Is it possible to make a living playing Aoe3?

[Veer_84]

Recently, I watched a video by Aussie Drongo where he said he's quitting his day job to focus full time on creating content and playing in tournaments.

I know it's probably possible to make a living playing aoe2, but do pro players in aoe3 make a living?

And if not, how do you find the time to practice 5+ hours (like any other e-sports) while working in a day job or studying in a Uni?

I'm just curious.

[Astaroth]

It's not that difficult to answer this tbh. Possible sources of income for streamers/pro players:

1. Twitch: subscriptions and donations. About 2.5 Dollars per subscriber and month. Donations depend of course.
2. Youtube: advertising.
3. Sponsorships/advertisements (e.g. deals about advertising for a game or a permanent sponsorship by a brand or even an e-sports team).
4. Prize pool/winnings from tournaments.
5. Other sources: e.g. patreon.

If we look at these 5 aspects, we can see that right now (!) it is essentially impossible for pro players to make a living off aoe3. Unless they live in an extremely poor country or so:

- (2.) Youtube money isn't that much and basically all aoe3 channels are really small there. The money you make off youtube is negligible.
- (3.) Sponsorships or advertisements almost don't exist for aoe3 players, the game and viewerbase is too small atm
- (4.) prize pools are too small and infrequent. Even if you win say 500 € per month (which is not guaranteed at all), you can't live off that. And nobody makes that much in aoe3 on average over a year right now.
- (5.) other sources basically don't exist. Drongo, who is the biggest persona in aoe3 atm in terms of viewership, makes ~140 Dollars per month of patreon. Pro players would make less than that.

- That only leaves Twitch (1.): but most pro players have a small following there and very few subscribers.

----

Even Drongo can probably only barely make a living streaming aoe3 atm. He has around 500 subscribers which is roughly 1250 Dollars a month plus patreon (140 dollars) plus some youtube money (probably not that much - EDIT: based on Drongo's post below, it is actually much more than I thought) plus donations. Also need to consider taxes here. And if Drongo with his huge viewership for aoe3 standards can barely make a living, pros certainly can't.

---

Ofc this is just the current state of the game. If it grows more or if pros streamed more regularly with face cam and microphone, maybe they could make a small living.

[harcha]

you can't make a living playing aoe3, but you can make a living slaying pussy. just look at these hot twinks @Hazza54321 @Guigs

[Dolan]

Only the streamers with the highest level of viewership from the most popular games can get to that level.
Think xQcOW playing GTA V, loltyler1 playing LoL, TheGrefg playing Fortnite, etc. These guys have tens of thousands of concurrent viewers when they're live, they get tens of subs per each stream, they have ads placement deals to promote gaming gear, millions of followers on their other channels (YT etc). Money comes from multiple sources, so eventually it adds up enough to make a living out of it. But it's unlikely you can make a career out of this, at some point you'll have to move on to something else (new games, new stuff that attracts viewers).
Everyone else just makes some beer money, at best. It's possible that Drongo is ..sponsored.

[Challenger_Marco]

For players no,for content creators,yes.

[Mr_Bramboy]

Probably not. However, with aoe4 coming out this September, things may change. Drongo and others are anticipating possible growth and we can only applaud them for the risks they're taking for our entertainment.

That being said, if you subscribe to Drongo's twitch his chances of making it considerably increase!

[Gauix7]

aussie drongo just have redbull behind him, and he just had luck on his side, he work so hard on it!
and with aoe4 comming maybe redbull give it a shot

i hope aussie can real make his job of this ( however maby he just working 2 days a week)

[harcha]

i can't understand if he is just advertising redbull for free or is there anything more to it

[Astaroth]

He said on stream that they "sponsor" him by giving him freed Redbull, but nothing beyond that.

[Gauix7]

free redbull and not saying also 1k a month for saying redbull 10 times a stream

[Challenger_Marco]

i can't understand if he is just advertising redbull for free or is there anything more to it

He loves RedBull to dirnk in general and then called RedBull in AUS for sponsor and they said ok and sent redbull cans.Nothing beyond that.

[EAGLEMUT]

i hope aussie can real make his job of this ( however maby he just working 2 days a week)

As the initial post and video says, AoE3 content is already his full time job now.

[CR_Joops]

The dude was on about buying a Tesla the other day. Drongo is doing fine. Guy busts his balls though, streaming through the night 3-4x a week, fair play to him.

[Veer_84]

It's not that difficult to answer this tbh. Possible sources of income for streamers/pro players:

1. Twitch: subscriptions and donations. About 2.5 Dollars per subscriber and month. Donations depend of course.
2. Youtube: advertising.
3. Sponsorships/advertisements (e.g. deals about advertising for a game or a permanent sponsorship by a brand or even an e-sports team).
4. Prize pool/winnings from tournaments.
5. Other sources: e.g. patreon.

If we look at these 5 aspects, we can see that right now (!) it is essentially impossible for pro players to make a living off aoe3. Unless they live in an extremely poor country or so:

- (2.) Youtube money isn't that much and basically all aoe3 channels are really small there. The money you make off youtube is negligible.
- (3.) Sponsorships or advertisements almost don't exist for aoe3 players, the game and viewerbase is too small atm
- (4.) prize pools are too small and infrequent. Even if you win say 500 € per month (which is not guaranteed at all), you can't live off that. And nobody makes that much in aoe3 on average over a year right now.
- (5.) other sources basically don't exist. Drongo, who is the biggest persona in aoe3 atm in terms of viewership, makes ~140 Dollars per month of patreon. Pro players would make less than that.

- That only leaves Twitch (1.): but most pro players have a small following there and very few subscribers.

----

Even Drongo can probably only barely make a living streaming aoe3 atm. He has around 500 subscribers which is roughly 1250 Dollars a month plus patreon (140 dollars) plus some youtube money (probably not that much) plus donations. Also need to consider taxes here. And if Drongo with his huge viewership for aoe3 standards can barely make a living, pros certainly can't.

---

Ofc this is just the current state of the game. If it grows more or if pros streamed more regularly with face cam and microphone, maybe they could make a small living.

That's what I always suspected.

[Challenger_Marco]

@Veer_84 For ppl who are studying generally not advisable to spend time on aoe3 and grind it since it's not worth it the money you earn is very less,which is insecure.Insecure and low salary ,even if you are able to get 1k$ per month let's say ,that doesn't happen much often but been happening these months coz of EGCTV even that is hard to get because you need to spent a lot of time in it which is not worth than the job you get after stuyding which is more secure.Anything can happen in video games,so if you don't get the money for the month you are screwed.But that being said it also depends on where you are living because the currency is in USD small amount of it can be godlike in other countries like in India it's worth like 70k+ INR which is more than avg salary for fresher in India after UG graduation,but also this game doesn't get much attention as aoe2 so we don't know until when there will be tournaments with consistent prizepools ,what if game died after 5 years? (for eg). You basically wanna be a pro in a game which has high money so even when you don't earn you can still live on for 10-20 years more and go to streaming for eg to secure the income.For aoe2 it's kinda more trusty in spending time because each of community figures host their own main event /year so theres a lot of tournies and will continue on for years and players will get attention ,you can stream and earn money.

Also "Making a living " depends on person to person ,by that what you mean? there is no fixed figures in numbers so that everyone can make a living ,some ppl might want to live in a rented house ,some want to have own house etc ,again depends on currency of the country you are living in.

Only the streamers with the highest level of viewership from the most popular games can get to that level.

What level you mean? You don't need to be always xqc or Shroud ,they prolly earn millions of dollar per year ,i don't think that's a standard living for everyone ,ppl getting around 100k$+ is a good one to start with,streamers who get b/w 1k-2k viewership consistently can make a living too not earning 6 digit figures but atleast 5 ,I think i saw Nilli_aoe post a video that he's a making a living out of it, he doesn't get above 1k viewers all time maybe when casting tourney or so but he has regualar 3 digit viewership like 700 or 800 and does YT channel apart from it,totally combined which makes a living for him ,Aussie can make living too tbh ,rn everyone who streams do Youtube also.Also i watch Gorgc's stream from time to time but not subbed , he gets 10k-20k viewers all time and earn 100k$+ with twitch alone (searched on google) & with YT combined so more to it added ,obviously he doesn't handle YT ,he has editor to pay for,so basically earning is RNG if aussie is getting 500 viewers if all the 500 of them subbing that's really good ,there are tons of ppl watching stream and not subbing so you can't compare the viewership numbers wrt money all time.

[JKProwler]

Making a living off any video games in general is rare, just like any hobbies.

I wouldn't advice jumping on a game with the objective to quit your job.

If it happens then ride it....but don't pre empt it cause chances are slim.

[Dolan]

@Challenger_Marco I kinda doubt those figures a bit. I mean, I doubt streamers who have under 10k regular viewers can really make a living out of it.
A sub costs $4.99 but the streamer only receives half of this ($2.50).
In order to make a basic living in a 1st world country, you probably need to make at least 5000 bucks per month. That means you need around 66 subs per day, on average (depends, if you only stream 5 days per week, you need more, about 100 subs per day). Very few streamers can get 100 subs per stream, probably only the top ones. It's possible that streamers who live in developing countries could make a living with fewer subs, since you can get a similar level of purchasing power with less money, compared to a 1st world country. So, even with 2000 bucks per month you could live comfortably in Russia, Brazil, Poland.

Top streamers also get revenue from ads, it's like $50 per ad. This could add up to about 1500 per month. But that's only for streamers who can pull 20-30 thousand viewers, not for small fry who can barely get one thousand viewers.

All those figures that talk about millions and hundreds of thousands probably only apply to top high earners in esports, who also get big sums from prize money. But those are just a few people, like Shroud, Ninja, loltyler1, Faker, etc. There's a huge gap between these and the next tier of streamers below them, because they have a pull effect which draws most of the viewership towards their streams, when they're live. So the second tier of streamers only have a chance to get more views when the top streamers are not live.

[Jerimuno]

In order to make a basic living in a 1st world country, you probably need to make at least 5000 bucks per month.

You can't be serious

[Aussie_Drongo]

A fair bit to go through here, but I'll provide a brief response. I'm still making less than what I used to be making in my full time job. I definitely could have kept my previous job instead of giving it up while still doing content, but I was so honestly over it I just couldn't be bothered anymore, I didn't care enough about it to keep it. Obviously that left me in a difficult situation, because it meant I had to pay my bills and I had no full time job, so I sold a fair bit of my own investments to guarantee I'll be able to pay my bills for the next 12 months - that way I don't resort to thinking of creating content as a form of income and can continue to view it as a creative outlet, which IMO will allow me to be more free with creative control.

With regard to revenue sources, it can change month by month, but I can give you a rough estimate on what each thing works out to be currently:

Youtube: $2000 per month
Twitch Subs: $1200 per month
Patreon: $200 per month
Donations: $200 per month
Sponsorships: $300 per month (only paid sponsorship that I have accepted is VPN provider SurfShark, I have received dozens of offers for mobile games but can't accept them in good faith)
Casting fees: $400 per month

Keep in mind this is in AUD, and works out a lot less when compared to USD due to the differences in currency. In addition to that, Australian currency has less buying power. I pay $8.99AUD for a subscription on twitch. Convert that to USD at the rate of $1USD = $1.29AUD, and that's $6.97USD for a twitch sub.

Despite that, I am able to pay for all my outgoing expenditure currently, as most of the things I initially invested in when I was in the early stages of creating content (first 6 months) were good quality (I've spent $7,956.23 on my setup so far).

With regard to other people making a living playing AoE3, SamRev would be pulling close to what I'd be pulling in, and I know that he gets some pretty big donations on his livestreams as well which would be able to keep him afloat.

[Jerimuno]

Did not expect youtube to be this generous tbh, that's fantastic for you!

[scarm]

Not gonna lie but 5.000 bucks before taxes per month "to make a basic living" seems like a bit of an high estimate considering average and median wages iirc are waaay lower in most countries. Maybe i am having some sort of big whoopsie right now, if so mea culpa, but that number seems odd to me.

Maybe my standards for making a basic living are just different from Dolans

[Astaroth]

@Challenger_Marco I kinda doubt those figures a bit. I mean, I doubt streamers who have under 10k regular viewers can really make a living out of it.
A sub costs $4.99 but the streamer only receives half of this ($2.50).
In order to make a basic living in a 1st world country, you probably need to make at least 5000 bucks per month. That means you need around 66 subs per day, on average (depends, if you only stream 5 days per week, you need more, about 100 subs per day). Very few streamers can get 100 subs per stream, probably only the top ones. It's possible that streamers who live in developing countries could make a living with fewer subs, since you can get a similar level of purchasing power with less money, compared to a 1st world country. So, even with 2000 bucks per month you could live comfortably in Russia, Brazil, Poland.

Top streamers also get revenue from ads, it's like $50 per ad. This could add up to about 1500 per month. But that's only for streamers who can pull 20-30 thousand viewers, not for small fry who can barely get one thousand viewers.

All those figures that talk about millions and hundreds of thousands probably only apply to top high earners in esports, who get big sums from prize money. But those are just a few people, like Shroud, Ninja, loltyler1, Faker, etc. There's a huge gap between these and the next tier of streamers below them, because they have a pull effect which draws most of the viewership towards their streams, when they're live. So the second tier of streamers only have a chance to get more views when the top streamers are not live.

That's not really true though, tbh. It depends on your age, family situation, where you live, taxes etc.

If you live in say UK, France or Germany, you can "live" off about 2k euros/month (before taxes) if you don't have a family, don't really save much and live in a somewhat cheap apartment. Your taxes will be fairly low due to your low income. If you e.g. have 1500 euros/month after taxes and pay 500 euro/month for rent (smaller town/apartment), you still have 1k/month to live.

Of course this is NOT a lot of money, you won't be able to have a longterm career of this, you can't live in London or Munich (central), you won't live a great life etc. But it is still comparable to the amount of money a uni student with government or parent support has.

[Astaroth]

A fair bit to go through here, but I'll provide a brief response. I'm still making less than what I used to be making in my full time job. I definitely could have kept my previous job instead of giving it up while still doing content, but I was so honestly over it I just couldn't be bothered anymore, I didn't care enough about it to keep it. Obviously that left me in a difficult situation, because it meant I had to pay my bills and I had no full time job, so I sold a fair bit of my own investments to guarantee I'll be able to pay my bills for the next 12 months - that way I don't resort to thinking of creating content as a form of income and can continue to view it as a creative outlet, which IMO will allow me to be more free with creative control.

With regard to revenue sources, it can change month by month, but I can give you a rough estimate on what each thing works out to be currently:

Youtube: $2000 per month
Twitch Subs: $1200 per month
Patreon: $200 per month
Donations: $200 per month
Sponsorships: $300 per month (only paid sponsorship that I have accepted is VPN provider SurfShark, I have received dozens of offers for mobile games but can't accept them in good faith)
Casting fees: $400 per month

Keep in mind this is in AUD, and works out a lot less when compared to USD due to the differences in currency. In addition to that, Australian currency has less buying power. I pay $8.99AUD for a subscription on twitch. Convert that to USD at the rate of $1USD = $1.29AUD, and that's $6.97USD for a twitch sub.

Despite that, I am able to pay for all my outgoing expenditure currently, as most of the things I initially invested in when I was in the early stages of creating content (first 6 months) were good quality (I've spent $7,956.23 on my setup so far).

With regard to other people making a living playing AoE3, SamRev would be pulling close to what I'd be pulling in, and I know that he gets some pretty big donations on his livestreams as well which would be able to keep him afloat.

Wow, cool to see you being so transparent about it. Great to hear you can pay your bills for now. And considering you only started as fulltime, the income seems quite good. Really happy for you and hope you can grow even more!

[Dolan]

In order to make a basic living in a 1st world country, you probably need to make at least 5000 bucks per month.

You can't be serious

Life is very expensive in Australia and the US. Australia has the highest real estate prices in the world, if I'm not mistaken. There's a reason why the US and Australia have some of the highest wages in the world, because living expenses are also very high. For example, a friend who works in app development in a small town in Colorado pays 1200 bucks in rent only per month. If you add other bills and utilities, you probably get close to 2000 just for regular expenses. Add health insurance, car insurance, retirement plans savings, and other services, which are also very expensive in those countries and you're probably left with half of that total income for food and other basic expenses. US median income was 68k a few years ago, so it's not that surprising. And that's probably not net income, it's before taxes.

[RefluxSemantic]

Not gonna lie but 5.000 bucks before taxes per month "to make a basic living" seems like a bit of an high estimate considering average and median wages iirc are waaay lower in most countries. Maybe i am having some sort of big whoopsie right now, if so mea culpa, but that number seems odd to me.

Maybe my standards for making a basic living are just different from Dolans

5000 per month seems like an amount that you'd ultimately be aiming for with university level education. I think that personally it's an entirely reasonable goal for me for example (actually I know that a teaching job in physics would pay that kind of money, which is basically my back up plan).

5000 before taxes sounds reasonable, but if I'm not mistaken that's also 5000 before paying for pensions/insurance for when you lose your job or get sick. I don't know what the order of magnitude of these things are, but that 5000 for being self employed might not be as much as it seems. There's also stuff like 13th month and vacation bonuses.