Now gamers can make money the same way as that Korean woman who gets paid to eat noodles

Remember that woman in South Korea a few years ago who started making thousands of bucks from people paying to watch her eat via a live video stream?

Om nom nom! Image credit: Kotaku.

Now, for the first time, gamers can do the same thing, allowing them to rake in money from fans and viewers alike who’ll gift them virtual items that can be turned into real cash.

“The top streamers on Kamcord – they now make a few hundred dollars per day,” says Aditya Rathnam, co-founder of mobile game live streaming site Kamcord, which earlier this week introduced a system to allow people to give gifts to video creators. They can make that much money from just a couple of hours of showing off their gaming skills and interacting with the audience. Viewers can see the screen of the phone the expert gamer is playing on – and in some cases, the broadcaster simultaneously turns on their phone’s front camera.

At the last count, she was earning about US$10,000 a month.

Aditya reckons that these gaming stars will pull in an average of US$5,000 per year on his site. For some, they’ll be able to quit their jobs on the basis of what they earn from live streaming.

A lucky few gamers will make as much as that Korean woman who so many people love to watch eating. At the last count, she was earning about US$10,000 a month – and that’s not including the sponsorships and endorsements that come with being an online celeb.

The era of Youtube stars

With this new feature, the US-based startup is making a big move to create viral megastars in the gaming space – and giving top gamers a reason to move over from YouTube, where they can only make money from ads. Although that’s worked out well for PewDiePie.

The top gamer on Kamcord is Galadon, who has just over 127,000 followers. He mostly plays Clash of Clans. One recent video by Galadon has had 15,000 views accompanied by 9.966 comments, most of which were posted as he was streaming live. Most comments are a single word. Nice. Hi. Sweet. Awesome. So. Heyy. Duck.

He’s one of nearly 200 gamers that Aditya’s startup has permitted to receive income from virtual gifts.

Viewers have a choice of gift items. The cheapest is 40 cents. The priciest is what Aditya calls a “mega star” that fills the screen. That will cost a devoted fan US$80 to send. All gifts are sent via in-app purchases on the Android or iPhone app.

Say hello to Gen S

“The primary demographic of our viewers is what some pundits are calling the Gen S demographic,” says Aditya. That stands for Generation Screen. “It’s basically middle schoolers and high schoolers. These are people who have grown up in a world where screens are used for everything, from entertainment to communication to shopping.”

Learning from Asian web culture