I consume a LOT of tabletop game-related content. YouTube videos, podcasts, articles, Instagram, etc–I love hearing a variety of perspectives about games. I learn from them as a designer, they help to inform my decisions about what to play or buy, and they even increase my desire to get certain games back off my shelf and onto the table. As a publisher, their content helps to inform millions of customers we don’t reach directly.

In short, I’m very grateful for tabletop content creators, and I want them to continue to exist, thrive, and grow.

The majority of content creators do this as a hobby. With only a phone, anyone can create videos, write articles, record podcasts, and post photos without any additional or ongoing expenses. But once you start to level up to nicer equipment and make a more significant time commitment, there are costs involved. Plus, a rare few content creators have made this their job–to pay the bills, they need to make money from the content they create.

So today I’ll explore some of the ways tabletop content creators currently generate some income, broken down into a few categories.

General Advertising

• YouTube ads and Google AdSense: This is a common way to earn a little revenue from video or written content. Emphasis on “little”. After my email and YouTube channel were hacked earlier this year, I turned on YouTube ads for the first time, as I heard that might help me get faster support from YouTube if the channel was hacked again. I only activate ads at the beginning of my weekly long-form top 10 videos, and the monthly revenue has averaged slightly less than $200 per month (our YouTube channel has over 55,000 subscribers).
• Affiliate and Referral Links: I’m guessing these don’t add up to much, but perhaps they help in some cases.

Publishers

As revealed in last year’s survey, it is exceedingly rare that a publisher might pay a content creator to post a review (opinion content). However, publishers support content creators financially in other ways that also must be disclosed by the content creator:

• sponsored playthroughs, previews, rules videos: There’s a variety of non-opinion content for which publishers will pay. For example, we pay Rodney to create Watch It Played rules videos, and this year we sponsored several content creators to make playthroughs of our games (with the special contingency that we get to add the video to our channel after they post it on theirs).
• sponsored segments (e.g., Secret Cabal, Shelfside): Just yesterday I was watching Shelfside’s video about Battle of Hoth, and a few minutes into the video there’s a 45-second sponsored segment filmed by Shelfside about another game, Conquest for the Capital. It didn’t feel like a commercial or interruption; rather, it felt like a little taste of another game I might want to learn more about.
• banner ads (e.g., Board Game Quest): If the content creator has a website, they can sell banner ads to crowdfunders and publishers. As a reader, I don’t mind these at all–there are so many games released and crowdfunded that I’d rather see an ad about them than potentially miss a great game.
• mention at the beginning of the video (“this channel is sponsored by”): I’m glad that some publishers pay for these mentions, though I doubt their effectiveness as compared to a sponsored segment about a specific product.
• visible product placement (tables, games in the background, etc): Repetition is a powerful tool–if I keep seeing a certain game, accessory, or table, I might try to learn more about it even if the content creator doesn’t overtly mention it.
• paid services via proof of talent: Some content creators use their platform as a showcase for skills that publishers are happy to pay for (photography, film, editing, graphic design). For example, we’ve worked with Tim Chuon as a photographer for many of our games.

For all of these, the more data the content creator can provide to the publisher, the more likely they are to consider a sponsorship or paid ad. We need to be able to calculate the return on investment for our expenses.

Followers

Content creators also receive financial support directly from the audiences they serve. Here are some options:

• Patreon
• annual crowdfunding campaigns (e.g., The Dice Tower)
• channel members (e.g., Before You Play)
• merchandise (here are some tips about making t-shirts people will love to wear)
• Twitch tips and subscriptions (e.g., Banzainator)
• Kofi for specific expenses (e.g., Tabletop Games Blog)

There are also bespoke options like the Stonemaier Champion program, which started years ago to provide a way for people to support the hundreds of entrepreneurship articles and game design videos we post every year. It’s $15/year, and as a special perk, Champions save 20% on every Stonemaier webstore order.

I’d love to hear from content creators, publishers, and consumers about the above methods and anything I missed that can help the tabletop game community keep and grow such a wide variety of gaming content!