Technology has reached the skies in recent decades, advancements such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and virtual and augmented reality have reconstructed the gaming world to unbelievable heights.
Pandemic has also contributed to major success in the gaming industry. Before the pandemic, the gaming industry had a revenue of 150 billion i.e. in 2020 but in present times its worth is almost set to 256 billion by 2025. The gaming industry has more than a million players. The participation and engagement of people from all over the world are to a great extent. Many people also got influenced towards subscriptions which are profiting the gaming industry irresistibly. E-gaming platforms and E-sports enjoys a viewer base of 456 million people. An interesting fact is that revenue generated by the gaming industry is more than the revenue generated by the box office, music industry and all other sports leagues combined.
It has changed the meaning of entertainment; everyone is pleasured consuming this kind of entertainment. If you’ll take a look at the active gamers right now in the world, you’ll get shocked as it is around 2.3 billion including pc gamers, mobile gamers and console gamers too. Looking at this figure, it is enough to say how the gaming industry is booming to its peak.
Now let’s have a look at some of the basic facts:
How do professional gamers earn money through online gaming?
Every kid’s dream would be to earn money through gaming, well that’s now true because of the existence of fascinating technology. The E-sport category was in its infancy but recently it has crossed all the barriers and bloomed like never before. Gaming has employed many people and made them successful which was before considered as waste your precious time.
The major source of income is prize money, salary, sponsorships, live streaming and video on-demand for professional gamers.
Prize money:
Prize money is the oldest form to make money through gaming. There are prize pools in the competition and winners win if they place high in the gaming tournament. Risks may involve in this gaming activity as there are chances that the winner might lose all their money. There is instability involved with being a small-scale professional gamer. But esports players searched for options that offered greater stability and less dependency on prize money.
Salary:
The first five esports to form were cloud9, team solo-mid and team liquid. Earlier players relied on prize money but knowing that they could have got a stable salary gave them a great sigh of relief. Salary helped them to remove the peer pressure of losing all their money in gaming. They were more focused and concentrated on gaming because of the removed pressure. And now the prize money is the cherry on top giving them an added benefit if they win a prize pool.
You must be wondering how gamers would be earning money? Well, it is because of the top three applications i.e Sponsorships, Twitch and Youtube. It’s not necessary that only professional gamers can gain out from these apps but also content creators who want to have an enjoyable experience rather than steady performance are benefitted out of it with fascinating outcomes.
Sponsorships:
Sponsorships are providing great exposure to all the gamers and streamers out there. All those companies which are not tied up with esports or video games have taken an initiative to start sponsoring gamers and streamers as an individual and as well as in a group. It helped individuals to gain fame and recognition too. All the energy booster drink like red bull, monster energy and mountain dew and computer firms like intel and AMD sponsor high-profile players and in return, they promote the sponsor’s product among their fanbase on twitch and social media.
Twitch:
Twitch is now one of the most popular live-streaming networks against Facebook and YouTube (traditional VOD powerhouse).
By streaming, gamers can suffice themselves to make a living. The gaming industry has shown amusing results in terms of earning money. It has helped a lot of gamers to stand out and has made them feel worthy. Gaming has started the development of streaming and is accounted for the majority of traffic in there.
An interesting fact about twitch is that it holds up to 72 per cent of the market share. It charges a user fee for access to the content which goes into the pocket of the content creator. Rewards can also be given by viewers to their gamers/players.
YouTube:
Esports and twitch users upload edited and shorter clips of their live streaming session on YouTube for the viewers who can’t watch the stream. Furthermore, they also earn money through uploading VOD videos/footage on YouTube. Most professional gamers has hired editors who shorten up their 8-10 hours long video up to 15-20mins or according to their requirements for viewers to stream them online. It gives fans an option to consume their favourite gamers’ content without spending their 8-10hr.
Professional gamers has availability of a variety of revenue streams:
In today’s time, professional gamers have secured income which was almost unimaginable a decade ago that gaming could provide a financially secured future. There now exists many ways to earn money as there are no limits to gaining revenue through different gaming platforms. There are sources available for professional gamers providing teams and leagues with fixed salaries along with bonuses.
All the children out there once dreamed to make a living out of playing games and having fun is now a great possibility, All credits go to the technology and great minds who’ve contributed to making the ludo real money gaming industry reach the path of success.