Streaming video games: the new reality TV?

For many teenagers, playing video games full time for money is only a fantasy. But with the rise of a booming gaming industry, that dream is coming to life.

In fact, YouTube gamer Felix Kjellberg, also known by his channel name PewDiePie, has earned an estimated $4 million annually in recent years. What does he do? It’s simple: He records himself playing video games along with his humorous commentary, monetizes his videos with advertisements and then sits back and collects his money. In only a couple of years, PewDiePie attracted an audience of more than 32 million subscribers on YouTube with over 6.6 billion views.

Aside from posting pre-recorded videos on YouTube, PewDiePie also makes revenue by live-streaming his gaming on the popular website Twitch, where hundreds of thousands of people watch their favorite video games played live their favorite gamers.

On his Facebook page, which has garnered more than 5 million likes, PewDiePie posts, “Livestream starting any minute, get in here bros!” with an attached link.

With popular gamers like PewDiePie attracting a large fanbase on Twitch, the site has been exponentially growing in traffic over the last couple of years.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Twitch has attracted over 55 million users in the U.S. alone, with the average user spending about an hour and 45 minutes on the site per day.

On Sept. 26, Twitch turned many heads when Amazon acquired it for $970 million in cash.

Junior Quan Vandinh, a frequent viewer of Twitch live-streams, says the Amazon acquisition was a huge step in the right direction  for the gaming industry.

“The fact that a bigger company like Amazon is willing to invest in Twitch shows that larger companies are taking interest in the gaming industry because of its potential,” Vandinh said.

Vandinh said Twitch introduces viewers to new games and can gets viewers wanting to learn about a game from an expert.

“Generally, a streamer is significantly better at the game than the viewer, so watching a higher level of gameplay can be much more entertaining than playing the game yourself,” he said.

Vandinh said that watching live-streams of others playing games on Twitch is simpler than playing games himself because of the ability to easily open and close any stream.

“It is pretty easy to open up a stream and watch for about 10 minutes in between homework assignments, for example,” Vandinh said.

With a growing audience on sites like Twitch, streaming video games is more than just a hobby — it's the next frontier in professional sports.

“I think its safe to say that anyone who plays a certain game has watched or has tried watching someone else play it before via Twitch, YouTube or some other source,” Vandinh said.