’s an example of this? OK say you’ve wanted some new gaming headphones that cost $60. OK, this will make your gaming experience better for you. But it doesn’t really do anything for your subscribers or potential subscribers. The same thing goes with other hardware, like a rad new gaming monitor … but if you spend that $60 on hiring a graphic designer to make you a logo that is going to get you more clicks and subs, suddenly that money is working for you.
Ok, now you get the point. If you are making $100 a month from whatever it is that you are doing with your streaming, instead of a new monitor, why not hire a video editor to take just two a couple of your flagship videos to the next level. Breath fresh life into them and make them exciting and professional. Now, you have spent a couple of hundred dollars on something that could earn you another $200 extra per month and keep growing. Why? Because people love that content and subscribe because that saw a couple of REALLY good videos on your channel.
Beyond that what are the first things you should buy to take your streaming to the next level?
No. 1
Get a decent webcam. You most likely already have a serviceable mic on your headset. Heck, even your iPhone or Android earbuds have a halfway decent mic, so the first priority is getting your lovely mug on screen in 1080 HD so that your subs can feel more connected to you.
No. 2
Get some lights. You don’t need to go all out on pro studio lighting; simple shiny dome lights from Home Depot or some LEDs of Amazon are a great start. Be sure to get a couple, so you at least have one minimum for the front and another for edge lighting.
No. 3
A decent Mic. Ok. I know we just said you already have a serviceable microphone, but we are just talking about the order of importance. Now that you have a decent camera and some lighting, you need to take your audio quality ton the next level.
No. 4
Get Sub Badges and Emotes … It’s all about building your brand, baby! For that matter, you might want to pick up a few books on personal brand development. It will help you more than you know.
These are just a few of the basics to get you moving towards bigger monthly checks from advertisements and donations. Obviously, we could go on and on about all the things you could or should do, but this is a great start. So, get out there and start pumping those streams out into the ether!
