Download Now!
Do you love to play video games? The good news is your hobby can turn into a source of income. Isn’t that awesome? In today’s episode, Nate Woodbury will be talking about what it takes to make money playing video games. Tune in!
Alright. So Scott, there’s a common question that people ask. It’s, “How to make money playing video games?” -Yeah. -Do you think that that’s possible? -I hope so. Because my son will make me Millions. -We’ve actually got some concrete answers of exactly how you could do that. So you better watch this one. Alright. When I tell people that I’m a YouTube producer, parents often think of their kids and say, “Oh, my my kid wants to be a YouTuber.” And instantly, I know what type of YouTuber that kid wants to be. You have a guess? -Yes I do. But you tell me. -I don’t believe you. -Well, I know what the topic is. So, it’s no longer. I guess, I have to be honest. -Okay, okay. -Yes. -I appreciate that. -No, but you know what I could have instinctively said just based on my own children’s experiences that it’s almost exclusively about video games. -A lot of kids see other people on YouTube that play video games and they’re making a lot of money doing it. These handful of people. But the handful of people have really built a business and the kids don’t realize how much work, how many years. -Oh, well. -All that all the you know, all the behind the scenes stuff that it took to get there. And they just see this while they’re playing video games. That’s all they do and they make a living at it. And so, that’s kind of the the dream. It’s like, when we were kids, I saw kind of like my dream was NBA to be a basketball player. -Wow. -And I would see, you know, it’s like my kind of fantasy aspiration for… -Definitely. I… No, I could… -No. Oh sure. You played NBA Jam or something on… -That no. -Just you know, I loved watching the Utah Jazz and I you know, as a kid, I I saw them kind of admired them. They were my heroes and… -Right -…ooh, I want to be in a basketball player. I’m going to make millions of dollars. Well maybe kids see that today. But all… -For sure. -More that I hear is YouTubers playing video games. That’s what they wanted. -Yeah. Ask any kid what do you want to be when you grow up and they say I want to be a video game program or a coder. But you know, that was even just a couple years ago. Now is oh no, no. I just want to play them for money. You know? Be in tournaments or whatever. But literally on absent… You need to explain this because people are making money playing games, right? I mean… -So, let’s say that you are a kid or an adult that wants to make a living playing video games. I’m going to give you the formula and show you how that you would actually do that. Not because I have experience but be in video game. Making money. But I do make a good living on YouTube. And I associate with a lot of other people that make great livings on YouTube. Many of which are gamers, okay? And are making living. So I’ve got a list of things here.
One is understand that you have a huge amount of competition. So, just like me wanting to be an NBA player, I’ve got to compete against a whole lot of people that also have that same dream and are working really hard. -That’s right. -So for me to be actually make it to the NBA, you know, the same thing. If you want to make a living as a gamer on YouTube, -The competition’s fierce. -Lots of competition. -Because it does sound like the greatest thing ever. I get to play games and they pay me? -Yeah. So, how would you beat your competition? Well, you’ve got to create more content than the other people that are creating gaming videos. You’ve got to create better content. Now, what does better mean? I mean better can mean, “I am the best playing this video. Got to play the game better than anybody else.” It’s got it… You’ve got to entertain. You’ve got to somehow create videos that YouTube, the YouTube programming, algorithm thinks is better. So, if somebody comes and watches your video, if they think, “Why am i watching this guy? I’m going to go watch you know whoever.” YouTube’s algorithms gonna say, “Oh, this isn’t a very good video. We’re not going to send any more traffic to it.” So, you’ve really got to make good videos that are better then I guess your competition. -And on top of that, I imagine too, just you know, you have to make sure you’re selecting a game that’s of interest to people. I mean, you know, you can’t just play… I guess they do play almost everything. -You could probably find your niche. -But you’re right. The entertainment factor is huge. Because although I’ve never really watched them very long. I just see him over my kids shoulder. Or he’ll have them on his phone while he’s doing his homework or whatever. You know? But I mean it’s like the voices, the people that are doing it. It’s slick you know, it’s well-written. A lot of the time, some of them aren’t just off… They’re off the cuff. -So, do you think with my totally outgoing personality that I could make it as a gamer YouTuber? -Probably. -Okay. So I have some suggestions for you. To study successes and failures. And now, I’m not talking about like Pewdiepie success. Because you know, if you’re that… -Yes, yeah. Oh yes, We’ve talked about. -He’s one of the gamer YouTubers. He’s like the most successful. but you know what? Don’t compare yourself to him because he started a decade… Over a decade ago. So, when I say study examples of success. See if you can find out… I’ve got a resource for you. See if you can find somebody that started as a gaming YouTuber a year ago or maybe two years ago or less. And that’s it, now successful. -Hmm. -And if you can find somebody that’s done that and you can study what they did and what they’re doing now, then duplicate that. Then that gives you a formula that you can follow. And then I’ll also suggest… And this is going to be real easy to find. Find examples of gamers that have started in the last year or two that are not doing well on YouTube. And just look at the channels and see what they’re doing. And you know that you’ve got to do more than that. I mean, I could easily say don’t do what they’re doing. But maybe they’re doing some of the right things. They’re just missing some ingredients. And kind of compare and see what’s missing. So, the resource. Go to channelcrawler.com. And what you can do is you can type in criteria of I’m looking for channels that have between one thousand subscribers and whatever you know a hundred thousand or twenty thousand. You can put in a lot of different criteria. You can put in gaming or maybe you could put in minecraft. Out on outside a game that people that… Anyway, you put in whatever search criteria you want. And it will think and think and think for a few minutes. And then it’ll come up with a list of a whole bunch of YouTube channels within those parameters. -Really? Because otherwise it’s hard to find and discover… Especially bad performing channels, it’s hard to discover. -Channel crawler? -Yeah. -channelcrawler.com. That’s cool. So, it’s a pretty handy tool. I’ve used it to find find channels to collaborate with and stuff like.
Okay, another piece of advice. Let’s see we’re going on 7 minutes. So, we’re going to speed this one. We’re good we’re going to make this content faster for you guys. Be okay with making zero dollars in your first year. Now that that’s a serious recommendation. I made zero dollars from YouTube in my first year. And I’m doing very well now. Many of the YouTubers that I know that make millions of dollars a year make zero in their first year. So, just just expect that. -Yeah. -Okay. This next point, I’m going to abridge and kind of go through it really quick. Because I really think that you should study entrepreneurship. The… You can make money from YouTube ads. Meaning YouTube will pay… And we’ve had a lot of videos that talked about that YouTube will pay you because advertisers pay them. -Right. Make sense, right? -Yeah. But if you’re making this much money on Adsense, if you have a business and you’re selling your own product or service, you can make this much money like 10 or 20 times this amount. -Right. -Just by knowing how to run a business. So my quick tips is study entrepreneurship. And I love… One of the ways I love learning is by audiobook. I say, you know, can… You always make fun of me when I say audiobooks. -Well no, no, no. -He likes to read the… -Well, but you’re you’re busy of other things going on so you’re listening to them at the same time. Yeah. I have… I work two days a month. I do these. -Okay, audiobooks or books that I recommend, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Cashflow Quadrant. Those two books are by Robert Kiyosaki. They caused a huge paradigm shift helped me understand the difference between being self-employed and a business owner. If you don’t know the difference, these books will change your whole world they’re. Okay, another book the E-myth revisited. Have you read that one? -No, I have not. -Okay, E stands for entrepreneur. -Yeah. -Huge, huge paradigm-shift-causing book about how you can systematize your business. How you’re just not working in your business as the employee. As the worker but you’re actually working on your business building systems that run. And creating an experience. It’s phenomenal. Okay, the 4-hour workweek, you probably listen to or read? -No. -No? Tim Ferriss. Okay. I’m given the advice to meet… -I don’t business books generally speaking. -Well… -That’s why I’m here. I’m here… -And I’ve listened to hundreds of them. And I’ve narrowed it down to like, 1 2 3 4 or… -You got four there… -Five. -Yeah. -Four. -Well that’s another one. How to shoot videos that don’t suck? -Yeah, how to shoot the video that doesn’t suck.-Get your verb agreement right. So, I’m actually… Later, we’re going to… He, Scott and I, we’re going to make another video that summarizes the principles of that book. How to shoot videos that doesn’t suck. So, look for that video. It’s actually really good but I highly recommend the book. And who’s it by? You’ll find it, you’ll find it. It’s a great book. 4-work week was Tim Ferriss. Guge paradigm shifts there. Alright. So, you also should attend YouTuber conferences. Like by the time you watch this video, vidsummit which is next week for me now is going to be behind by the time you watch this video. So, next year, 2019. Make sure you go to vidsummit in Los Angeles.
There’s another one. Usually around August in Dallas called video marketing world. You got to go to those events if you really want to become a YouTuber. You want to build a business and succeed and make money in YouTube? -That’s cool. -Highly recommend. I recommend it for you too. In fact, you should come next week. Highly recommended. I’m actually doing a breakout session. -No. -I’m talking about… -I’ll be the one who comes to yours. -Well. No, I’ve got… So in the morning, on Friday morning, there’s three breakout sessions. And you look at the topics of the other two and I’m like… -Yeah. -Oh God. Oh and I’m paired with those two because I’m going to get the bulk of the car. I’m pretty excited. This last point, I’m going to summarize because we’ve also talked about it in other videos. And this is that learn that there are different ways to make money on YouTube playing video games. Okay, we mentioned Adsense, the advertising revenue. We could categorize you know, having your own business being an entrepreneur. But there’s also sponsorships. So, I think I don’t know what would relate. Okay, a gaming company. What’s the name? -Sega. -Okay, Sega. Let’s say… -I don’t know. Sega still around? -Nintendo. Okay. -Yeah. -So, you you play Nintendo games. -I’m sorry. -What if Nintendo paid you $10,000 to kind of talk about and review a brand new game of theirs? -I’d take it. -That would be a sponsor. -Yeah. -That happens all the time on YouTube. People get paid for sponsorships. Affiliate links was… Is kind of similar but if I recommended, you can’t see this mic. But if I said, “You need to buy this the zoom h2n mic then click on this Amazon link and go and buy it.” If you bought it from Amazon, Amazon would say, “Ooh, Nate recommended me and it’s like…” -You’ll get some money. -…a dollar -A little Commission, yeah. -Merchandise. I could sell cool “Be The Hero” shirts. And you could sell cool you know “Scott the gamer” t-shirts or… -Zelda. …You know, sweat bands. -Something like that. I started smiling because there’s a channel that I follow that’s a sailing channel and they sell like beer cooler mug things with their logo on it. Like whatever. -Whatever works. -And then there’s there’s fan funding. This is actually really big in Gaming. I don’t really understand it in the gaming world. And I don’t understand twitch. Twitch is another platform that I guess you post videos on like YouTube. But fans can just… When they’re watching, if you do something cool they can donate money to you while you’re playing. And it happens all the time. -Really? -People… -So you’re literally getting coins as you play? -Yeah. -Instead of just little… -Don’t really understand that. But that’s a… That’s how you can -Make money playing video games. -Make money by playing video games. again. So hopefully, found this video helpful. If you watch this far, you definitely need to subscribe and check out some of those videos we mentioned. We’ll see tomorrow.