The video game industry is more than just a source of entertainment—it’s a booming multibillion-dollar market with projected global revenues soaring to $312.40 billion by 2025. For gamers who are passionate about immersing themselves in virtual worlds and have a knack for tech-savviness, this industry offers lucrative opportunities to turn their hobby into a thriving income stream. Here’s how you can tap into the goldmine of gaming and start earning. Ways to Earn Money While Playing Virtual Games Turning a passion into a money-making skill is not easy; it takes a lot of hard work, patience, and consistency to see any results. Confident players can choose any strategies below to leverage the most out of the gaming industry. Livestreaming Streaming is one of the most trusted ways for players to generate income. Several popular streaming platforms let gamers build and join communities and share their gaming sessions. Established players earn millions of dollars by showing off their gameplay strategies and techniques to their followers. Read more: Top 8 Free High Graphics Winter Games for Android and iOS in 2025 Here is a list of platforms where you can live-stream your games: - Twitch- Kick- YouTube Gaming- Facebook Gaming- DLive Apart from gaming expertise, streaming requires gamers to have a few non-gaming skill sets, like giving voice-overs, narrating live gameplay to engage viewers, marketing their content on social media, and making connections. According to Statista, around 1.8 billion people will be on game live-streaming platforms by 2029. Starting a YouTube Channel Making guides on popular video games, reviewing the latest releases, talking about leaks and rumours, game developers, and famous players, and posting them on your channel can be lucrative skills. Read more: 10 Best-Selling Video Games of 2024 Around 200 million people watch gaming content on YouTube every day, and 2 of the 5 most subscribed YouTube channels are gaming-related. With this sheer number of active viewers and the incredible popularity of gaming content, players can earn money in multiple ways on YouTube. They can promote products and brands, earn stickers from streaming, charge a small fee for exclusive content, and generate ad revenue. Game Testing Playtesters test out newly developed games before their launch and check for anomalies in the gameplay. Game manufacturers hire playtesters to get feedback on the overall experience of their games and look for issues to fix. Playtesters are gaming professionals who possess an intuitive understanding of every aspect of a game. They are mostly seasoned gamers keen to detect bugs and abnormalities in characters, items, controls, and overall gameplay. Aspiring players should join public beta game testing opportunities and build their portfolios before finding paid opportunities. Read more: 7 Most Hyped Virtual Action Games Releasing in 2025 Joining Gaming Competitions Gaming competitions offer a large amount of money as cash prizes to the players. Skilled gamers can opt for various onsite or online gaming tournaments and win to earn money. Tournaments open opportunities for streamers and content creators to meet famous players and create their presence in the gaming world. Players with a great network can host tournaments and earn money by recruiting sponsors and charging entry fees for participation. Investing in tournaments is also profitable, but you must check the credibility of the organizers first. Creating a Gaming Podcast Hosting gaming podcasts is another money-making option for gamers. Podcasting involves commenting on live gameplay, reviewing new games, sharing personal takes on industry updates, interviewing industry representatives, answering audiences’ questions on live sessions, and entertaining audiences with humour and puns. Read more: Top 7 Gaming Earphones of 2024: Must-Have Picks for Gamers Gaming podcasters monetize their channels by asking for donations, selling gaming-related items, earning ad revenues, and promoting brands. They are often called to host events like game inaugurations and tournaments. Blogging on Gaming Blogging is still a great revenue generator for gamers as it offers several ways to monetize written and video content. Blogging is more like podcasting but in a written format. Game bloggers write reviews on games and related products, the latest industry news, how-to guides, and interviews and regularly post them on their blogs. Blogs are great for running affiliate campaigns, promoting brands and their products, and earning ad revenues. Players who want to start a blog should know how to create, host and maintain a website and reach the target audience's attention through search engine optimization and online marketing. Read more: Top 10 Best Gaming Monitors Released in 2024 Conclusion Making money by playing video games is possible, but it requires dedication and adaptability. You must keep learning new skills and adapt to industry trends to be relatable to audiences and offer them what they want.

A whole bunch of heavy-hitting virtual games have been released throughout 2024. However, only a few have earned enough to be considered the world’s best-seller video games in 2024. Let’s go over the list of the most revenue-generating virtual games this year. 10 Top-Selling Video Games of 2024 . EA Sports College Football 25 EA Sports College Football 25 has topped the list of top-selling games. Several trusted and dedicated sources, like Circana and Video Games Chronicle, have announced the game as the American best-seller of the year. EA Sports College Football 25 made around USD 0.5 billion within two weeks of its launch on July 19, 2024. About 2.2 million players reached the game during its four-day pre-order period. The revenue collection soared so high that it surpassed the previous record of Madden NFL series. Read more: 7 Most Hyped Virtual Action Games Releasing in 2025 Helldivers 2 Helldivers 2 reversed the original’s isometric strategy and introduced a third-person shooter format. The result was unprecedented, as the game was rated the top-selling PS5 game in 2024. Helldivers 2 was released on February 8, 2024, and offered a unique and far more enjoyable experience than its competitors. Due to the complications attributed to a PSN requirement, the game didn’t launch in around 177 countries. Yet, it did remarkably well. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Call of Duty has represented tactical modern warfare gaming since its first appearance. Despite the despair that fell upon Modern Warfare 3, the series restored and further pushed its reputation with Black Ops 6. First launched on October 25, 2024, COD: Black Ops 6 pulled off the highest collection of the franchise driving a 61% boost in revenue for the Xbox. Now, the game is enlisted as one of the top-selling Xbox games. Read more: Top 7 Gaming Earphones of 2024: Must-Have Picks for Gamers Dragon’s Dogma 2 Underpraised compared with the previous title, Dragon’s Dogma 2 didn’t show less acceleration in earning around the same revenue that its ancestor collected in its lifetime. The second title came out on March 21, 2024, and around 3.3 million copies have been sold so far. According to IGN, Dragon’s Dogma 2 collected over 2.5 million copies just within 11 days after its release. The instant sales rush led the game to be one of the top sellers. EA Sports FC 25 It never occurred to EA’s FIFA titles not to make the list of the highest-selling games of the year. The EA Sports FC 25 hasn’t differed, too. The soccer simulator game has observed a successful year in terms of gross sales, summing up an anticipated $1 billion in revenue. It’s notable that after two failed attempts to achieve a new license agreement, EA decided to change FIFA to FC. Apart from the name, the game remained the same. The title continued to present upgraded gameplay with each iteration. Read more: Top 10 Best Gaming Monitors Released in 2024

As 2024 is ending, 2025 brings a fresh wave of exciting esports tournaments. Valorant and Counter-Strike 2 are set to dominate the coming year with numerous events. Other popular titles like Rainbow Six Siege, Dota 2, Rocket League, and more will also showcase their competitive scenes throughout the calendar. Let’s delve into the best esports events coming in 2025. 10 Most-hyped Esports Tournaments Scheduled for 2025 . BLAST Bounty Spring 2025 The year-opening gaming event in 2025 is a Counter-Strike 2 tournament. Blast, one of the biggest gaming ecosystem developers in the world, has set the ground for a grand CS 2 tournament, BLAST Bounty Spring 2025. It will be a LAN tournament where eight teams will compete to win over a $500,000 prize pool. The event will spread over three days, from 24th January to 26th January, at the Blast headquarter in Copenhagen, Denmark. The stage is all set for the in-person Counter Strike Challenge. Aspired audiences have to spend from $55 all the way up to $1300 to book a seat. Expensive seats are premium and offer additional privileges. Read more: Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Review – A Thrilling Revival of the Undead Horde ALGS Championship ALGS stands for Apex Legends Global Series, a much-celebrated global gaming event that features the world’s best Apex Legend players. The 2025 ALGS Championship will be the franchise’s fourth installment, and for the first time, Japan will host the championship. Game manufacturing giants EA, in collaboration with Respawn Entertainment, will organize the event. It will start with 40 teams, which will be divided into 10 groups. Each group will have 4 teams, which will fight each other to advance to the next step. There will be 18 games in the group stage; they will run from 28 January to 30 January. The score obtained in the group stage will permit 20 eligible teams to step into the Bracket Stage. Those 20 teams will compete in the Match Point Format. The first team to reach 50 points will be deemed the winner of the tournament. The other teams will find positions according to the total score. ALGS Championship is throwing a $2 million prize pool to the winners. Read more: Asus TUF Gaming F15 Laptop Review: What Makes It Stand Out? PUBG MOBILE Global Open The PUBG MOBILE Global Open (PMGO), the first major LAN event of the 2025 season, will take place in Uzbekistan. Announced by James Yang, Senior Director of the Global Esports Center at Level Infinite, during gamescom LATAM, the event’s exact date, and venue are yet to be revealed. This marks the first time Uzbekistan will host an international esports event, though it has an established PUBG MOBILE ecosystem with tournaments like the Uzbekistan Cup. Following its successful 2024 debut in São Paulo, which drew over 510,000 peak viewers, PMGO 2025 is expected to attract the world’s best teams, further cementing PUBG MOBILE’s prominence in global esports. Read more: PlayStation 5 Pro Review: Key Upgrades and Is It Worth the Price? VALORANT Masters Bangkok Riot Games has announced three Valorant Masters events in 2025. The events will take place at different times of the year on three continents: Asia, Europe, and North America. The most imminent is the Masters Bangkok, set for March 2025. The other two are the Masters Toronto in June 2025 and Champions Paris in September 2025. Riot Games has indicated several changes to the structure of the events. The season will begin in January with VCT Kickoff for every region. Twelve teams from each region will be placed in a double-elimination bracket. The top two teams from each tournament will join the main tournament in Bangkok.