Monetization Ideas for Gaming Content Creators

So you’ve got a gaming channel, but you’re not making the money you want to be? When you’re juggling reaching your dreams with growing your brand and paying for all of life’s expenses at the same time, you want to be sure your platforms are being used to their full potential.

At MinMxD, we’re here to give you the ins and outs of monetization for your gaming content, helping you to achieve your vision and maximise your gains while minimizing the time and effort taken to get there. We’ll be talking about how to make money on different platforms, including ads, subscriptions, and merch!

Book a consultation to kick-start this process with our expert insight and advice.

YouTube is one of the biggest platforms for gaming creators, sporting over 40 million active gaming channels, with many more being created all the time. Getting your voice heard in this crowd is hard enough, so once you do you want to be sure you’re making the most of it. Luckily, there’s quite a few different ways you can monetize gaming content on YouTube. These include:

Video Ads

Becoming a YouTube partner allows you to put ads at the start of and during your videos on the platform. Recent ad-block countermeasures mean more of these ads are getting through to viewers, so this type of monetization has become more viable than ever before. There are a few considerations before you receive these ads, however. You need:

• Over 1,000 subscribers
• Over 4,000 watch hours within the last year
• No Community Guidelines strikes
• To live in a country where the partnership program is available
• A linked AdSense account
• To follow monetization policies

Sponsorships and Brand Deals

Sponsorships are often more lucrative than regular ads, providing upfront payments rather than the obscure way that YouTube has been known to compensate creators via ad revenue. Large companies and games, such as the well-known Raid: Shadow Legends, will often reach out to creators and offer them deals to promote their products – typically via a minute long segment in the video.

These deals provide extra value to viewers, showing them games they may be interested in while often also giving an incentive to go and try it (extra in-game resources, for example). However, you want to make sure you’re only taking reputable sponsorships, and only ones you and your audience are interested in, otherwise you risk alienating your fan-base.

Affiliate Programs

An affiliate program is like a super-charged version of a sponsorship deal, where a brand will make you one of their “ambassadors” for a given product. Companies like G-Fuel are well known for this, adding their product into the lifestyle and content of many gaming creators. This can provide you with a steady source of revenue, and often gives you access to a supply of products that you’ll probably enjoy!

If you’re concerned about accepting an affiliate deal, or want to know how to find one, get in touch. We’re here to help you make the right decision to expand your reach and make the most of your gaming content and audience.

Learn more with our complete guide to affiliate marketing for gaming influencers >

Channel Memberships

An often-overlooked method of monetizing your YouTube gaming content is through channel memberships. These are a form of paid subscription that give users access to extra content, emojis, badges, and more.

Channel memberships are a great way to build a community while offering an easily accessible method of regular income support – something that shouldn’t be missed when you’re already producing gaming content.

You may also find it helpful to offer other platforms for your followers to support you on. A popular one of these is…

Patreon is a platform for creators of all kinds, providing a space for their fans to support them while offering additional content and incentives in return. While other video platforms like YouTube and Twitch have their own monetization models, there are a few reasons you and your audience might prefer a third party like Patreon for handling donations and subscriptions. These reasons include:

• Gaining a greater cut of the revenue. While a subscriber might feel they’re supporting you with a YouTube channel membership, in reality 30% of their money is going straight to YouTube. On Patreon, this number is only 5%, meaning you’re both getting a lot more value out of the transaction.
• Subscription model. One-time donations are great, but having monthly income can help you plan ahead and ensure you can live and create content more comfortably. Patreon only offers subscriptions, meaning your dedicated fans can support you with regular, predictable payments.
• Exclusive content. Have any behind the scenes footage, failed projects, or VODs that you don’t want on your main channel? Patreon is a great place to put any odds and ends you don’t want anywhere else, giving your audience an exclusive look at what you’re up to and getting paid in the process.
• Subscription tiers. Rather than a one-size-fits-all offering, Patreon gives you and users the option for different subscription tiers. Depending on the tier, the subscriber will get access to different content and benefits. Plus, you can integrate this with other platforms, giving them even more reason to subscribe!

When you’re talking subscriptions, however, one site that will immediately come to mind is the streaming megalith that is Twitch.tv.

Livestreaming is often seen as one of the most lucrative ways to monetize your gaming content, and Twitch is the place to be. With monetization through paid subscriptions of varying tiers, donations, ads, and about a million different ways to interact with communities, Twitch is a hub for fan engagement and incentives to spend on their favourite creator.

Paid Subscribers

By far one of the most sustainable ways to earn money as a gaming creator is through paid subscriptions on Twitch. Gaming creators can have anywhere from tens to even hundreds of thousands of paid subscribers giving them income each month. At a minimum $4.99 a month, 50% of which goes to the streamer, you can see how quickly that adds up.

Before you can offer paid subscriptions on Twitch, you must first become an affiliate. The barrier for entry is actually quite low, however, only requiring you to:

• Reach 50 followers
• Stream for 8 total hours
• Stream on 7 different days
• Reach an average of 3 viewers during your streams

Subscriber Tiers

While $4.99 is the minimum that a subscriber has to pay (unless they go through Twitch Prime as part of their Amazon subscription), you can also offer different tiers of subscription to give access emotes, badges, or even exclusive content. Much like Patreon, this  incentivises people to support you as much as they’re able and gives them great rewards in the process.

Donations

Donations are a massive supplement to the income of gaming creators, with fans giving anywhere from a few dollars to thousands in a single payment – adding up to a sizeable amount each month. You can incentivise donations with message pop-ups, stream effects, and by reading the donations out to offer further engagement with your viewers.

There are a few different ways to donate, either through Twitch or a third party. Streamers often prefer third party measures as they tend to get close to 100% of the donation, while in-house systems such as Twitch Bits take a 30% cut of any donation made through them.

Ads, Sponsorships, and Affiliation

Similar to YouTube, you can also monetize your gaming streams through the use of ads, sponsorships, and other deals with relevant brands. This can be a great way to increase your income without detracting from the quality of your streams, or adding too much extra work.

Finding the right deals and negotiating payments and deadlines with different brands can be a challenge – contact us today to consult your needs and find the solution.

Learn more about becoming a Twitch affiliate >

Social media sites are another great tool for gaming content creators, combining community with a platform to host and share their videos. Monetizing these videos is possible, but requires special considerations depending on the platform you choose.

Facebook

Short videos are the king of content nowadays, and Facebook Reels are a great place for up and coming or establish gaming content creators to share their clips. There are three main ways to monetize Reels:

1. Embedding ads in your Reels requires at least 10,000 followers, five published videos, and 10,000 hours of viewership in the past 60 days.
2. Reels Bonus Program. This invite-only program pays creators who join a bonus when they receive at least 1,000 views over a month.
3. Viewers can give stars to creators, with Meta giving them 1 cent per star received. Much like ads, stars have their own eligibility requirements.

Instagram

Another branch of Meta, Instagram also offers Reels for gaming content creators to share their moments and make revenue through monetization. Aside from its use as an extra social media platform to engage your audience on, Instagram also offers:

• Branded content
• Creator marketplaces
• Instagram Live badges
• Instagram shop

TikTok

The explosion of short-form media couldn’t have happened without TikTok – a revolutionary platform for gamers and content creators of all kinds. The Creator Fund is a limited resource which offers revenue to content creators based on the following criteria:

• Abide by the TikTok Community Guidelines
• Residence in the UK, US, France, Germany, Spain, or Italy.
• 18 years+
• 10,000 followers
• 100,000 views in the last month

Additionally, e-commerce through TikTok shop and integrations with other platforms make TikTok a hub of financial activity, drawing in crowds and making you money from even short videos.

Explore other options with our gamer’s guide to streaming platforms >

When you’ve got an established brand, merchandise suddenly become a viable way to make money. Companies out there like Teespring and many more can handle the hassle of sourcing and shipping, meaning all you need to do is get a design that you and your fans will love.

Shirts, mugs, keychains, and collectables all marked with your brand identity or logo can be a great way to monetize your existing media and give fans something they’re after at the same time. Seasonal merch can also be great, as it’s nice to own something exclusive!

One pitfall to watch out for is the T&Cs for the games you play. Nintendo is a prime example, being known to crack down hard on people trying to monetize content based on their games. Jagex’s Fan Content Policy is a more lenient case, but is still important to be aware of with their limit on 100 copies of each item sold featuring content related to their games.

Ads and sponsorships, memberships and subscribers, donations and merch. With so many different ways to monetize your gaming content, and regulations and requirements surrounding each, it can feel like a minefield trying to find the right monetization option for you.

Partnering with MinMxD offers the solution. We can do all the heavy lifting, consulting your situation and finding the best ways to monetize your content, then helping you along that path – growing your brand, audience, and revenue in the process.

Get in touch today for a chat with one of our friendly consultants!

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