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In the present scenario, very few people can boast about following their passion and earning their livelihood with it. It is difficult to love what you do. Such is the condition with normal gamers, because either you go professional or you go home, empty handed. But many people have found a way to make living by playing video games. Felix Kjelberg, popularly known as pewdiepie, is the most famous Youtube stars of all times. He plays games recommended by his “Bros” (his fan base) and records his reaction. Pewdiepie has more than 35 million subscribers and he earns about 8 million yearly (Source: Business Insider) just by doing what he loves. Similar is the case with Olajide Olatunji, better known as KSI. KSI became a multimillionaire by making videos of him playing FIFA. KSI is also an extremely talented comedian, and has couple of his own songs like the “Lamborghini”, but his strength is mostly creating videos of him playing FIFA. There are many other people who have turned into multimillionaires like Pyrion Flax of Dota 2 and Boxer of League of Legends. Hence, making videos online has proved to be a good source of income provided you devote enough time and hard work in it.

As an aspiring gamer, I too want to be rich by playing video games. Professional gaming is almost impossible in our country, and the fact that there are very few Nepali Streamers online, making videos are the only ways for a gamer to make money. Out of curiosity, I did a small research on the subject and found few things need to be followed if we want to be successful online. But first, let’s learn about how Youtube and Twitch.tv monetize their videos.

We all know about Google AdSense and how it functions. Youtube provides an option to place ads in your videos, and Youtube pays you if you have 1000 or more views in your videos. Similar is the case with Twitch.tv, but it is a little complicated since Twitch.tv is used mostly for live streaming and the audience needs to be watching it, unlike Youtube where you can upload the video and hope for the best. Making a career through Twitch is harder than Youtube, but it is rewarding if you constantly create content through Twitch. Youtube requires its content to have lots of dialogue if it’s about a video-game, so vocabulary and witty-humor is the key.

Now that we have learned how things work, let’s look at few things that are very important factors in order to be successful. To be successful, one needs:

Starting materials:  To be popular in Youtube, you will need to have a Youtube account (duh!) and have a Google AdSense account with a verified Pay-pal account linked to it. Having a good camera never hurts; and you’ll need to be expert on editing videos to create good content. A proper internet connection and social networking accounts are important factors too.

Audience:  Audience is the bread and butter, the life-support of success in Youtube. The quality of the video, the content or the effort you put into your videos doesn’t matter if you don’t have any audience. You get paid if your videos have amassed a certain number of views and without any audience, you won’t get anywhere. It is also the hardest aspect to conquer, but you can advertise your videos on social media sites such as Facebook / Twitter and force your friends into watching it and sharing it again, so that more people are aware of your content. Patience is the key and qualitative videos contribute.

Quality of the content: No one enjoys watching videos where you can barely understand anything. Improving the quality of the content helps in retaining the subscribers and maintaining the audience.

One common thing about all the major successful Youtube stars is their content is absolutely hilarious and foul mouthed. Pewdiepie and KSI scream their lungs out on their videos and its pretty fun to watch someone jumping around with happiness or pain. Same is the case with Pyrion Flax, who creates stupid guides for heroes of DOTA 2, which includes his perspective of hero’s back-story and their abilities in a really humorous ways.  It doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t need to because as long as your content is fun, people are going to watch it. So, if you want to be a success, be funny, humorous and able to take jokes on yourself.

Quantity with Quality: If you want to grasp your audience’s attention, you have to keep providing them new reasons to hang around. Upload videos on a regular basis and please your customers. Don’t get discouraged if your videos aren’t of great quality, you will get better with more uploads.

Once you’re famous, you can start doing videos about other stuff outside of your comfort zone to maximize your contents... Just don’t let your fan base down.

Address your fans: The most successful Youtubers listen to their fans’ opinion and answer their questions. It is usually done in the form of a Q/A session, where they answer the fans’ question making hilarious gestures and doing whatever it takes to please them. And if it worked for them, it will work for you too. So, keep this in mind.

It isn’t easy to get started, you’ll need to work your ass off and improve with the momentum, but you’ll strike a goldmine if you can maintain the fan base. So, what are you waiting for? Start making videos, yo!