Games That Actually Make You Money

Do you want to make money by playing games on your phone?

That sounds like it would be too good to be true, but there are actually a lot of apps out there that let you do it! In this post, we will be showing you the best apps that pay you to play games.

I actually make money by playing games online. There are several websites that actually pay you to play games for free. In case you are unaware, some websites not only pay you to play games for free, they also give away cash and other prizes for participating in online competitions. Top 5 Online Money Making Ideas.

What’s the Catch?

Before you download any of these apps, you might be wondering a company would ever do anything like this or what the catch might be. I mean, why would any company pay you to play free games on your phone?

There are three common reasons that you would get paid to play games.

1. First, companies pay money for people to use their apps to boost their player base and appear more popular on an app store. Because there are millions of apps out there, they need help from people like you to get higher rankings.
2. The second reason is that free apps often want people to play so they can get “hooked” on a game and buy in-app currency. They’re hoping that the few cents you earn from downloading the app will go directly back into their pocket. Obviously, the best way to avoid this happening is to ignore any purchase opportunities!
3. The final reason — and in my opinion, the sketchiest reason — is gambling. Some gambling apps will give you free tickets to play to win money. Then they’ll give you some “great deal” where you pay money on more tickets to gamble. The best approach to these apps is to accept the free tickets but never pay for anything they offer you.

Now, with that out of the way, here are the apps!

Earn Money by Playing Games on Android

Let’s start with apps that pay you to play game son Android.

1. Verydice

Games That Can Make You Real Money

• Available on: iOS and Google Play

The premise is simple enough: you roll the virtual dice, win tickets based on what you roll, then redeem your tickets for prizes! You have a limited number of rolls per day, and they make their money by selling additional dice rolls.

2. InboxDollars

• Available on: iOS and Google Play

In addition to being a paid survey site, Inboxdollars has a whole section of games that you can play and get paid for! Basically, companies pay InboxDollars to find people to play their games, and the site passes a little of that money on to you.

Read our detailed review of InboxDollars for details and other ways to earn, plus a few tips on how to make the most money with InboxDollars.

3. Coin Pop

• Available on: Google Play

Coin Pop is a free app that rewards you in coins for every second you play games from their list. You can exchange the coins for gift cards or cash prizes.

Games That Can Make You Rich

4. CashPirate

• Available on: Google Play

This app offers a variety of ways to make money by downloading new apps, completing surveys watching videos and, yes, playing games.

5. Fitplay

• Available on: Google Play

Offering an experience with no deposits or in-app purchases, Fitplay is just here to reward you for trying new games. Just choose one off their list and start earning rewards.

6. AppStation

• Available on: Google Play

AppStation offers a variety of genres to choose from and get paid to play, like casual, action, strategy, puzzle or arcade. The games are all free to play, and your rewards are given by the amount of time you spend playing.

7. Lucky Miner

• Available on: Google Play

Featuring a cute user interface and a wide range of rewards, up to and beyond a $50 PayPal cash payout, Lucky Miner pays you by the minute to try new games.

8. Cash Alarm

• Available on: Google Play

Cash Alarm offers to give you your first gift card a few hours after you start playing one of their games, which is a big plus. You and your friends can also get bonuses for referring them to the app.

9. Golden Farmery

• Available on: Google Play

With new apps on offer every day, Golden Farmery will pay by the minute for you to play a variety of mobile games across all genres. Win rewards and cash out the next day.

10. Mistplay

• Available on: Google Play

Bored with your current game library? Mistplay offers mobile users recommendations for new games and even rewards you for playing them! The app also has a chat function to stay in touch with other players!

11. Cashout Rewards

• Available on: Google Play

This app lets you earn points by:

• Installing free apps
• Playing games
• Completing surveys
• Watching videos

You also get a guaranteed 10 points every day you log on. Once you have enough points, you can redeem them for PayPal cash and gift cards.

12. Bananatic

• Available on: Google Play

This app is specially made for people who are already into online games. Offering rewards like gaming mice and video games, this one’s perfect if you’re a gamer yourself or are looking to get a gift for one in your life.

Apps that Pay You to Play Games on iPhone

While there are many game apps that pay you real money for both Android and iOS devices, there are a few that are exclusive to iOS devices.

Some of the best include:

13. HQ Trivia

• Available on: iOS

Play a new quiz with word games and trivia every day with HQ Trivia! It’s actually a very popular app to play trivia and win cash. This app has had guest celebrities like The Rock, Robert De Niro, and more drop in, so keep your eyes peeled.

14. Toy Town Cash Money

• Available on: iOS

This app takes an interesting approach to earning cash by playing games. There are no in-app purchases or pay to win scenarios. All you have to do is play their games and earn tickets. The tickets let you enter into one of their many cash prize draws. If you win, you get the money paid to your PayPal. Pretty simple, right?

Best Apps that Pay You to Play Games

Here are applications that pay you for playing games.

15. Toluna

• Available on: iOS and Google Play

Toluna is a survey site with a hip modern twist, aiming itself at young would-be “influencers.” In addition to surveys, it offers a series of its own games which users can play and get rewarded for.

16. Swagbucks Live

• Available on: iOS and Google Play

From the popular online rewards site Swagbucks comes a trivia game that can earn you cash prizes! Answer all the questions quickly and correctly to qualify for a grand prize of up to $500!

17. Play and Win

• Available on: iOS and Google Play

Offering a grand prize of $50,000, Play and Win is a trivia game that offers cash prizes for its most knowledgeable players. A new game starts every hour, with players competing against each other.

18. Lucky Day

• Available on: iOS and Google Play

Love casino games but don’t like the crowds? Then Lucky Day is the app for you. Featuring scratch-offs, blackjack, and more coming soon, you can play to win real money!

19. Big Time

• Available on: iOS and Google Play

From WINR Games, Big Time offers real money to play their games. The money is handed out through a raffle, so the more tickets you earn playing games, the better your chances of winning big!

20. Lucktastic

• Available on: iOS and Google Play

Featuring a new contest to pay for your grocery trips, Lucktastic also offers Lucky Trivia Live, a trivia show that you the audience can participate in and win from!

21. Long Game

• Available on: iOS and Google Play

Long Game is a banking app that features a gamified rewards system. Every day, you can use points you’ve earned for using their card to play games and compete for up to a million dollars!

22. Wealth Words

• Available on: iOS and Google Play

Like puzzles? Wealth Words has crosswords, poem and story puzzles you can play to win 30, 200, even 700 dollars! The app offers secure instant withdrawal through PayPal for your winnings.

23. Brain Battle

• Available on: iOS and Google Play

Brain Battle offers players a chance to earn tickets by playing games. One ticket is all it takes to be entered to win cash prizes. Plus, the more people play, the bigger the rewards will be.

24. Appnana

• Available on: iOS and Google Play

Appnana says that it has paid over $10 million to its members over the years it’s been open. You play games they offer you, then you redeem your rewards for gift cards for places such as:

• Amazon
• iTunes
• Google Play
• Xbox

Final Thoughts

There are lots of apps that pay you to play games out there, you just need to install them and get playing! Just make sure you don’t fall into the trap of paying for in-app purchases while you’re having fun.

Have you used any of these apps before? Do you know of any other app that pays you to play games? Let us know if you liked any of them!

Obviously it takes time and money for a developer to create a game. Offering that game for free to players is certainly not going to recoup the cost of developing the game. This is why for years and years, games had a purchase price. Free To Play games break this mold by removing the cost to the player but obviously not entirely otherwise the games would not get developed in the first place. Instead, most games rely on a number of tried and true methods for convincing players to provide them money. This article looks at the many different methods that developers use to try and coax some money from the players who are not required to pay a single cent to play a Free To Play game.

Advertising

One way to get players to pay for the games is to actually not have them pay at all but instead shift to cost to a third party. This is done by including advertisements within a game. This was a fairly heavily used method in the early mobile game market but it has lost much of the appeal both with advertisers and players. The reason is that it is hard to get a good impression on a player who has their game interrupted with an advertising screen or message. The term for games that rely solely on advertising revenue is advergaming.

Most of the advergaming that is done these days is typically marketing by a company for another product. Thus the primary cost for development is essentially just a cost to advertise something else. There are many examples of this of mobile games that are linked to various animated children’s movies. One such example of this might be . This takes the Temple Run style of game play and puts the familiar yellow minion characters from the Despicable Me movies as a way to get kids interested in the movie. Of course, it also uses other in-app purchases as well so it is more than just an advergame.

Accelerated Advancement

The primary way in many Free To Play games to unlock more content is to advance further into the game either through unlocking new items that open up content or via gaining experience. This can be achieved through standard game play but if a player is willing to pay some money, they can unlock a method to advance faster in the game. I’m going to use Angry Birds Go! and Planetside 2 as two examples of how this can be achieved.

In Planetside 2, players achieve experience which gains them rank and also certifications for unlocking skill and equipment advancement. Now every player achieves experience within the game. Sony offers several ways for players to get more experience out of the same actions in the game. First, players can become subscribers and pay a monthly fee. By doing this, they get an experience boost while they are Premium Members. In addition to this, they also sell boosts in the game that will give an additional bonus percentage for a set amount of time. By paying the fee, the player is reducing the amount of time it takes to advance.

Pay $6.99 to Double Your Coins in Angry Birds Go!

Angry Birds Go! offers similar sort of system in that to progress further in the game, you must upgrade your carts to the required CC level in order to join a race. This is done through earning coins by picking them up during the race and completing race requirements. Prominently displayed at the end of the level and the results is a button that allows you to double all your coins for the life of the game for a single fee of $6.99. This effectively will double the rate at which you can advance through the game. Players of course also have the option of spending money on getting more coins as well.

Cosmetics And Gameplay Items

One of the ways that developers make money on players in their Free to Play games is purchase of items. This may give a slight edge to the player over the default player items or it may just be a cosmetic change. It depends on the game and how it is played.

Cosmetic items are generally those that give the player and their avatar a different appearance than other players in the game. It should not impact the effective game play at all. Planetside 2 is an excellent way to demonstrate this. In the game, players can purchase things like special helmet designs for the player or hood ornaments for vehicles. It doesn’t give the player or the vehicle any advantage but gives it a distinct appearance compared to the standard setup.

How About A Better Pistol!

Planetside 2 also offers items that can be purchased that impact how the game is played. The key thing to note here is that any player can purchase a weapon, enhancement or vehicle in the game through their certification points they earn via experience. If they don’t want to wait to earn them though, they can also purchase them with Sony’s Station Cash virtual currency. This can help players gain a slight edge early on but as players progress, those advantages can be lessened.

Removing the Wait Period

Restoring Stamina in Puzzles and Dragons to Keep Playing

In games like Candy Crush and even Angry Birds Go!, there is a set number of times that a player can attempt a level or play a specific character. When they reach the limit, they are forced to wait for a period of time before they can play again. Players can avoid this waiting period if they are willing to spend money to remove it. Generally this is a very small amount of money as a means to entice the player who just has to try one more time to reach a goal to be willing to part with a small amount of money. Some games are a bit more generous than others by allowing you to earn items within the game that can be used to remove the timers in addition to being able to purchase those items or currency through an in-app purchase.

Adding More Slots

There are a number of games out there where you can have a number of different either monsters, characters, cards, etc when you play the game. Now there are far more of these items than the slots given to the player in the game. This will restrict the players ability to play the game as they don’t have access to as diverse a range of the items that go in those slots. Thankfully, the developers are more than willing to offer up additional slots for you to collect more of the things within the game. Depending upon the game and the number of total items that can fit in the slot, the additional slots may be quite affordable or very expensive. For instance, in Marvel Puzzle Quest, the first few slots are easily obtained with common resources found in the game. As you get more slots, the cost increases and moves to more difficult to get resources essentially requiring the purchase of the resources if you want more.

Improving the Odds

Higher Priced Option To Get Rarer Hero in Marvel Puzzle Quest

Games That Actually Make You Money Online

For those games that have a collectible element in them, they also generally have a rarity that is attributed to the collectible items. Through game play, one can earn additional collectible items generally with the chances being that they will only get a standard or common item. At times, they may be able to earn improved odds to get the collectibles with a higher rarity level. In addition to the standard earned rewards, players will be given the chance to purchase more cards, items, pulls, etc. Often the developers will offer varying levels of chances on the expansion packs with guaranteed results provided you are willing to spend more. Marvel Puzzle Quest offers just such expansion packs through their recruit heroes functions.

Conclusions

Computer Games To Make Money

As we have seen, there are lots of different methods that developers have to try and get players to actually spend money in Free To Play games. The general trend is that by spending of money, players can in essence bypass the amount of time they have to spend playing the game to advance to higher levels. Most developer will often use several if not all of the various techniques mentioned as a way to generate revenue.

Games That Actually Make You Money 2020

In my next article, I will look into the various pitfalls of the Free To Play model that are actually detrimental to the consumer versus the traditional flat price for a game.