Making Money by Playing Games

Growing up is a time of wonder and like many teens, I often wondered how I could make a living playing games. Why waste my talents, acquired over hundreds of day and night shifts, in front of the screen? Surely all those sore thumbs and aching necks must count for something. Sadly, the older you get, the more realisation dawns and you accept that you are not special. No matter how good at Mario you once were. All that money your parents invested in your gaming education was a complete waste of time and you are destined to join the rat race like the rest of the population, or are you?

A First for Competitive Gaming

Imagine the makers of a popular MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game), giving away prizes of a thousand dollars every day to winners of online games. Thanks to Perfect World who created the excellent Backlight Retribution, players can compete every day for the chance to win a cash prize. For the first thirty days of the game’s launch, a thousand dollars will be awarded to the person whose name is drawn out at the end of each day. The more games you win during the day, the more times your name is entered in to the draw. Even if you never win a game, you still get the chance to win the money, but game winners get two tickets for every time they come first. Although this type of promotion is still relatively new, there are more and more competitions like this starting all the time. The game makers know that if they can get people hooked when their product launches, they will stay hooked for a long time. The entrants need to be from the USA, Canada or the UK to be in with a chance of winning. They will also need to be 13 years old or older to be eligible for the prize money. At least the age limit will give me a chance since I’ve lost my mojo in recent years.

Selling Virtual Merchandise for Real Money

The sale of virtual goods in online games has been going on for years, but makers of Diablo 3, Blizzard games, have now made it possible for people to make a very decent living doing just that. Blizzard had been aware for a long time that there were black-market sales of this nature going on, so they decided to get in on the action. In Diablo 3, there is an in-game auction house, which enables people to sell items to kit out their virtual characters. Very high prices are common for items in the sales and this has led some people to give up their day job to play full time. Even for relatively mediocre items, prices are upwards of $20 and prized items can easily fetch $250. If there are people out there who are willing to pay for these items, why not make the most of it while you can?

Playing Games on Facebook

This is can become a bit of a chore, but if you have plenty of patience, there are many people who will pay for your profile if you manage to advance your Facebook games to a certain level. People who play Mob Wars, Farmville and all the other repetitive action and wait games, love to rise in the ranks quickly. If you have lots of patience and are not in a rush to make lots of money, you can make a little extra money by creating Facebook profiles and actively playing these games. When you have the games at a good level, you can sell the profile to someone using PayPal. You may have many problems with this one when FB catches on to what you are doing, because you are breaching the terms and conditions by doing this. Change too many email addresses and names and the powers that be will catch on to what you are doing.

Playing Poker Online

This is something anyone can do without spending a penny. Poker sites will regularly give members ‘free rolls’ which allows them free entry tournaments. This is a great way to make money if you are a half-decent player. Register with a few sites and you will soon have free tournaments to play every night of the week and some of them have large prizes. Even if you do not play all the tournaments, you can accumulate loyalty points, which can be exchanged for cash games in which you can win money. Some of the world’s richest poker players have made millions of dollars by playing in online games and there are some, who may never go in to a casino in their lives. If you have no idea how to play poker, it is easy to learn and most websites will have tips and instructions to help you get the hang of it.

A great place where anyone can learn poker for free is http://www.pokerstars.co.uk/poker/getting-started/free-poker/.

Image by HOerwin56 from Pixabay