Is it possible to make a living playing Aoe3?

[scarm]

Well depending on your countries tax code 600 per month is likely not gonna be taxed, esp. if you are a student or sth. similar, because you can then subtract your expenses for stuff that is related to your education from the income you have to tax. But yeah 600 seems to be like the very bare minimum, but i think you can make do with that in some circumstances, depends a lot on local rents in that range.

[RefluxSemantic]

You cant live off of 600 in many countries. Rent + food is just a small part of living expenses. You need new clothes, probably a phone, have the ability to pay for medical expenses, buy a new fridge when yours breaks, or a new washing machine, a new bike when it breaks (or pay for public transit) etc. And dont think about owning a car, having children or having an actual appartment.

[Riotcoke]

How can you live with 600 bucks per month in France or Germany?
Housing is at least 300-400 per month, even outside big cities, and then you have food (10 bucks a day ie 300 per month unless pasta is the only thing you eat), and that's without tax, electricity, buying other stuffs etc.
There is a reason why 1200-1500€ bruto is the minimum wage in some European countries.

£600 isn't 600 bucks, it's roughly 850. My rent is £450 + utilities, so around £500. I buy food with my housemates so it's roughly £100 for a month because we're splitting. Like I wouldn't have any money for fun stuff, but I could 100 percent live off £600/mo.

[harcha]

this circles back again to some main points:
- what standard of living you wish to maintain (what kind of residence (think soviet block in terrible shape vs new), hobbies, quality of food, daily expenses like transport, what family support you give or receive, etc)
- which country and location you live in (big city vs village, house vs apartment, shared living or alone)

[RefluxSemantic]

In NL you can make a living playing aoe3. You can just live off of welfare.

[Kaiserklein]

I know I need roughly 300€ a month to live, plus the rent. Call it 400€ a month with alcohol and stuff, which you don't "need". I think people just spend money in useless shit.

[harcha]

in theory i could live off 150e monthly if i moved to my grandmothers and helped with some gardening... currently i need about 900-1000e neto to maintain my lifestyle.
and the only benefits i could get is unemployment which lasts only 8 months after termination. after that you're SOL in latvia

[gibson]

I could live off of probably 1000 usd a month

[thomasgreen6]

How can you live with 600 bucks per month in France or Germany?
Housing is at least 300-400 per month, even outside big cities, and then you have food (10 bucks a day ie 300 per month unless pasta is the only thing you eat), and that's without tax, electricity, buying other stuffs etc.
There is a reason why 1200-1500€ bruto is the minimum wage in some European countries.

£600 isn't 600 bucks, it's roughly 850. My rent is £450 + utilities, so around £500. I buy food with my housemates so it's roughly £100 for a month because we're splitting. Like I wouldn't have any money for fun stuff, but I could 100 percent live off £600/mo.

Depends what you define as 'living' though

[Cleters]

Seems some of you guys mistake personal and business taxes.

Idk how it is in Australia, but in France and most of Europe if you want to live from your own work, you need to open a business, there's different type with different taxations. From 10-12% overall to 30%+ of the benef.

So if you open that business here in France, and makes 2500€ out of twitch/youtube a month, the state will take you between 300 to 1000+ (if you choose the wrong way for a small business). That's business taxes.

The rest is yours. But if you make 2500 and the state only tax 300 for business, then you will still have to pay personnal taxes after that.

Idk, overall for a minimum I think in France someone should at minima make 1500-1800 a month without counting what you need to buy to work.

[Mr_Bramboy]

Cleters is right. However in NL (and most of Europe, including France) a business can either be an extension of the natural person or a legal person of its own, impacting taxes. Generally speaking, in The Netherlands you are only better off choosing a legal entity with 'business taxes' if your gross revenue exceeds 100k. If you earn less in a year, you're better off choosing an entity that is an extension of a natural person that pays income taxes.

[comradecommissar]

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.

Just looked it up and that works out to just a little above the median income in Australia. Only up from here my friend. Keep up the good work!

[Jaeger]

Maybe it's just me but I can't stand Drongo's casting. Talks way too fast and says obvious stuff just to say stuff

[Mr_Bramboy]

That's because you're good at the game. Drongo's casting style brings in a portion of the viewer base that is not ESOC's core target audience. I do enjoy Aussie's casting myself.

[Jaeger]

Interesting take; I'm just a captain but maybe it is more interesting for PR20-. The talking too fast is still a big turnoff for me though.

[harcha]

I had the same exact complaints when i first heard riot cast but i got used to it and now i don't mind him. Still castete has the best voice/accent.

[jesus3]

How can you live with 600 bucks per month in France or Germany?
Housing is at least 300-400 per month, even outside big cities, and then you have food (10 bucks a day ie 300 per month unless pasta is the only thing you eat), and that's without tax, electricity, buying other stuffs etc.
There is a reason why 1200-1500€ bruto is the minimum wage in some European countries.

Well, I am living in Germany on roughly 500€ right now while looking for a job, in a 230k inhabitants city in the East. Paying 200€ for rent everything included in a shared flat. Social security stuff amounts to roughly 150€, and I probably spend like 100€ for food a month if I'm careless. Cooking freshly myself everyday, so costs stay low there. Commuting mostly by bicycle.

Also BTT: Glad it works out for you, @Aussie_Drongo ! Youtube seems to amount to more than we initially thought

[I_HaRRiiSoN_I]

not directly related to casting, but in some sense some of the ideas can be used while casting. In Jazz Thelonious Monk wrote a legendry sheet of 25 tips for his players to follow as a guide, or at least made them rethink how they approached the music while playing with Thelonious. If its not of use, well its just interesting regardless



My favourite quotes:
- Stop playing all that bulls***, those weird notes, play the melody!
- Don’t play the piano part, I am playing that. Don’t listen to me, I am supposed to be accompanying you!
- Don’t play everything (or everytime); let some things go by. Some music just imagined.
- What you don’t play can be more important than what you do play. (same thing .... kinda)
- A note can be small as a pin or as big as the world, it depends on your imagination.
- When you are swinging, swing some more!

[FrancoPadini]

Tomorrow is the day you become disspointed, you won't make 200 usd a month streaming. You start as a hobby and if it becomes more than that that's great, if not nothings lost.

I was half joking, half talking for real. But anyway, what I meant is not that I want to make a living streaming this, but that it´s worth my time spending 2-3 hours per day. I´m 22, working 48+ hs a week as manager, I cannot afford to invest time in something that will mean a loss long term.

And yes, any country which has a undervalued currency in relation to the USD and a lower average living cost is an excellent place for internet businesses (programming, streaming, call center, etc). The downside is that equipment is a lot more expensive because of importing taxes.

[Scylla-x]

You definitely can make a living, the advantage of working from home is you can live anywhere so moving to a smaller city makes a ton of sense, if you have a highly skilled professional job then most of those jobs are in large high cost of living cities.

I edit for my wife's youtube channel, she does all her filming on a $300 smart phone, just daily vlogs. She has more views than drongos channel, however earns significantly less. When it comes to youtube you are paid per 1000 views a certain amount depending on where the views come from, so for example 1000 views from peru is like $0.70, whilst 1000 from USA is $7+.

If you live in south america or asia, somewhere where cost of living is way lower, then you can quite easily make enough to live off but if you can speak english then making your channel all english content will earn you significantly more money than it being in spanish or another language.

Would be great to see more AOE3 content creators.

[Thrar]

I think there is an important distinction to keep in mind: Currently it doesn't appear to be possible to make a living playing AoE3, but as Drongo proves it is possible to do it creating content for the game.

Drongo plays, sure, but he also puts in significant effort into creating interesting content such as analyses, tier lists, strategy guides, casts, and so on. That takes not just the time you see on the video, but also planning, research, editing, overlay and thumbnail creation, occasionally multiple takes, and so on. There is work going on, it's not just sitting down to play and making money in the process.

[n0el]

I think there is an important distinction to keep in mind: Currently it doesn't appear to be possible to make a living playing AoE3, but as Drongo proves it is possible to do it creating content for the game.

Drongo plays, sure, but he also puts in significant effort into creating interesting content such as analyses, tier lists, strategy guides, casts, and so on. That takes not just the time you see on the video, but also planning, research, editing, overlay and thumbnail creation, occasionally multiple takes, and so on. There is work going on, it's not just sitting down to play and making money in the process.

I think that is true in most games. Viper was given as an example and yes he is a great player, but he makes the vast majority of his income from content creation and not winnings.

[I_HaRRiiSoN_I]

I went to the shop and thought how many beers could that $200 buy me :'( had to settle for just 6 bottles and a bag of crisps

(dont worry i only managed to drink 5 660ml bottles )

[Le Hussard sur le toit]

I think there is an important distinction to keep in mind: Currently it doesn't appear to be possible to make a living playing AoE3, but as Drongo proves it is possible to do it creating content for the game.

This is in fact true even for games like chess. The top 20 or maybe top 30 players live out of what they gain in tournaments (and sponsorship deals), but most players make a living by giving lessons, writing books, and creating content generally.