Whether your choice is to become a pro eSports athlete or be a content creator playing games, it is no secret that certain games bring in more money than others. Titles like Fortnite, CS: GO, League of Legends, Dota 2, have even been seen by mainstream media as the most competitive and financially rewarding games.
According to analysts, by 2021, somewhere around 3.3$ billion will be spent just by sponsorships to gamers, and it makes sense for them to choose one of the real money earning games.
Some games offer small prize pools while others, like the tournament for Dota 2, had a prize pool of 34,330,068$, which is bigger than the average football prize pools. But gamers don’t necessarily need to be competitive athletes to reap the rewards from gaming.
Streaming Or Competitive Play?
Even though the best eSports players in the world have some quite significant financial benefits, it is common knowledge that streamers make much more dough.
There are many determining factors for how much money athletes make when it comes to competitive play.
For example, team success, how many tournaments are available, whether the game has a big audience, how good athletes are at the game, and other factors. Because of these factors, streaming is the best choice.
Why Streaming?
Streamers can stream whenever they want, and they do not have to be the top players in the world to succeed. Take Tyler Blevins “Ninja” as an example. The young creator and ex-pro make less than a 100,000$ in competitive play. For such a young age, most would agree that that isn’t that bad for playing games.
However, Tyler quit the competitive play and started to focus on streaming. To put things in perspective, he made 17$ million last year alone.
Blevins was a sensation. He had so much influence that he was on the cans of some energy drinks, Adidas made a unique Ninja shoe, he appeared on many mainstream talk shows, and his overall viewership was booming.
In theory, people can do both things at the same time. People could stream and compete, but we have seen too many eSports players quit competitive play to focus more on streaming in the past.
Michael Grzesiek “Shroud” has done this, and he says that it is better to focus on one thing, because usually playing against the best of the best requires a lot of training and focus which do not go hat in hand with streaming.
Which Games To Play?
The players, as mentioned above, Ninja and Shroud, both became successful in playing different games. They excelled because they had great personalities but also because they were exceptional at their chosen game.
Usually, streamers don’t have to be extraordinary at the game to have a big following and influence. However, the gaming aspect does have a determining factor too.
Most streamers preach that to be more successful, you need to find a game that you enjoy playing, and because of this enjoyment, people will perceive you as more natural, which will make you more desirable to watch.
Most Profitable Games
Nevertheless, the bigger the game audience, the better. When Fortnite was released, many small-time streamers found their success with it.
Streamers that made less than one thousand dollars monthly quickly started getting more than 50,000$ monthly. Tyler Blevins was one of them.
On the most popular streaming platform – Twitch, usually, the most-watched games are League of Legends, Fortnite, Dota 2, CS: GO, Warzone, Minecraft, and some new titles, which are becoming viral every week.
Technically you can make pretty good money even with less popular games, but the biggest drawback is that your potential is limited because of the little interest in the game. The top 10 biggest games in the world offer much more potential.
New streamers can choose the right game by going on Twitch or YouTube and select one of the most popular games. Because there is some diversity in genres, people can usually find a game they enjoy there.
Successful Streamers With Earnings By Game
-
Tyler Blevins (Ninja) – Earnings: $17 million, Fortnite
Mostly finding his success with Fortnite, Tyler, even with his viewership falling, still holds his influence on the gaming community.
-
Preston Arsement (Preston) – Earnings: $14 million, Minecraft
Minecraft’s most influential player and part-time vlogger makes as much as seven figures annually.
-
Mark Fischback (Markiplier) – Earnings: $14 million, Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Mostly known for the humorous horror games player, to this day, he continues to make original content, one of which is his latest YouTube original film.
-
Michael Grzesiek (Shroud) – Earnings: $12.5 million, CS: Global Offensive
Shroud is known for not playing one game but playing more titles from the publishers like EA, Activision, and Ubisoft. Michael has a well-known clothing line with the company Jinx.
-
Daniel Middleton (DanTDM) – Earnings: $12 million, Minecraft
Like Preston, DanTDM has made highly amusing Minecraft videos. On YouTube, the creator has more than 20 million subscribers and still growing.
Bottom Line
In theory, you can choose any game you like, and change the game if you don’t find it enjoyable. However, as stated above, we have seen that more popular titles have much more financial potential. The bigger the audience, the bigger the growth potential.
Interesting related article: “What are eSports?“