How I Turned My Gaming Hobby Into a £2,000/Month Side Hustle

This time last year, I was working in a supermarket. Now, I'm a social media marketing manager with a four-figure side hustle, sharing the cozy video games that I love. In this article, I'll share the four steps that took me from living on minimum wage to earning an extra £2,000 a month just from my hobby.

I'm going to break down how much I earned at each stage of my business, share the different ways I've tried to make money from gaming, and the key lessons I've learned so you can do the same. At the end of this article, I'll share the kit that I use in my gaming setup and the resources that helped me scale my business.

But before we begin, I want to be honest with you. It feels like it's taken me a lifetime to get to this point. I remember what it felt like to put hours into a stream and only have two people tune in, or to post a new article and only get a handful of likes. It's discouraging, to say the least, and sometimes I just wanted to quit. It felt like I was having an identity crisis, trying to be the person that I thought everybody else wanted me to be.

But it was articles like this that gave me the courage to continue and taught me the skills I needed to achieve my goals. Seeing other gamers succeed and turn their hobby into a cozy business inspired me to keep going. That's why I'm sharing this article with you today—my goal is to help you make money from gaming.

Step 1: From Zero to £500

Like many of you, I started with content creation back in 2020. I was working the hardest I'd ever had to work, and it was a really scary time for me. I remember one awful day when the queues in my supermarket spanned the entire length of the store, and I was serving back-to-back customers. I took myself off to the toilets and cried because I pictured myself sitting at that till for the next 10 or 20 years, and I couldn't bear it. I felt so hopeless in that moment.

That same night, while playing on my Nintendo Switch to escape my reality, I decided to put all of my savings into buying my first-ever PC so I could teach myself how to stream my gameplay. I thought if I could make money from playing my video games, I'd never have to work again.

I streamed every night for a week to get Twitch affiliate. Although this was an incredibly hard time for me—working 40+ hours a week and then another 3 to 4 hours on my stream in the evenings—it became a pivotal moment in my life. It taught me a lesson that would go on to make me thousands: the power of community. Having other people around who genuinely liked hanging out, watching me play video games, and cared about my success was how I made my first £500 from subscriptions and donations.

Lesson 1: The Power of Community and Consistency

A key tip for growing your own community is to commit to showing up. Whether it's streaming gameplay, creating articles, or sharing posts on social media, consistency builds trust and keeps your audience coming back. I made it a point to stream every night after work because I knew consistency was the key to growing my audience.

Step 2: The Hard Truth About Going from £500 to £1,000

I was 36 when I got into streaming, and I was so nervous because I felt old. I watched every tutorial on how to set up my stream, the best software to use, and the kit I needed. I would spend hours on my days off speaking with other micro-streamers I'd befriended, helping each other with tech-related issues.

I honestly thought this was my way out of my minimum wage job. It seemed so easy: all I had to do was play my favorite games and start a Discord server for my subscribers to hang out after the stream. They would subscribe and donate, and I'd be able to quit my job—at least, that's what everyone online was saying.

But I found out that was not the case. After a year, I burned out. I lost all the money I made and went straight back down to zero. This was a really low point in my life. I was ashamed to be in my late 30s and unable to pay my bills. All I had wanted was a successful business doing what I loved.

Even though streaming games wasn't the quick way to earn money I thought it would be, it did teach me a valuable lesson that has been the key to my success with content creation today.

Lesson 2: If You Want to Make Money, You Must Learn New Skills

The reason I failed at live streaming was simply that I didn't understand how to brand myself. I didn't know what games to play, how to market myself, or the different ways to make money. So, I decided to quit streaming and disappear from social media for a whole year to learn some new skills:

• Brand Identity
• Content Writing
• Video Editing
• Basic Business Skills

If you're a gamer just getting started, I highly recommend learning these skills too. It was these skills that helped me land my first paid brand collaboration. It was for a mobile game I was playing, and I ended up earning about £350 (around $450) just for posting a 30-second clip about it. At the time, I had less than 2,000 followers. It wasn't a huge amount of money, obviously, but it gave me a lot of hope.

After my year out, I came back stronger, deciding to try turning my love of gaming into a business one last time but with a completely different strategy. This pivot would help me double my previous year's earnings. Instead of relying on subscriptions from viewers, I decided to start my own gaming blog with the goal of getting monetized through ad revenue within its first year. Utilizing the skills I'd gained through online courses, joining communities, and studying hundreds of online tutorials, I managed to grow my blog from zero to 100,000 views in its first year.

I was accepted by an ad network before the year was out and was able to start monetizing my blog within 12 months. I scaled my gaming blog from 100,000 views to 300,000 views and earned over £2,000 in ad revenue. I honestly could not believe it. I had finally found a way to make money from gaming without relying on subscriptions. Seeing that money hit my bank account was the catalyst I needed to keep going.

Something else unexpected happened during that year: I managed to grow a following on several platforms and started working with more brands. This took me from £350 to over £1,000 a month.

Note: The figures I'm sharing are from my business, before tax, and do not include my job earnings.

This brings me to the next lesson.

Lesson 3: Diversify Your Income Streams

I was so close to giving up when my initial efforts didn't work out. But when I pivoted, not only did I start earning more money, but I also found I could be myself. I stopped playing the popular games I thought I was supposed to play and started focusing on the little cozy games I love.

Although I found success with blogging, I don't actually recommend beginners start a website. The reason is that it requires high-level skills and can be expensive. Looking back, I can see there are numerous other ways I could have made money that are free to start and much less time-consuming.

Step 4: Scaling from £1,000 to Over £2,000 a Month

At this point, I was 39 and had been slowly building my presence on social media. In 2023, I saw an opportunity to share game recommendations because there weren't many women my age talking about cozy video games. I used the skills I had learned and started creating content. Within a few months, my account took off. I was getting thousands, sometimes millions, of views every time I posted.

I was so excited; I felt like I was adding so much value and helping women find games they actually wanted to play, not just the games their partners were playing. People were commenting on my posts, thanking me for the cozy game recommendations and asking for more. This lit a fire under me.

After my social media presence took off, I decided to repost my content to other platforms like Pinterest and Instagram. I was initially a faceless account, sharing clips of my Nintendo Switch or gameplay footage. My account quickly grew to over 20,000 followers, and I started to land even more brand sponsorships, working with big names like Sega. I finally hit my first £2,000 profit month at 39 years old. I cannot even describe the feeling; I was beyond happy.

Going from living paycheck to paycheck and struggling financially for years to making an extra £2,000 a month felt like I'd won the lottery. I then realized a crucial aspect of being a creator that nobody was talking about.

Lesson 4: The Power of Compounding

This has to be one of the biggest lessons I have learned. Each skill I learned, every post I made, and every connection I fostered built upon the last. At first, the results felt small, almost invisible. But over time, those small efforts started to snowball into bigger opportunities. The £350 I made during my first-ever brand collaboration may not sound like a lot, but it was proof that I was on the right track. By sticking with it, I turned that small win into multiple collaborations and an extra £2,000 a month.

Honestly, it wasn't always £2,000 a month. My earnings fluctuate a lot; some months I'll earn £500, other months I'll earn £3,000. This made me realize I would still be heavily reliant on my day job to pay my bills, and that's when I knew I needed a consistent income. I took a critical look at my revenue streams and decided to focus on the ones most likely to yield a return. My income was broken down roughly as follows:

• Sponsorships: £2,000
• UGC (User-Generated Content): £600
• Digital Products: £1,000
• Ad Revenue: £250

That's when I realized that digital marketing should have been a skill I learned from the very beginning. It took me so long to get into it because I had been living under the illusion that the only way for gamers to make money was from subscriptions during live streams. With digital products, I could create an ebook packed with all the skills and knowledge I've gained over my years as a content creator and earn money while I'm sleeping. I genuinely could not believe it when I woke up and realized people had been buying from me while I was asleep. This was the business I should have started in the first place, and it's what I recommend new creators do now. All you need to know is how to create a digital product and where to market it.

Now, you're probably thinking, 'That's okay for you, you've got thousands of followers.' But you don't need a large following to succeed with digital marketing. I learned a way to promote my work without ever showing my face. Remember how I mentioned starting a faceless account just by showing gameplay? If I had known about digital marketing then, I never would have had to rely on brand sponsorships. For example, one of my more recent posts, which has had over 4,000 comments, doesn't even feature me talking; it's just set to a trending sound. All of that engagement drives traffic to my digital products.

My Setup and Learning Resources

As promised, here are some of the tools and resources that helped me on my journey.

• Gaming Setup: A solid PC and a good microphone are essential for streaming and content creation. My initial setup was built around a custom PC which I saved up for.
• Learning Digital Marketing: I highly recommend taking an online course focused on digital marketing. This was the key to unlocking consistent income through digital products.
• Free Guides: Look for free guides and tutorials online. There are countless resources available that can teach you the basics of content creation, branding, and monetization.

A New Beginning

In just three short years, I was able to turn my life around, and I cannot tell you how much happier I am right now. I went from feeling trapped and unable to pay my bills to making an extra £2,000 a month in profit at the age of 40, proving that making money online isn't just for the kids. With the skills I learned, I was able to leave my supermarket job and get a full-time job as a social media marketing manager. I've also been able to save up a house deposit, and we can finally get our first house in our 40s.

So, if you're reading this and thinking about becoming a gaming content creator, I want you to know that it is possible for you. If you're just starting out, remember that growth takes time. And if you manage to make more than £350 in your first year as a gaming content creator, then you're already doing better than I did.