Nestle Employee Doubles Salary By Playing Video Games at Night

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

About 80 days ago, in episode 571, I brought you a story called "Living the Dream, "Man Gets Paid to Play Video Games All Day." Well, you can consider today's episode the sequel. It's a different guy who also gets played to play video games. He doesn't do it all day. He does it in the evening after his day job. And when I first saw the notes for this story, just my first impression, I said to Whitney, our wonderful content manager, I said, "You know, it sounds good, "but it also sounds a lot like that other one." And she noted that today's "Living the Dream" guy is first of all, using a different platform.

He's on Facebook gaming, which is something we've never talked about before. And he's also much more successful than the other guy. I mean, the other guy was pretty cool too. He gets paid to play video games, but this guy has doubled his day job income, doubled his day job income while streaming his game playing at night. So when I heard that, I thought, well, that sounds pretty good to me, but to make sure we're really providing value, we're gonna throw in three action steps you can take if you too would like to get paid to play video games.

Now, I know it almost sounds like an infomercial, get paid to play video games. If I could go back in time 150 years ago to 20-year-old Chris, this would be my fantasy. Like if I heard this story, I'd be like, this is what I'm doing for the rest of my life, or at least for right now. But of course, this is "Side Hustle School." My name is Chris Guillebeau, your host, and every story you hear is true. We always break down the details so you understand how this person has been able to make money in a creative way.

So stay tuned. Nestle employee double salary by playing video games at night is coming right up. [Music]

Growing up, you could say that Doug Vini was a bit of a troublemaker. When school became too easy for him, he'd shift his focus to trying to make other kids laugh and finding different ways to act out. Most of it was harmless, but at least once, it almost landed him in juvenile detention.

He says now that he was dealing with a lot of anger and frustration, and he was afraid to talk to anyone. Playing sports made a difference, but something else helped even more, playing video games. He was always thumbing through the gaming magazines at the grocery store to find the latest news and reviews, and then hopping on gaming websites after school. Each night, basking in the warm glow of his monitor, Doug had an opportunity to escape the day-to-day, to fight his way out of the Black Mesa or destroy the Horde. It helped him to work out the pin-up anger and frustrations that caused him to act out in school, and it came with a bonus that helped him level up in a different way.

Through gaming, he says he learned a lot about people, and he learned a lot about himself. This love of the game continued through high school. When he was 17, he realized that perhaps it could be more than just a hobby. When he started writing game reviews on a website as part of a senior project, several gaming companies offered to fly him out to their studios for early access to their games. It was a great way for him to do what he loved while bringing in a little side income, so he ended up continuing it even after landing a job as an influencer marketing manager at Nestle.

When gaming on YouTube started to take off, Doug spotted a new opportunity. Being part of the community, he took note on what top gaming creators in the industry were doing, and he was impressed. The best ones weren't just playing the games for other people to watch, they actually engaged with their viewers, and they were funny and entertaining. In a way, what they were doing was a lot like sports commentating, which he was also a fan of. He figured that content creation via video could give him a chance to pay homage to some of the best commentators while simultaneously creating his own path.

Plus, it didn't hurt that he'd been fine-tuning his sarcastic banter since grade school. He had a feeling it would translate well to video, so he decided to jump on the YouTube gaming train. Startup costs for this hustle were either $850 or $0, depending on how you look at it. A gamer is only as good as his gear, so he built himself a customized PC with a solid video card. There's nothing worse than lagging in the middle of a skirmish with thousands of people watching, and he would've wanted a good computer for gaming anyway, but now he could deduct the purchase as part of business expenses.

He soon started streaming under the gaming handle Good Game Bro. In the beginning, he played sports games, Major League Baseball, John Madden Football, and FIFA Soccer. But he would also throw in some first-person shooters, like Titanfall, Assassin's Creed, and Overwatch. And in following the model he'd observed, he didn't just play the games, he had online conversations with anyone who wanted to watch his channel. He focused on being friendly, approachable, and positive.

Since he had a full-time job, Doug found opportunities to work on Good Game Bro whenever he wasn't spending time at work or with his family. He tried to capture pockets of time wherever he could. When he was walking from his car in the parking lot to work at his office, he would scroll through comments on his phone, post to social media, or check his video metrics to see what was performing the best. The first year he did this, in 2015 he accumulated 10,000 subscribers. By 2016, that number had more than doubled to 25,000, and now that YouTube community is over 120,000 subscribers.

But then he made a change, and it gets better. In January of this year, Doug was accepted into Facebook's gaming program as a partnered creator. Facebook is trying to compete with YouTube in this market, and they're devoting a lot of resources to it. In that short amount of time, Doug racked up close to 90,000 new followers due to the popularity and support of the platform. The community is tightly connected, and despite the large number of people, it still feels very one-on-one.

So how does it work? Well, Doug stays busy. He manages to get in quality family time after he works the day job. He picks up his daughter from daycare, and has dinner with the family, but then he sits down at his workstation. He's usually streaming online by 8 p.m. Eastern time,

and for the next three to four hours, he's playing games for an audience of thousands and conversing with his audience the whole time. In fact, Doug says the gameplay and the banter matter, but it's his methods of connecting with the audience that have been key to creating such a strong community. He's constantly asking viewers how they're doing. He asks them to tell them something positive that happened in their day, or he tells them a story from his past that not only entertains them, but gives them a deeper look into who he is as a person. To him, it's important that they feel a level of connection to him, and also that they can just relax and not worry about anything stressful that may be going on in their day-to-day life.

After all, that's why he got started in gaming in the first place, as an escape. What does being a gaming streamer like this pay for someone like Doug? Well, listen up, it's allowed him to more than double his salary from Nestle thanks to what he brings in from sponsors and the support of the community, which can make direct donations through that Facebook gaming platform. It's also allowed him to completely pay off the student loans that both he and his wife accumulated. At this point, Doug says he could leave his full-time job at Nestle to be a full-time gamer, have it as a sole source of income, but he still enjoys what he does in his first career.

At least for now, he's happy to balance that day job, his family, and what he calls his bonus life online, where he gets paid a lot of money to play video games. [Music]

All right, congratulations to Doug. What a fun, awesome story. I really love what he's doing. I actually saw a cool video of him talking about this.

We're gonna link it up in the show notes page. It just kind of gives you a behind the scenes and a visual of how this whole thing works. And I mentioned that we would give you three tips from him, some advice for new gamers who want to do this. I actually realized that I've got four tips here. So, you know, under promise, over deliver.

And here we go. Number one, a lot of creators expect to just sit down, play a game, and watch the audience pour in. Well, naturally, there is more to it. Doug is extremely sarcastic in his streams. He makes lots of jokes.

He's not completely serious like I am all the time. And he couples that with asking his audience lots of questions that ultimately let them get to know him more. So it's a combination of humor and connection that have worked the best. Now, number two, to piggyback on that, take the time to get to know your audience and let them know what makes you different. Our most precious asset is time.

Once you spend it, you can't get it back. So give people a reason to invest their time with you. Number three, focus on being consistent in whatever content you like to make. Creators often go for the bigger or crazier approach, like doing a 24-hour stream. And that just leads to burnout and fatigue.

So make sure you enjoy what you're doing because your audience can tell when you don't. Last but not least, finally, watch your own videos and give yourself some objective criticism. Doug says, if you aren't willing to watch your own content, why should someone else bother with it? So a little bit of tough love advice there, but I think it's very practical. Anybody who wants to do something like that should pay attention.

And also check out what he's doing, because obviously, it is working. It's not a get-rich-quick plan, but if I were 20 years younger, or let's say when I was 20 years younger and playing games all the time, I would have loved this. So if you have the right spirit and determination, maybe you should check it out. And if not, let this serve as inspiration and a reminder of one of the Side Hustle School principles, which is that there are all kinds of ways to make money. It's a whole new world out there, and there is something waiting for you.

Thank you so much for listening today. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. If you want to see those show notes with some links to what Doug is doing and this whole little world of video game streaming for money, just go to sidehustleschool.com/654. That is episode 654. I'll be back with you again tomorrow for another conversation, another story, and perhaps something you might learn.

My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School."