How to make money playing Call of Duty
Whichever COD you play, these are the ways you can make money
1. Play in amateur tournaments
Whether you enjoy playing 1v1 Search and Destroy, or in a Control team tactical effort, you can join an online or LAN tournament for some explosive action and the chance to make money playing COD.
Competing in these events could also be your road to the the big league. The CWL (Call of Duty World League) invests in initiatives aimed at rewarding dedicated amateur players.
The Challenge Division offers players outside of the Pro Division a way into the Call of Duty Championship. If you get through you could get a taste of up to $50K in prize money. Plus you will have the possibility to play with the best pro shooters from all over the world.
MLG Gamebattles and Call of Duty’s own homepage are the places to go if you want to get involved in these competitions.
2. Sell your COD account
Considered cheating by players and the game developers alike, there are a number of websites out there that work as an intermediaries between buyers and sellers. If you get caught your account will be banned so this is definitely not recommended!
3. Make money on COD betting
Betting on Call of Duty is hardly new but as with any other esport is it growing rapidly. Whether it’s betting between friends or on pro tournaments if you get it right you could earn real money.
You can usually place bets on the biggest COD tournaments at major sportsbooks. Check out Esportbetting for more info.
4. Stream live on Twitch or YouTube
Whether you want to make money streaming or by uploading content to YouTube, these are the tools to do it playing Call of Duty.
1. Make money playing COD with cost-free donations
Start earning cost-free donations from your audience with Rechaaarge. It’s a fantastic way to interact with your viewers who otherwise can’t support you financially.
To activate your profile with Rechaaarge all you need to do is connect your YouTube or Twitch account. Then just let everyone know you have cost-free donations turned on!
You’ll also get your own dashboard, where you can set up goals, earn badges, see your top donors, and even give some of your earnings to charity.
2. Use a paid donations tool
Cheering / Bits is Twitch’s own currency that can be bought through Amazon and donated to streamers. In order to qualify you need to be a Twitch Affiliate or Partner.
YouTube has its own donation feature called SuperChat. It allows the paying viewer to pin a comment in your live stream to get better noticed.
Streamlabs OBS, Streamelements and Muxy (Twitch users only) are all free broadcasting and stream management tools. Equipped with live alerts, a dashboard full of stats and intuitive features they’re all good options for streamers to setup donations through their stream.
3. Subscriptions and/or channel memberships
Allowing for monthly channel memberships or subscriptions is another way of monetizing your stream.
Both YouTube and Twitch have similar features within their platforms. However, to be eligible you need to be a Partner or Affiliate.
If you don’t meet the two streaming giants’ requirements then a popular choice for content creators is Patreon. Patreon offers pretty much the same service and takes far less of your revenue. .
Remember that in order to keep your subscribers happy you must give them access to exclusive content!
4. Advertise on your live stream or uploaded videos
These days if you have a stream or VoD channel you can make money by showing ads. This is old news but still an important revenue source.
Both Twitch and YouTube let you run ads on your videos or live streams through their services. Naturally, they take a share of the revenue. Twitch takes exactly half and YouTube takes 45%.
5. Use affiliate marketing to make money playing COD
Another way to make money playing Call of Duty is to include affiliate marketing in your strategy. Affiliate marketing is as simple as adding affiliate links to your channel.The best products to promote are the ones which you are already using on a daily basis. If you have products you use regularly on your stream set up links to stores that sell them. When one of your viewers clicks on your link and completes a sale on the affiliate site, you get commission. Easy right?
There are loads of affiliate programs available to gamers. Amazon Associates, Gearbest and Zavvi are just the tip of the iceberg.
6. Merchandise your brand
People love stuff! Once you have a big enough following you can create your own personal brand. Whether you want this to include a COD flavor is up to you. By selling branded merchandise you not only make more money from your viewers, you also enhance your brand.
Streamlabs Merch, Teespring and Merch by Amazon are some of the options out there that will manage the process for you.
If you do decide to use COD elements just make sure you are careful of copyright infringement.
7. Get brand sponsorship
If you’re able to sell your own merchandise then it should be pretty easy for you to find brands that want to pay you to promote their products.
In some cases brands will reach out to you to get started, but if not you can also get on the books of an agency that connects creators and brands.
YouTube purchased one such agency, FameBit to help facilitate this process for their uses. And though Twitch currently doesn’t own an agency, it has the Bounty Board Program which allows creators to get in touch with brands directly through their dashboard.
5. Boost other players accounts
Like selling your account, boosting is considered cheating. However it is nonetheless fairly popular on the internet. Boosters are paid by less skilled players to go into their account and improve their stats.
This is not recommended, but you can make money playing COD this way.
6. Become a Coach
If you’re a great shooter and you enjoy dispensing your wisdom you can become a COD coach! Coaching just like playing the game, except now you’re teaching someone else how to do it!
Check out Bidvine and GamerSensei if you’re interested to learn more about this way to make money playing COD.
7. eSports
This year brings us the fourth annual Call of Duty World League (CWL). With a prize pool of $6M, 2019 will be the biggest in COD eSport history.
1. Win cash prizes as a pro-gamer
This season is expected to be very exciting. In all of Call of Duty competitive history there was never a Pro League season so in-sync with the amateur circuit.
The tournament is sponsored by Playstation with teams competing on PlayStation 4. The game will be the latest addition to the COD franchise — Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.
With the move towards multi-player it is interesting to note that pro gamers are going against the traditional trend and are mainly using the specialist, Recon, in pro tournaments.
2. Get esports sponsorship
As you can expect, to get paid playing Call of Duty professionally you have to be good! If you are good, then you can likely make money through sponsorship.
Brand sponsorship
The reach eSports have now is greater than ever. In order to reach this audience, brands are keen to find players to promote their products and content in exchange for financing.
Team sponsorship
Though a recent development, the number of professional esport teams or franchise organizations is growing. These teams are backed by investors and behave like traditional sports teams. They buy and sell players to compete in the best tournaments and leagues. Once under contract you will probably get a salary. The average team salary for esports is currently around $60K per year.
Final word
If you are looking for a game to make money playing and you prefer to play solo, Call of Duty could be the one for you. As a game it has options for both casual players and pro players to make money. And absolutely, if you can go pro it is a very lucrative game!
Originally published at blog.rechaaarge.com on February 11, 2019.
