How To Make Money Playing Video Games On PS5: 6 Ways To Make $100 Per Day

You already spend hours every week playing video games. Somebody else with the same controller, the same games, and probably less skill is collecting real income from that same activity. The difference is not raw talent. It is knowing which income paths actually exist, how each one pays, and where to start from zero.

This post covers all six methods Alston walks through in the video above. Each one can reach $100 per day on its own. Stack two or three of them and the ceiling goes to $200 or $300 per day or more. Every method is laid out in full, including the steps to get started, the traps to avoid, and the honest timeline you should expect.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A clear breakdown of all six gaming income streams and what each one actually pays you for
The exact niche and consistency requirements for building a Twitch or YouTube gaming channel that earns
How to create a digital product from gaming knowledge and price it at a level that converts
The affiliate marketing categories that pay best in the gaming space and where to find programs with higher commissions than Amazon
How Patreon creates a recurring income layer on top of content you are already making
Why email marketing is the one tool that connects every other income stream together and makes all of them work better
The honest drawbacks to each method so you can plan around them instead of being surprised by them
Not sure which method fits your situation best? Answer a few questions at finder.platformproof.com and get a clear starting point.

Way 1: Stream on Twitch and Get Paid by the Platform

Twitch has both an affiliate program and a partner program. When you reach affiliate status, you can earn income from ads that run during your streams and from Bits, which are small digital tips viewers send you directly in the chat. Subscribers pay a monthly fee and Twitch splits that revenue with you. The partner program unlocks additional revenue options once your channel is larger and you apply for it separately.

Getting to either of those programs requires hitting specific thresholds first. For the affiliate program you need 50 followers, an average of at least 3 concurrent viewers per stream, a minimum of 500 total broadcast minutes over the past 30 days, and streams on at least 7 unique days within that period. These numbers are achievable, but they require consistency before you see any income at all.

Consistency is the first thing Alston emphasizes for Twitch. You have to show up on a schedule. Your viewers are coming for two reasons: the game you play and the personality behind the screen. When your streaming schedule is random or unpredictable, neither of those reasons is enough to keep people coming back. Pick specific days and times and hold to them.

Niche selection is the second thing. Pick one or two games, three at the absolute most, and stay there. Viewers who find your channel through one game are not automatically interested in a completely different game you decided to try this week. The people who build real followings on Twitch are the ones who own a narrow category rather than dabbling across many.

The third thing is personality. There are millions of streamers on Twitch right now who are completely flat and forgettable. They wonder why they are not growing while somebody else playing the same game is pulling thousands of viewers. Playing the game is not what people are watching. They are watching you. You have to be present, engaged, and at least a little bit entertaining. You do not need to perform. You do need to show up as an actual human being who is enjoying what they are doing.

Way 2: Join the YouTube Partner Program and Earn Ad Revenue

YouTube pays creators through the YouTube Partner Program. Ads run before, during, and after your videos and you receive a share of that ad revenue. To qualify, you need 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours within the previous 12 months. Once approved, you get access to additional monetization features like channel memberships and Super Thanks.

The niche discipline for YouTube is even more important than it is for Twitch. Alston points to a pattern that shows up on gaming channels again and again. A creator starts playing Battlefield, builds a small but real audience, and then decides to mix in MLB 21. The moment those baseball videos go live, the Battlefield audience disappears. Those are different games, different player types, and different search audiences. The channel loses its identity and growth stops.

The solution is to niche down inside your chosen game, not just stay on the same title. Consider a game like The Division or The Division 2. You could build an entire channel around a single topic like how to farm the Bullet King checkpoint, how to defeat rogue agents without burning through your gear, or where to find the hidden areas most players never see. Each of those is a specific problem that a specific type of player is already searching for answers to.

That word — problem — is the key to everything on YouTube. Alston is direct about this: people do not go to YouTube to watch you run around the streets of a game world with no clear purpose. They go to YouTube because they want to solve something specific. They want to beat a boss, find a hidden item, unlock a mechanic they keep failing at, or understand a system that feels confusing. When your videos consistently solve those kinds of problems, you build a following because you are useful. Useful channels grow. Random gameplay channels do not.

Let’s play content has a place in a gaming channel’s mix, but it should not be the whole thing. Let’s play videos where you react to a game for the first time are harder to rank in search and harder to retain viewers on, because the viewer has no specific reason to watch beyond entertainment. Pair let’s play content with tutorials, walkthroughs, and problem-solving videos, and your channel becomes something with a real reason to exist.

Vintage games are an underrated opportunity worth mentioning. Gaming channels built around older titles like the original Super Mario series, Crash Bandicoot, and other classic games from the early console era are actively growing. There is a real and emotionally invested community around retro gaming, and that category is far less crowded than channels competing for views on whatever the newest release happens to be this week.

Way 3: Create and Sell Digital Products Built From What You Already Know

If you walked into a GameStop or Target in the 1990s or early 2000s, you would see thick printed strategy guides stacked below the video game display stands. These were 200-page books that walked players through every level, every map, every boss fight, every secret area, and every collectible. Gamers paid full price for those books because the information inside solved real problems they were running into during gameplay.

The same product exists today in digital form. You can create a PDF walkthrough, a downloadable ebook, a video guide series, or an audio tour of a game and sell it directly to your audience. The content is information you already have from hours of playing. The format is just different from what used to sit on GameStop’s shelves.

Pricing a digital product at around $9.99 is a good starting point. That number is low enough that someone who trusts you does not hesitate to buy it. At the same time, it adds up fast. A hundred sales is close to $1,000. Five hundred sales is close to $5,000. And because the product is digital, it costs nothing to fulfill after you create it. You keep 100 percent of the revenue minus taxes and payment processing fees. The product can sell at 2 a.m. while you are asleep.

The types of products that work in gaming are wide. A step-by-step video walkthrough series for a notoriously difficult game. A PDF covering every easter egg and hidden area in a specific title. An audio guide that talks a player through a complicated map in real time. A reference sheet showing the fastest routes to rare loot or the most efficient skill builds. Any piece of information that removes a specific frustration a player is already experiencing is something that player will pay money to have.

The link between your content and your digital products is direct and powerful. Your Twitch streams and YouTube videos build the trust. Your guide captures the buyer. Someone watches you clear a difficult checkpoint three times in a row on stream. They believe you know how it works. When you offer a written or audio guide walking through every step of that same checkpoint, the sale becomes easy because you have already demonstrated the value in public before asking anyone to pay for it.

Way 4: Earn Commissions Through Gaming Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing means recommending other companies’ products and earning a commission when your audience buys through your unique link. You never touch inventory. You never handle returns or customer service. You recommend something your audience already wants, you put your link in your video description, and when someone clicks and buys, you earn a percentage of that sale.

The gaming space is one of the strongest affiliate marketing niches because the products your audience is already shopping for are high-value and easy to recommend in context. Controllers, specialized hard drives compatible with PlayStation or Xbox, gaming chairs, TV stands, furniture setups, desktop components for PC gamers, and even bean bag chairs are all things your viewers are already considering buying. When you use something on stream and mention it works well, that is a natural recommendation that does not feel like an ad.

Amazon Associates is the most common starting point because almost everyone trusts Amazon and they sell nearly everything in the gaming category. Best Buy and Newegg have their own affiliate programs and are well-known in the gaming space. But Alston points out that you should not stop there. A simple search for “video game affiliate programs” pulls up curated lists with 27 or more programs, many of which pay higher commission rates than Amazon’s default percentages on electronics.

The mechanics are simple. You join a program, get your unique tracking link for a product, and place that link in the description of every video where that product is relevant. You do not need to pitch the product in every video. Just having the link available in the description is enough because a percentage of viewers always scroll down to check what a creator uses or recommends. That percentage adds up across hundreds of videos and thousands of viewers over time.

Volume is what makes affiliate income significant. One link in one video is not going to change anything. Ten links across twenty videos starts to build passive income. A hundred videos with thoughtful product recommendations in every description becomes an income stream that keeps paying you as old videos continue to get views weeks, months, and years after you published them. The work is done once. The income continues.

One point Alston makes that most creators miss: once you are consistently sending a meaningful volume of traffic to an affiliate program, you are in a position to ask for a higher commission rate than the default. This is especially true with mid-size gaming affiliate programs that value their top publishers. It is not automatic. You have to reach out and ask. But it is a real option that most gaming affiliates never pursue.

Not sure which of these six income streams fits your current setup and skills?

Take the free quiz and get a personalized recommendation at finder.platformproof.com.

Way 5: Build a Paid Community on Patreon

Patreon lets your most committed fans pay you a recurring monthly amount in exchange for exclusive access. The key word is recurring. Every other income stream on this list pays you when something specific happens — a view, a click, a sale. Patreon pays you on a schedule every month regardless of whether you published something that specific week.

The way Patreon works in the gaming space is that your free content on YouTube or Twitch acts as the front door. You show up consistently, solve real gamer problems, give your audience a reason to keep watching, and build trust over time. Once that trust exists, a percentage of your audience will follow you into a paid tier because they want to be closer to the community and to you.

What do you offer on Patreon that justifies the monthly payment? The most natural answer is exclusivity. Your regular game play content stays free on Twitch or YouTube. Patreon members get something your general audience does not. Alston suggests actually gaming with your Patreon members in real time, going through a difficult section step by step together. That is a different experience from watching someone else play. It is participation rather than observation.

You can also offer extended deep-dive content that goes beyond what fits in a public video, early access to new content before it goes live to the general audience, or monthly virtual meetups where you talk through game strategy, mindset, and process with a smaller and more committed group of people. The smaller size of a Patreon community compared to a YouTube channel is part of what makes it valuable. People are paying in part for a more direct relationship.

Alston notes that the number of people willing to pay this monthly fee tends to surprise creators when they first launch. If you have built a genuine community around a game or a genre, those people want to be closer to you and to each other. Patreon gives them a structured way to do that. The community becomes a selling point alongside the content.

You do not need to create daily content on Patreon to make it work. A few exclusive pieces per week, or even one strong monthly live stream that Patreon members can attend early or exclusively, is enough for many subscribers. The bar is consistency and exclusivity. It is not volume.

Way 6: Use Email Marketing To Connect Every Income Stream

Email marketing is the sixth method on this list, but Alston frames it differently from the others. It is not just another income stream sitting alongside Twitch and affiliate marketing. It is the tool that makes every other income stream work better. It lets you sell digital products, promote affiliate links, announce new Patreon tiers, and tell your audience when you are going live or when a new video just dropped — all from a single channel you control completely.

Every social media platform can change its algorithm, shrink your organic reach, or in the worst case remove your account entirely. That has happened to creators across every platform. Your email list cannot be taken from you. Every person on it gave you their direct contact information and permission to reach them. When you send an email, it goes to their inbox rather than competing for attention inside a feed designed to show people whatever the algorithm decides is most relevant that day.

The setup is straightforward. You work with a landing page builder — Alston mentions ClickFunnels and GetResponse as tools he uses — and you build a simple page that offers something useful in exchange for someone’s email address. It could be a free game guide, a tip sheet, an exclusive video, or early access to your next digital product. Then you place the link to that page in the description of every video you publish.

Once someone is on your list, you can email them when you are streaming live that night, when you post a new video, when you release a new paid guide, or when you find a gaming product or accessory worth recommending. Each email is a direct line to revenue across every other income stream simultaneously. One email about a new digital product can produce hundreds of sales in a single day from a list you built through consistent free content.

Alston describes seeing a specific example play out on Twitter. Gaming account owners had set up automated alerts tied to their affiliate links. When new gaming consoles became available, a notification went out immediately to all their followers with affiliate links included. People who clicked bought through those links. The account owners earned commissions without doing any additional work beyond having built the list and set up the system once. Email marketing works the same way at a larger and more sustainable scale.

Honest Drawbacks To Factor Into Your Plan

None of these six methods pay you the first week, and most will not pay you meaningfully in the first month either. Twitch and YouTube both require you to build a real audience before any significant income shows up. The Twitch affiliate thresholds take consistent streaming over weeks to reach if you are starting from zero. YouTube’s 1,000-subscriber and 4,000-watch-hour requirements can take three to six months of regular publishing on a focused channel, or longer if you are not systematic about it.

Digital products only sell well when you have an audience to sell them to. Affiliate marketing commissions are small when your traffic is small. Patreon membership depends on trust that takes real time to establish. Email marketing requires an existing audience willing to hand over their contact information. Every method on this list is legitimate and it all works, but none of it works without first building the foundation of an audience that knows and trusts you.

The honest path forward involves picking one or two of these methods and staying consistent for at least six to twelve months before making a judgment about whether they are working. Most people quit around month two or three because the numbers are small and the progress feels slow. The gaming creators who are actually generating $100 per day or more are almost always people who kept going past the point where others stopped, and who stayed in a tight niche long enough to become known for something specific.

A practical starting combination is YouTube and affiliate marketing running together from day one. You build an audience on YouTube while earning commissions from links in your video descriptions. When the channel hits the monetization threshold, ad revenue adds a third layer. Once you understand your audience well enough to know what they struggle with, you build a digital product around that specific problem. Patreon and email marketing come after that foundation is solid. That is not the only path, but it is a logical one for most people starting from scratch.

Find Your X

Six income streams is a lot to process at once. You do not need to pick one randomly. Answer a few short questions about your current setup, the time you realistically have, and what you are already good at, and get a specific starting point matched to your situation. Start at finder.platformproof.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a PS5 to make money from gaming, or does any platform work?

The six methods in this post work regardless of what hardware you own. PS5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, PC, and even mobile gaming all have active and searchable audiences. The income comes from the content and the community you build around a game, not from which console you are using to play it. Pick the platform you already know and play well on.

How long does it realistically take to reach $100 per day from gaming content?

It depends heavily on which method you start with and how much existing audience you have. Affiliate marketing can produce small commissions within the first few weeks if you already have any following at all. Twitch and YouTube ad revenue typically takes several months of consistent output before it reaches meaningful levels. Most creators who reach $100 per day report it took between six months and two years of regular work. Starting with multiple income streams simultaneously speeds the timeline because each one adds to the others rather than competing with them.

What games should I pick when starting a gaming channel?

Pick games you genuinely know well and can solve specific problems in. The most important factor is not which game is currently popular — it is whether you can answer questions your potential audience is already searching for. Games with active, problem-focused communities and search traffic are better than the newest release where competition is highest and search volume has not yet built up. Stick to one or two games until you have an established audience, then consider adding a third game in the same genre.

Can I run all six income streams at once or should I pick just one to start?

Starting with one or two and adding others as your audience grows is more practical than launching all six simultaneously. YouTube and affiliate marketing stack naturally from the beginning because both depend on the same content. When your channel reaches monetization thresholds, ad revenue adds a third layer automatically. Patreon and email marketing become easier to add once you have an existing audience to bring into them. Digital products fit best after you have spent enough time with your audience to know exactly what they struggle with and what they will pay to solve.

What gaming affiliate programs pay the highest commissions?

Commission rates vary widely by program and product category. Amazon Associates typically pays between 1 and 3 percent on electronics, which includes most gaming hardware. Specialized gaming affiliate programs listed on curated review sites often pay between 5 and 15 percent. Gaming chairs, peripherals, and PC components tend to have better margins than consoles themselves. Searching for dedicated gaming affiliate program lists and comparing several options is a better approach than defaulting exclusively to Amazon.

What is the difference between Twitch affiliate and Twitch partner?

Twitch affiliate is the first paid tier and requires 50 followers, 500 broadcast minutes over 30 days, an average of 3 concurrent viewers, and streams on at least 7 unique days. Once you hit those numbers you can apply. Twitch partner is the higher tier with more revenue options and a larger share of subscription revenue, but it requires a significantly larger and more consistent audience and is accepted by invitation or application only. Most creators spend months at affiliate level before qualifying for partner.

What should I offer on Patreon to get people to pay a monthly subscription?

Exclusive access is the most common and effective offer. This means content your general audience cannot get for free: playing games live with your Patreon members, extended deep-dive guides that go beyond what you post publicly, early access to new content before it goes live to everyone, or monthly sessions where you talk through game strategy and mindset directly with subscribers. The Patreon relationship should feel meaningfully different from just watching your public videos. If it feels like the same thing with a subscription fee attached, people will cancel.

Why does Alston recommend ClickFunnels and GetResponse for email marketing instead of free tools?

Both ClickFunnels and GetResponse are tools Alston uses in his own business and recommends based on that direct experience. They include landing page builders alongside the email marketing features, which makes it easier to create the opt-in pages you need to collect subscribers from your video descriptions. Free tools exist, but they often limit list size, automation features, or the number of emails you can send per month. As your list grows, those limits become constraints. Starting with a platform that can scale with you avoids having to migrate your list later, which is a technical hassle worth avoiding.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “How To Make Money Playing Video Games On Ps5 — 6 Ways To Make $100/Day,” YouTube (youtu.be/TIsb31VZ0yY)
Twitch Affiliate Program requirements — twitch.tv
YouTube Partner Program eligibility — support.google.com/youtube
Amazon Associates Gaming category commission rates — affiliate-program.amazon.com
GetResponse email marketing platform — getresponse.com
ClickFunnels landing page and funnel builder — clickfunnels.com