The prize pool in eSports is huge, and here in Denmark, we are very good at securing our share.
We find as many as 6 Danes in the top 20 most winning eSports players last year (in monetary terms), and Johan "N0tail" Sundstein leads the overall standings in 2nd place with over DKK 2.2 million in earnings. A princely sum, but after all, only the most talented players can hope to win very large tournaments where a fortune is at stake.
A more common way to make money as a professional player is to sign a contract with an eSports organization or club and earn a regular monthly salary, which can range from DKK 6-8,000 to DKK 30,000 or more.
Nevertheless, there are still only a few. Most people eventually come to realize that the skills are not enough to become a professional gamer, and many others are not interested in the lifestyle that goes with it at all. Chances are you also already have a decent job or are starting training that should eventually give you exactly the life you want, but therefore you can make money from your interest in gaming in parallel.
There are many other ways to make money from the gaming trend - even if it's just a hobby. We'll introduce you to three of them below, and what they all have in common is that they don't require any special knowledge other than an interest in gaming.
1. Create a live game
Difficulty: 2/5
Mine. investment: DKK 7000 for PC, DKK 300 for headset and DKK 300 for webcam.
If you still play Dota 2, LoL or CS:GO every single day, why not share it with others? Live streaming is now easier than ever, and almost anyone who plays on fairly decent equipment and is willing to put in the effort can join in. The web is teeming with online celebrities who came out of nowhere, as well as Instagram models, YouTubers, bloggers and the like.
When streaming as a gamer, you have two main platforms to make money: YouTube and Twitch.
YouTube allows you to stream whatever you want and make money from both donations and advertising.
Twitch specializes in streaming games and on average provides a higher income, especially after they recently introduced a live streaming section. Twitch pays you $5 ($2.50 without commission) for each of your subscribers per month. If you have 1,000 subscribers, you earn $2,500 a month already before any income from advertising and donations.
Of course, this requires the right equipment, but eventually, you can broadcast at a satisfactory quality with relatively cheap equipment. An average gamer PC like the MSI Trident 3, for example, costs no more than DKK 7000 as standard configuration, while a full set of headphones, microphone and webcam should not cost you more than DKK 6-700.
2. Launch an eSports website
difficulty: 4/5
My. investment: 5-600 DKK/year for hosting and maintenance
"But developing and maintaining a website requires a lot of skills other than gaming," you argue, and you're partly right. However, there are many excellent and intuitive platforms that allow you to build a website from scratch without any coding knowledge. Wordpress.org is probably the best known, and that's why you'll find the most tutorials online.
Thus, creating a website is quite easy. However, if you are going to make money from it, you also need to get it out to your audience. Once you've achieved a steady volume of traffic, you can start advertising on the site, applying for referral programs and maybe even partnering with sponsors.
If you want to run your website on your own without the help of experts, you'll probably end up having to familiarise yourself with search engine optimization, design, marketing and copywriting. The more you know about these things, the more effectively you'll be able to promote your website and, all things being equal, the more you'll earn. That time, that joy. You just have to immerse yourself in it first. The immediate cost of registering and hosting a website is minimal, so it's just a matter of getting started.
What's good about cybersports is the almost inexhaustible sea of possible topics. You can focus on industry-wide news, one genre or even a very specific game. You can also go in a completely different direction and browse gaming equipment, analyze cyber sports betting or focus on marketing advice for cybersports companies. Product sales are also possible - both physical and virtual. Of course, you can also bet on multiple horses and combine several different items.
3. Cyber sports betting
Difficulty: 1/5
My. investment: 100 DKK per deposit
The easiest and riskiest way to make money in eSports is to bet on the results of various tournaments. This is done in exactly the same way as in regular sports betting, where you use your knowledge of different players, teams and games to guess who will win everything from an individual match to the whole tournament. Luck of course plays a big part here, so betting on cybersports can't be considered a real long-term earning opportunity.
Another form of cyber sports betting that is on the way is so-called skin betting. As the name implies, this is related to regular cybersport betting, but instead of money, skins from popular games such as CS:GO are raffled off.
If you want to bet on skins, you need a Steam account where you can store all your skins. This gives you access to a selection of games on the website, which in many cases are similar to what most of us know from online casinos.
While the skin betting version is of course considerably different from a regular online roulette game, it's not hard to see where the inspiration comes from.
Skin betting can be relatively lucrative, even though the vast majority of amateur players don't invest much money in skins and wouldn't even dream of putting it on the line in skin betting. Many experts also warn that skin betting can serve as a sort of gateway to regular casino gambling, which, especially for young people, can lead to gambling addiction and the loss of thousands of crowns. Keep this in mind and always play responsibly and thoughtfully. And be sure to check out more information: https://betting-sider.net/udviklingen-af-odds-og-vaeddemaalslinjer-for-sportsboeger/.
Other options
The above methods are probably primarily for those who consider gaming to be a fairly lucrative hobby rather than a real occupation. However, if your dream is to work full-time in the gaming world, you also have several options besides becoming a professional player.
Cybersport is growing rapidly, and there are plenty of jobs in the industry, even if you don't have the best programming skills. You could, for example, become a North American cybersports coordinator at PUBG Corporation, a data analyst at Wizards of the Coast, or a marketing manager at Activision Blizzard. If ambition doesn't get you there, game testers, customer support staff and social media administrators from various companies are also needed regularly.
If you have some money, of course, there is always the option of buying shares in cybersport companies and investing in gaming start-ups, but that's probably a little different from what we've looked at in this article.
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