There’s a lot of potential in the US gaming industry, with the industry generating around $55 to $60 billion in annual consumer revenue and an audience reach of hundreds of millions of gamers to make money from.
And it’s a lot of fun, but it’s not necessarily one of the easiest industries to make money from. It’s a relatively niche industry, with only around 1% of indie developers achieving massive success. And unless you’re one of the big names like Sony or Activision Blizzard, you’re an indie developer.
If you can turn gaming into a business and you can get as far as hiring employees, you definitely are a unicorn, and there definitely are some things you need to know about hiring so you don’t make a mistake that could derail your success. Let’s explore below.
What Is the Business Side of Gaming?
The business side of gaming sort of takes the fun out of it, some would say, with the idea moving from entertainment toward the multi-billion-dollar industry built on intellectual property rules, having the right team of people, contracts, and a whole lot of setbacks and headaches. Just look at GTA 6 and how that’s coming along.
Mobile gaming definitely represents the largest share, and we would say it’s one of the easier game development categories to dabble in, but we feel awkward about saying “easier,” considering mobile app platforms are saturated with games.
Going deep into the business side of things and how layered it is behind the scenes of the games we all love to play, you’ve got:
- Indie game studios
- Mobile game developers
- Streaming brands (Twitch, YouTube, Kick creators)
- Esports teams
- Merch brands
- Gaming SaaS tools
- Modding studios
Each involves:
- Contracts
- Revenue models
- Licensing
- IP ownership
- Marketing
- Tax and compliance
- Game sale management
- Subscription management
- Sponsorships
And we could just keep giving you bullet points, but we’ll stop there.
What Happens When You Start Hiring?
Hiring employees feels like a snippet of success, but it doesn’t soon wear off when you have to deal with training someone, managing them, dealing with the legal side of things, thinking about what to do when they go off sick…again, our list could go on.
That said, if you do manage to find some success and turn your love of gaming into a business, hiring an employee is definitely a necessary step to secure continued growth. Something to consider as soon as you know you’re going to hire someone is getting a workers compensation insurance policy.
In most states in the US, it’s the law to have a policy even when you only hire one employee. It’s five in some states, but we’d recommend that anyone with any number of employees have a policy. It’ll cover you for:
- Medical expenses
- Lost wages
- Job retraining
- Permanent injury benefits
- Employers liability
- Survivor benefits and death benefits
After that, learning how to withhold federal income tax, social security, and Medicare, and generally just how to manage employees, is the next step. But before anything, we’d cover everything legal and maybe get the advice of a specialist for your first hire so you know you don’t miss anything legal related.
How to Manage Employees to Make a Successful Gaming Company
We’re not born knowing how to manage employees, and it definitely is a learning curve to begin with. We’d argue it’s even more difficult now, with the new generations completely changing workplace and management expectations.
Some of the foundations to learn about include:
- Setting clear roles and responsibilities.
- Understanding and protecting your company culture.
- Learn how to document everything.
- Learn how to be a leader.
- Learn how to scale at the right speed so you don’t overhire or suffer.
You definitely will run into some roadblocks and learn a lot of lessons when hiring your first employee, but it’s not an impossible thing to manage. With the right insurance and approach to management, you’ll have no issue taking on employees.
Last Updated: March 3, 2026
