Many gamers' dream is to make real money, by doing what he/she most love. The computer games industry generates billions of dollars, so it surely have enough resources to reward even the simplest players. In reality it will be easier and more profitable to work as carrier in the local store, than as gamer.
But for true gamers, those that play anyway, and fearless explorers, there are some known ways to make real money.
Work for a game company.
Working for a game company looks cool. But it is very difficult and stressful. The designer need a lot of skills, knowledge and experience with games. The programmer need a lot of practice and knowledge in coding. And the tester need a lot of observation and writing skills. To achieve any of this, a game company must be found first. This need a lot of social and promotion skills, that most gamers just do not have.
Write for a game company.
Good gamers, with a lot of experience, can write articles for game companies and their games. Again a lot of writing skills are needed. And again to achieve any of this, a game company must be found first and need a lot of social and promotion skills.
Write books and stories about games.
This is something I was thinking lately. It will need a lot of other skills than gaming. Beside, this may violate some copyrights, but there are a lot of dos games with good content to add about.
Exchange in game currencies for real money.
This way is possible, but still mostly illegal. It is hard to find honest resellers and very likely to be banned. Yet there are gamers or more likely group of gamers, that can sell their gold in World of Warcraft through third party sites.
Games with real money auction houses. RMAH.
Imagine you play a MMORPG game and find a good rare item. And you decide instead of using it to sell it for real money to other player that need it and is willing to pay. You post it in the auction house and wait to see if there is interest. Well yes, it is too good to be true. Blizzard tried it with the first Diablo 3 release in 2012, and it failed. And it failed because of philosophical reasons and not that it wasn't working. Blizzard didn't wanted people to hang the whole day in the auction checking their sells, but they wanted them to play. To click and clash and crush mobs and enemies.
Games with real money economy.
There are MMO(massive multiplayer online) games that offer to exchange in game currencies for real money. These games rely on people who spend money in the game to make the economy working. They do make money, but the amount is very small. It is something like that: "You can't make money by playing, but you can make some money while playing." One of these games is Entropia Universe
Games to create virtual objects and sell them for real money.
These are strongly social games. The idea is to have a virtual brand, create virtual clothes for example and sell them to other players in the virtual world that needs them. Doing this is not easier than doing it in the real world. But you can always try such games, they are mostly free. Second Life and IMVU.
Games to create content and sell it for real money.
This is the newest idea for making money by casual gamers. Sony have undertaken it with their famous title Ever Quest with separate application called Ever Quest Next Landmark. They claim the they will give the player the tools to create quest locations with monsters and buildings and, the creators then to sell this locations to other players for real money. The game is scheduled for around 2016, so we wall wait to see what will happen.
Free browser games with real money withdrawal.
There are a lot of freemium online games with real money withdrawal. They are cool to play, but again will need other players to invest money, so that economy can exists.. some of them worth trying are My Lands, Golden Towns, Goal tycoon and Market Glory.
