How to Start Your Own Gaming Channel

I bet when you were kid telling people that you were going to play Mario Kart when you grew up, they laughed at you. Fast-forward a decade or two and gaming for a living isn’t just possible, but quite lucrative if you do it right. But it isn’t just a matter of playing games and watching the views roll in. Life is rarely that easy. If you’re looking to join names like Ninja, PewDiePie, Pokimane, and more, you’ll need to know what you’re in for going in. Take a look at our guide to starting your own gaming channel for all the details.

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The vitals

Starting a gaming channel is no cheap venture. If you’re looking for the full shebang of a setup that means investing in a gaming PC, a decent webcam, the headset, the chair, possibly a console, and a few extras to make it your own. That all adds up.

Luckily, a lot of it you could already have, and some things are superfluous. What makes you stand out will be your personality. The gamers that don’t make it, aside from being unable to market themselves, are the ones who don’t say anything while they are playing. So, add actor to your resume to improve your content output. When you’re playing Resident Evil, don’t just gasp. Scream like you just came out the womb. When you’re playing Fall Guys really get into it and yell about ramming people out the way. When you’re playing Among Us, tell your audience about your dastardly strategy. Leave the silent treatment to the eSport players.

If you’re into eSports - as an aside - there is now a massive following online, so much so that there is now an element of the betting and gambling industry which is worth several billion dollars a year. If you’re interested in watching eSports, participating in eSports or betting on eSports, you can check eSports betting odds here.

The marketing

A lot of gaming creators make the mistake of thinking if they create gaming content, the masses will naturally come. Unfortunately, the sad reality is that if you’re going to get people to watch you, you’ll need to get people to know you, which means that having a gaming channel means being part influencer. The good news is that being an influencer isn’t as easy as it looks.

What we mean by that is that being an influencer takes a lot of transferable skills and allows you to develop a jack-of-all-trades approach to your further career. Not only will you have to make content, which means you will have to use skills in filming, photography, editing and more, but the business side is often forgotten. You will become marketer, entrepreneur, and more as you navigate brand deals.

That’s the big leagues, though. For now, just read up on digital marketing to make sure your gaming content is getting to the people who will watch it and want more.

The game

The harsh reality of gaming professionally is that you have to be good at it, and the harsh reality of that means that you will have to practice, so you better truly love the game you want to play, because you’ll be playing it a lot.

Play into your strengths, but most importantly do what you enjoy. There’s no point in dedicating hours and hours into a game you chose because it was popular, only to find you hate it when you’re 300 hours into it.