Being paid to play video games is every teenagers dream. And I'm sure a lot of us have looked at what big names on YouTube can earn with envy.
But the reality is that it's a huge task, with a large start up cost that may even fail to get off the ground.
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A few months ago I was approached by a colleague who runs a new YouTube gaming channel with 3 of his friends. He asked me if I was interested in making some video thumbnails for them, and eventually asked if I wanted to join in with some games so that I'd have context for the thumbnails.
I had some free time and who doesn't want a shot at being a youtuber? So I agreed but quickly realised it wasn't going to be a simple task.
Start up cost
My laptop is 10 years old, it doesn't have any hope at playing the latest games. And in the world of YouTube that's very important. New PC capable of playing and recording newer games? £700 and that's being Conservative. And that was only the start.
- The majority of these games aren't free, potentially £60 a pop.
- A good mic? Anything from £20 to £100
- External hard drive for footage £80
- A flawless Internet connection £30 monthly
Well, every business venture has start up costs, that's to be expected. I didn't have the above but I could hop on for a few games of Among us as a video guest, as my laptop didn't struggle with it. That's when the other hidden cost appeared.
Time
Youtubers don't just play a game for an hour and cut out the best 30 mins for their video. It can take days to capture something entertaining. In our case it was the entire weekend, and I was warned that sometimes after two days of gaming, inspiration never comes and they're left with hours of footage that nobody would bother watching.
This was the first deal breaker for me. When a side hustle starts taking up more time than my full time job I have to ask if its worth it, and after noticing that I had hardly spoken to my partner that weekend, I wondered how professional youtubers managed to hold together a relationship.
Keeping in character
If you were to meet your favourite youtuber in real life I would be willing to bet that they would come across totally different to how you would expect.
A side effect of trying to make funny and entertaining content is that you begin playing a character. Emotions get exaggerated and it's *exhausting* keeping it up for hours every day. Gaming is fun when you can sit in silence and enjoy the game, but that makes for terrible footage, that silence has to be filled.
Potentially all for nothing
After that weekend I decided I couldn't commit to the time needed to get on board with them instead I ended up finding noise.cash and from there, Leofinance. Neither required start up costs, I could be myself, could put as much or as little time as I wanted into it and I started earning immediately.
And compared to the $0.00 they've made so far, I think it was the right choice.
Because in the end it doesn't matter how much money you spend on fancy hardware, if you're not entertaining, or picked up by YouTubes algorithm. It can very easily be all for nothing.
To those that still want to gain a youtuber, some words of advice. Do what you enjoy. Not what you think people will enjoy watching.
