A love for and playing video games can cultivate all manner of careers from developing the games, becoming a famous Twitch streamer or even having video games inspire you to pursue science and technology.

So, if you’re looking for an excuse to play online games or want to pursue a career in the industry, here are some of the ways that you can turn your passion into a sustainable future.

Working on Video Games

Photo by Arif Riyanto / Public Domain
Caption: Developers work tirelessly to create brilliant games.

One of the most obvious careers that can come out of a passion for and playing video games is to make them! Whether you become a developer, designer, programmer or artist, all these careers play a vital role in the creation of a game.

What’s so great about these careers is that you can gain experience in your time, either developing games or working on video game artwork. If you find that you are good at what you do, then you could even look at making it your future career.

Now, it’s a highly competitive field, but if you play a lot of games, it’ll give you an advantage when you know what makes a video game special. Try starting out with an entry role as a video game tester if you’re looking to break into the industry. This role requires little experience and you’ll get paid to play games, which is living the dream.

Becoming a Video Game Influencer

 Photo by Alex Haney / Public Domain
Caption: Online gamers can enter competitions with huge rewards.

Another popular way of building an income through playing games is to become a famous Twitch streamer or YouTube gamer. Online gamers such as Tyler “Ninja” Blevins have made an extremely successful career out of gaming due to building an audience and being the best at playing games!

The hugely popular online game Fortnite has contributed to the success of many Twitch streamers, as so many people play it all over the world. The key to success in this field is to be consistent, get your personality across and play what is currently popular with gamers.

Whether YouTube or Twitch is your platform, so many gamers have turned their hobby into their career through hard work and building an audience.

Gaming Your Way to Inspiration

Photo by Jafar Ahmed / Public Domain
Caption: A passion for video games can fuel many careers.

Elon Musk recently said that playing video games is how he and some of the “best software engineers” got into programming. Certain games got him fascinated with how to make things, especially technology. He even went on to say that the problem-solving in video games is very much like the problem-solving in software engineering.

Gaming can teach you skills that are very much transferrable to several careers, including hugely successful ones such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Whether it’s problem-solving, the artwork or developing tactics and strategy, video games can teach us a whole lot that we can apply toward future careers.

There has even been a study that suggests video games make better surgeons. Laparoscopic specialists found that people who played video games for more than three hours a week made 32 percent fewer errors during practice procedures than those who didn’t play games did. So, if you aspire to become a surgeon, make sure that playing video games is a part of your weekly routine.

Take Your Passion and Run with It

So, whether you’re looking for an excuse to play video games or are actively searching for a career in the industry, there are so many options out there for you. Online games are an excellent way to improve your skills, make friends and even discover what you want to do for a job in the future!

Furthermore, there are several cognitive benefits to video games, including improved vision thanks to the variety of different colors and details in games that resulted in better shade recognition. Studies have even shown that video games slow down the aging process of our brains thanks to the puzzles, problem-solving and memory skills required for a lot of games.

As you can see, playing video games isn’t so bad after all and could help to determine your future career prospects. Or you could continue to play them because you enjoy it. It’s entirely up to you.