No Gimmicks! (Get Paid to Play Video Games)

Gaming has become such a lucrative market. Many online games even require a monthly subscription and allow game makers to continually profit on their games. Very popular games even market to their players both in and out of game to make even more money. It's unfortunate that all of this money goes to the game makers and without you, the player, this would be impossible. It's simply not fair and I believe a change is due. But how do you as a player make money from the games you play when many games will ban you for various ways of making money?

Gaming has become so popular that in some countries it's considered a sport. People love gaming, from computers to consoles and even now smart phones. People play for competition, they also play to relax and unwind and now they can even get paid. People have known about beta testing video games for a long time, there is nothing new there. But what about getting paid to do tasks in game, as in: game tasks. Think of it like they're errands you would do for a friend in the real world, but instead in the virtual world, and for a few dollars.

Think about it, people pay for services in the real world all the time. Iron my clothes, wash my car, mow my grass. We constantly out source things we don't want to do. This same ideology can be witnessed in video games. People don't want to spend vast amounts of time so they buy and sell in-game currency. Unfortunately this is against the terms of service of most games and will get you banned. However, you can still make money by doing things that won't get you banned.

New players need help with all sorts of things. They'd like to be run through instances, taught how to PVE and PVP and they'd love to read your guides. You are only limited by your creativity. Imagine you're a new player and you don't have a lot of time, what would you pay for? They're just like every other consumer with needs, so let's appease them.

Now there are websites that allow you to offer a service, such as running players through an instance and so on. What you do is up to you, be creative, but most importantly, get paid to play video games! The process is simple: someone purchases your service and the money goes to the website for holding until the service is complete and then the website dispenses the money to you. Registration is free and you don't need to supply personal information so it's really a no-risk situation for you.

Finally I Have Found My Way To Flight Simulator Bliss

How do you know when you have picked a GOOD flight simulator? Finding a good simulator is becoming harder and harder as a large number of flight simulator games have hit the market in recent years. I remember when flight simulation began and ended with Microsoft Flight Simulator '95. Today, Microsoft is still a BIG name in the flight simulator game despite their last release being a few years ago with FSX. What keeps these giants in the market are simply third-party software releases which enhance your experience in various ways. I have previously installed gigabyte after gigabyte of extra scenery, extra aircraft and various small additions to aircraft and airport realism. My main gripe with this has always been - to run this properly I'd need to spend literally thousands upgrading my computer. YouTube is a classic example of this, a brief search will yield some amazing videos of almost lifelike graphics and ultra smooth visuals; however, the hardware setup to achieve such graphics is simply out of most people's budgets.

There are a number of factors to look for in a good flight simulator:

Realistic flight model

Realistic scenery

Something that is able to be run on your home computer

Challenging - flying is always challenging so why should flight simulation be any different?

Getting a simulator with a realistic flight model is a HUGE must for most flight sim enthusiasts, the best flight simulator to date which achieves this (for me anyway) is Professional Flight Simulator. NASA flight dynamics are hard to beat and they are replicated in spades with this flight simulator, now don't get me wrong, I have purchased quite a few excellent aircraft add-ons for FSX which have a fantastic flight model, but until now have never had the pleasure of it being built into the simulator.

Realistic scenery, this is a huge bone of contention amongst many within the simulation community. How much are you willing to sacrifice for pretty visuals outside the cockpit? The sacrifice you make or at least that I have made to date is frame rates. There are some FANTASTIC additions to scenery available now and the developers have done an absolutely magic job of creating these. However, again I find myself stuck with ridiculously low frame rates, so what's the point? There is a school of thought out there that scenery really doesn't matter, as long as the aircraft behaves like the real aircraft would then graphics are just a waste of time. To some extent I agree with this, however, I can't help but be a wee bit jealous of those people who have spent thousands on a simulator setup that runs these visuals perfectly.

So this leads perfectly into finding something that runs well on your home computer, and no I don't mean something that runs on a computer that cost 6000 dollars to build. Something that runs on my machine and your machine yet gives us that elusive realism that we keep looking to achieve. Pro Flight Simulator does that thankfully, I've found that as flight sims develop the requirements for a high-end PC progressively gets stronger. Something new has happened lately, developers of ALL games have realised that to reach the full potential of their target markets, they need to create something that will run well on EVERYONE'S computer. So there is a lot more work going into simulators that whilst still look GOOD, will run on your average PC.

So let's say we have achieved all of the above, we have a flight sim that runs well with our computer hardware, and looks fantastic when we manage to drag ourselves away from those instrument panels. The last thing I want is to be challenged! Challenge in a flight simulator is the ONE thing that keeps us flying. The challenge of that ILS approach, or crosswind landing, or setting up a flight plan that WORKS from start to finish. There is an immense sense of satisfaction for me when I achieve the above, a perfectly planned flight that results in a (landing I can walk away from) and a 737 full of content passengers. After fifteen years of struggling to achieve all of the above, I think I'm finally there, I genuinely hope that you are as well.

Happy Landings!