Introduction
You may have read in newspapers or seen on TV that it is possible to make money in the region of thousands of Video Games. Although this is true, you could argue that if it is so easy to make money doing what you enjoy, then why isn’t everybody doing it? Well, the good news is it IS possible to make money playing games and this Ebook will explain the different avenues you can take to do it.
About the AuthorI’ve played games for many years, starting on the Vic 20, Commodore 64, Amiga, Playstation, Xbox (and many more) all the way up to the current generation of consoles. Although the Internet is a great source of information, it can see too vast and become difficult to pinpoint the information you want without lots of searching.
You could argue that the Internet is similar to a large city like London or New York, although there are millions of people; many find themselves going at it alone which can give a sense of solitude. After spending many hours trying to find one site where I can find everything I want, gaming related and have the chance to meet my friends and make new friends online who have similar interests, I decided that the only way to get this was to create it myself.
For the first time ever , www.video-gamers-guild.com provides a way of keeping up with all the latest and best products, swap
gamer tags, read your friend’s reviews on games, chat to your
mates and swap tips / cheats and also the chance to enter
competitions. It’s a gaming
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Community which will feel like an online home where you will always be able to visit at any time, and have fun conversing about your favourite topic! Hope to see you there soon.
Cheers,Uridium – www.video-gamers-guild.com
AM I GOING TO BE RICH PLAYING GAMES?
Ok, let me be honest with you right from the start. If you are thinking of doing this so that you can give up your day job or become a millionaire, then it’s possible you will be disappointed. Many people will only make a few dollars / pounds a day but if you are already playing games for pleasure, then why not do it and earn some nice pocket money which can supplement your existing wage. If you’re still living at home with the parents and you don’t currently have a job, then this is a great way to get extra cash, even if it’s so you can buy more games ;-)
Having said all that, you may have read about people that ARE making thousands a year playing games, although this is true, you have to bear in mind that those people are top of their game or field. However, if you have the determination then that could be you.
===============================================================SECOND LIFE
The first game I’m going to outline in which you can make money is technically not a game. It is more like a way of life where you create your character / avatar and interact with other people by moving around and chatting with text or speech. The best thing about this platform is it is completely free to join, there are no monthly fees and you can be earning money within hours of creating your character.
The game is currently only available on the PC and you can visit their site to download the software from www.secondlife.com In the game, you earn money in various ways which I will detail later. The software house is Linden Labs; therefore the game’s own currency is Linden Dollars. These dollars can then be exchanged for real dollars in the real world. There are people right now spending as much as 14 hours a day ‘playing’ this and making money. At the time of writing, the exchange rate was around 300 Linden Dollars to 1 American Dollars but this can fluctuate.
What you do in the game is completely up to you. There are people who just use this as a way of chatting to friends, some people like to role-play within the game, but there are many others who really see this as a second job and do things within the game that they couldn’t in real life, possibly due to their culture, body size, location or whatever.
Here are some examples of jobs you can do within Second Life:===============================================================
Bouncer
This may sound crazy but despite Second Life being a virtual world, as long as there are real people playing it then it will present real life problems. For example, it is possible that there may be a party or event being held at a night club, you would think that people will just happily turn up to dance and chat without any disturbances…wrong! There are people playing the game who like nothing more than going along to cause havoc and smash the place up. So, if you’re built for the job then you could get paid Linden Dollars (therefore, real dollars) to stand outside the club and make sure any wrong doers don’t get it.
Private DetectiveThis to me is one of the craziest jobs within the game. Some people use Second Life as a way of having an online relationship, so, can you believe that some of these people playing the game may cheat on their virtual partner? Well, you could argue that they are not virtual because there is a real person behind them. This is where the private detective comes in. There are people willing to pay real money for you to follow their virtual partner to make sure they are not getting up to any mischief. Like the bouncers job, you will get paid by the hour and who knows, you might get a bonus for any juicy information you discover.
Shop assistantThere are businesses within the real world that have set up shops
within Second Life. It’s mostly a way of advertising but it’s like a 3D version of browsing items on the Internet. There are also
businesses that have been set up purely within the game selling
items which I will talk about in a moment.
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Like any shop, you need people to work in them and talk to the customers. You may even try some sales techniques to shift the goods quicker. You may not make big bucks doing this but it’s a really easy way to start earning some pocket money.
DesignerSo, where do these unique items that are sold in the shops come from? In many cases, people have actually designed them within the game using the graphic tools and some coding. For your character to look different and cool, you may want to buy items of clothing or various accessories, which again have been designed in the game by real people.
Of course, to truly make something unique, you can’t really reply on just the tools that are provided, it’s possible you will have to have some programming experience to get the most out of it. Also note that some of the real people behind these shops are designers in the real world. However, if you have the determination, then you can make a go at this and earn some good money. Uncover your hidden talents!
ArchitectSimilar in some ways to designing items, people actually design and ‘build’ houses where your avatar can live in luxury. These can be sold for an awful lot of Linden Dollars which can equate to a tidy some of real money. Again, many of the real people behind these designs are real architects but who knows, you might have a natural flare for this sort of thing but never got the chance to try for yourself.
===============================================================Real estate
Probably the most famous character in Second Life is a Real Estate business woman called Anshe Chung (Ailin Graef in real life). In her first year she made $100,000 from buying land and properties and then selling them to other gamers, normally for a hefty profit. She then set her sight to be the first virtual millionaire; however, the money was VERY real!
There are many other ways to make money in Second Life, so if any of the above is of interest, you may want to investigate further. A great book on the subject
SIMMS ONLINE – EARNING SIMOLEANSArguably, The Simms was the forerunner of Second Life. There have been many people who have become addicted to this game and spent hours a day playing it. I think the main difference is when people play this, they tend to be more detached from the character they are playing, and in Second Life some people play it to the extent where they think they ARE the person in the game.
However, there are many similarities; one of note is the fact that people can construct their own items and more importantly, houses. The Simms has much more of a family appeal to it as you can get married and have children, so naturally you will want a nice place for them all to live. Again, this is where a designer can step in and create properties that are so elaborate; people are willing to spend real money buying them. The currency within The Simms is known as Simoleans.
===============================================================One thing to bear in mind, whereas in Second Life, it is almost encouraged to make money playing the game, with The Simms, making real money wasn’t something the developers of the game intended. This also applies to other games such as World of Warcraft, Ultima Online and other RPGs which I’ll detail later.
Although some software houses will turn a blind eye to people making money from their games, they also don’t exactly promote it. Most of the items sold from these games such as houses are normally sold on Ebay but on occasions, Ebay will have a sweep and remove the items on sale. However, there are now many sites devoted to selling items for various games. One such site is www.ige.com
One game that does permit users to officially sell items is EverQuest2; this can all be done through an official Sony site. Maybe their policy is “If you can’t beat, them then join them?”
MMORPG – MASSIVELY MULTI-PLAYER ONLINE ROLE PLAYING GAMES (World of Warcraft, Ultima Online etc)Probably the most fun to be had making money playing games is playing Online RPGS such as Ultima Online or more recently World of Warcraft. These games are great fun but can take more time to play than what a lot of people have. In short, people who don’t have the time are prepared to pay real money to take short cuts.
I first heard of this concept a few years ago from my Brother-In
Law who told me about an online RPG from Korea called
Ragnarok.
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I couldn’t believe my ears when he told me that a friend of his had spent many hours playing it to the extent where he was able to acquire magic items that were so rare, there were people will to pay over $100 for these items. I told a friend this who in turn told me about Ultima Online and asked me to do a search on “Ultima Online” within Ebay.
I couldn’t believe what I saw, pages and pages of virtual properties which you could buy to keep your virtual items, going for hundreds of dollars; one was going for $600 and another for $1,500!!! I had to laugh when I read the descriptions, one read “Great house in a perfect location with lots of rooms for storing special items”. It sounded like something you would read on a property web site from an estate agent.
For anybody unfamiliar with the game, you can spend days, weeks or even months farming / mining for gold to save enough money to buy weapons and armour. Again, some people just don’t have the time to do this so others would build up characters or attain items and then sell them on Ebay. This game is still played today but is slowly being superseded by World of Warcraft.
As with Ultima Online, World of Warcraft is all about Gold, without this, you are going to find it very hard to buy the weapons and armour you need to make your character strong enough for large scale battles. You may see adverts on the Internet of people or companies selling gold which you can simply buy with real money and then transfer to your World of Warcraft account. There are also various guides you can buy which you can buy to help you attain gold and level up your character much quicker. You will quite often see these reviewed at www.video-gamers-guild.com
===============================================================KWARI
A brand new game to hit the PC scene is Kwari. This is a new and exciting concept because each player submits a small amount of money for each game which then gets put into a pot. This total can amount to quite a nice sum which the winner of each match will pocket as a prize. The game itself is also free to download from www.kwari.com
The game itself looks like first person shooter such as Halo, but unlike many death match tournaments where you can hide in places and then jump out to get the kill when it suits, in Kwari you will need to dash into open spaces to pick up items and weapons which in some cases can amount to extra cash. This is one of the first games that actually states upfront that it’s all about winning money.
Another great feature about this game is it keeps a close track on whether you are on a winning spree or a loosing one. If you keep loosing then it will enter you into matches with lower ranking players and do the opposite if you are winning. This basically means that each person will get a fair crack of the whip and have a chance of winning some money.
TOURNAMENTSSome of the really big cash prizes can be earned playing
tournaments. At one point these generally only took place in
America and Asia but now there is a large and ever growing scene in Europe as well. Much like Kwari, these tournaments are
generally feature first person shooters such as Half-Life, Halo,
Unreal Tournament and the like.
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Of course, you will have to be top of your game to amount any serious amount of money but at the same time, it can be a lot of fun just to take part.
If you have a particular favourite first person shooter (or other similar games) which is popular at the moment then do a search on the Internet for gaming events which you can attend. Some of the top prizes for these tournaments can run into the tens or even hundreds of thousands. There are people that actually make a living out of this by flying around the world to attend all the events being held.
PLAYING GAME CASHBACK WEBSITESVery similar in concept to Kwari but on a much simpler scale are cash back gaming websites. These typically involve playing basic racing, puzzle or shooting games and the like. You start off by topping up an account which is then deducted each time you play, this money can then be won back along with the other people’s money that you are competing against. This can be as little as 30p/60 cents upwards to big cash prizes.
The good news is most of these sites will let you practise the games for free!! So the more you practise, the more likely you will win the game and gain some cash. If you perform a search on the Internet for “cash skill game websites” or a similar phrase, you will find hundreds of options.
===============================================================JOBS IN THE GAMING INDUSTRY
If you have a real passion for computer games, then you may want to consider getting a job within the industry. The gaming market is the fastest growing area in recent years and it’s an exciting time to get into this field. Long gone are the days of the one-person bedroom programmer doing all the graphics, sound and animation for the whole game. Nowadays, there can be a team of up to 200 people working on one game over a period of years.
There are many different types of jobs within the industry but I’ve listed a few of the main ones which would put you in direct contact with the creation process of the game itself.
TesterEver wanted to get paid to play games all day long? Well this
could be the job for you. However, there are a few misconceptions I want to dispel first. Many people think that testing a game just
involves playing the game as you normally would at home for a
few hours a day to see how the game performs and to see how
good it is. Although part of this is true, the main task of a games
tester is to try and ‘break’ the game and find any bugs that may be lurking.
Quite often this can involve following a test script / set of
instructions to make sure that the game is tested in a systematic
way. In a driving game for example, this could mean driving
round and round the track hundreds of times deliberately crashing into walls, trees, or trying to make the car go places where it
shouldn’t be able to. If you do something that causes and error
then you have to document the error message and report it to the
programmers / debuggers.
===============================================================Tester Team Leader
With a large scale game, there won’t be just one tester as it would take far too long to test every function of the game. So typically there will be a team of testers who need to be co-ordinated to make sure everything gets covered in a timely fashion. Once you have gained enough experience and have had a degree of success as a tester, then the role of Tester Team Leader would normally be the natural progression.
3D Graphics modelling / ProgrammingNearly every game in this day and age is going to involve 3D graphics at some point or another. This can require a skill of using art applications but it can also get quite mathematical unless you are purely working on artwork. Let’s make no bones about it; to do this you would probably need a certain amount of natural ability and a lot of determination. If you do find you have a talent for art or programming, then this is a good way to make good money within the industry. This is probably the most ‘hands on’ job you can do within this field.
Level DesignerAs games become bigger and more advanced so does the work involved with designing levels and the general structure of the game. This could involve creating an area as vast as landscapes as seen in Oblivion or it could be enclosed areas as you’d see in first person shooters. People that excel in these jobs will quite often have a general designing background as well as a gaming background. In some cases, you may need to have architectural skills to create unique features within the game.
===============================================================Director
This is a role that most people in the gaming industry would aspire to get. In the same way that a director of a movie gets to call all the shots, the same can be said for a director of a game. You can safely assume that you are going to get a pretty big cut of the profits but you will also be working flat out for the duration of the game’s creation process. As games become more and more like movies, having a background of directing movies, even on a small scale could be an advantage.
To get this job, you would have almost certainly have had to climb your way from the bottom of the industry to the top in order to fully appreciate what is involved with every aspect of the process. You will need to be a person who lives and breathes computer games and is also able to handle pressure, especially when deadlines start looming as millions of dollars can be riding on its timely release. Having said all that, it is probably the most creative and satisfy job to have within the industry, and certainly most profitable.
MusicianAnybody who has seen the movie Jaws, Pulp Fiction or Starwars will know just how important the sound and music can be to a film. Somebody with a musical talent and background can find themselves in a very interesting job within this field.
The great news is that thanks to the Internet, the music scene has opened opportunities for many home grown musicians around the world.
===============================================================Although some musicians in this field might have been technically trained, there can also be opportunities for those that can demonstrate a talent or unique style which would add value to the game.
JournalistIf you love writing and you love computer games, then this sounds like the perfect job. You get to preview games before they come out, play games in order to review them, go to gaming exhibitions and more. Ok, so what’s the catch? Well, if you are working for a magazine which has to hit the shelves at the same date every month, then right from day one, you are going to be working to a deadline.
Sometimes, there can be a lot of pressure when there are many new releases which have to be reviewed, and it’s normally not just a case of playing the game for an hour or two to get the feel of it, you may have to get over halfway or even complete it so you can asses every aspect of the game. After all that, then you have to put pen to paper (well, hands to keyboard) and write a review which is interesting but informative. This can mean a lot of late nights, especially as the magazine publication date draws closer. However, if you respond well to deadlines then this may be a bonus for you.
Ok, here’s the good news, you don’t have to work for a magazine or endure stressful deadlines if you just want to review games (or movies) for fun. Why not visit www.video-gamers-guild.com
where you can write your own reviews on any game or movie you like, new or old, even if it has been reviewed by somebody before! Who knows, if you like it then it may give you a taste of what it
would be like doing it as a paid job.
===============================================================Salaries
The range of salaries for jobs within gaming can vary greatly and there is quite a huge gap salary wise between the junior and senior jobs. At one point I looked becoming a tester and found that the salary was £3000/$6000 less than what I could get working in a supermarket. You could probably only do this if you were still living at home or were getting extra support somehow.
Once you have been there a while then you can start to move up the ranks to Team Leader roles which would bump you up a few thousand more. Programming jobs will always start you at a good salary but in some cases the programmer could get more working within a business area rather than the gaming industry. This is a
job people do largely because of a passion for gaming rather than a passion for money.Something else that people overlook is the amount of hours and late nights (possibly weekends) that can be involved with jobs like these. It’s not enough to just like playing games or to be interested in them, you almost have to be obsessed with them and live and breathe them. This is an important consideration as it could be something that could put you off gaming altogether. I don’t want to scare people but I just want people to think about it and make sure they find out as much information as possible so they get the FULL story of what’s involved.
===============================================================University Courses
Now that creating games is accepted as a proper industry and job, a lot of universities offer courses on the subject. If you are seriously considering a job in this field then this would give you a good grounding and give you a taste of the different roles available. Also, most courses will have a program where by at the, they will try to give you connections or at least point you in the right direction for getting your first job. If you are looking at journalism then of course there are courses on this and you will also need to attain a good level of language.
ConclusionAs you now know, there are many ways you can make money either working in the industry or simply playing games. If you already play games then it makes sense to think about ways you could earn money while doing so. All in all, a great way of making money while doing what you love!
Happy Gaming
Uridium
www.video-gamers-guild.com
How to Do everything With Second Life
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(Links USA Continued)
World of Warcraft for the PC/Mac (Complete Pack of all games in one bundle)
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