Play to Earn Mobile Gaming - Week 1 Experiment

If you're an introvert like myself, you've often dreamed of making a living online, away from snarky bosses, team-meeting presentations, and all the other garbage you have to deal with while working for "da man."

That being said, everyone will also tell you there is no "quick" way to make money online, short of being incredible lucky and hitting on the perfect niche trend via blogging or an Ecommerce store.  

But let's assume you are like me, and just want to "zone out" and make cash.  You're not trying to make millions out the gate, you are trying to get some money moving in the right direction.

During my recent odyssey, delving deep into these apps, I've made a few missteps, but have had good results overall.  

At first, I tried Survey Junkie and Top Surveys, which showed up at the top of the play store, among a dozen others I've since tried.

Survey Junkie kept me from being homeless. When I started this, I was stranded at a Walmart with no gas in the tank, and literally sat there for a few days doing surveys.  

It was a very frustrating process at times, not because the work paid so low, but because more than half the surveys I took would reject me at the start or even the end of the survey, with no explanation or apology at all.  But for all the bad surveys, there was quite a few decent ones, and through sheer determination, I've made close to 75 bucks on this app.  What a lifesaver.  

I also got onto Top Surveys and grinded those out,  because I was worried about putting "all my eggs in one basket," and if Survey Junkie didn't pay out for some reason, I would of been in a bad situation at the start of this.

("Prime Insights" = "TopSurveys")

On this app I also made money.  But I drifted off course a bit, to try the "gaming feature" on the site, which was going great until the site hit me with a 24-hour ban for some reason as it "investigated" my account.  

The account was restored the next day, but I noticed none of the game achievements (example, was supposed to receive 6 dollars for lvl 30 in Raid, which I achieved) were not being communicated to the app, and were not updating at all.  This cost me a TON of time and effort, and left me a little bitter towards the app, which I barely use anymore.

By this point, I was fairly burnt out on surveys.  You do a few hundred of them, you realize they are all the same questions in a different order.  They are brutally tedious at times, sometimes claiming to take 15 minutes, but if you go at a decent pace the algorithms detects that you are "speeding through" and will boot you from the survey.  I wanted something with less nonsense and headaches.  

I figured, if was going to pulverize my brain, I might as well do it with gaming, which at least is stimulating.  

So I downloaded a dozen "play to earn" apps.  Not only because I could multitask on my tablet and phone, but because, unlike surveys, the objectives are clear, and the time-money exchange isn't disturbed by the myriad of problems survey apps have.   

All of these apps are structured in a similar way, earn points, then cash them in for paypal money, which is instant.  What's nice about gaming though, is you lose yourself in the process, which makes it easier entirely.

So I got on the play store on both my phone, and tablet, and loaded them to the brim with play to earn apps.  

Various Apps to Earn with

As you can see, I have my survey apps lined up.  Google Rewards pays very little but it's usually just a question or two about places you've been to recently.  Yougov is similar, the surveys pop up once a day or two, are short, and then you forget about it for a while.  These are very low effort apps.  Eureka I've used a good amount to and have gotten a few easy payouts from.  They also offer gaming but the payouts seem low imo.  

But lets move up to the gaming section. 

Mistplay, Justplay, Playwell, Testerup, Bestplay, and Benjamin, and that one up top named "Earn app" is actually a company called "mode" and has some unique features like being paid to listen to music and reading news. 

I put these apps on the tablet as well, with a few others. Of all of these, I'd say "BestPlay" has the worst user interface, and finding account information seems impossible.

Although it's probably too early to tell, Mistplay seems to be the one I've used more than others.  While the earning is steady (I'm only a few days in, hard to tell how much it will ramp up) what really sells me on this app is that it updates you while you're in the game of your achievements, just like Xbox or Steam does.  You see how much points you get and can do the math in your head of what you've earned.  

This feature really puts it ahead of so many other apps, where payments and offers can be ambiguous. There is peace of mind seeing your earnings in real time, and it also pushes you to get to the next level. 

I also just like the interface better, especially after using Survey Junkie and Top Surveys, which look like baked potatoes.  In comparison, Mistplay is very polished.  

Other apps, like Benjamin, also look really good, and comparable, and I'll run a few games through that app as well just to diversify, but my current strategy is Mistplay on the phone, grinding away, and then running Playwell (which I also quite like) on the tablet at the same time.  

Just while typing this, I've roughly made 5 bucks between the two of them.  Paying for my coffee, and then some.  

Feels good man.

So what's the "trick" to making these apps really hum?  For once, be good at the games.  Almost all these games have a "walk thru" button that guides you to the next step.  Mindlessly looking around the map doesn't make you much money.  Smashing that button that guides you to the next step is the way.  I'd say most games have this feature or something like it.  

Another step is to have about 10+ games downloaded (make sure you download AND launch through the actual app, like mistplay or playwell, or you might not get credit.  Also remember to allow access to the app (whatever it asks).  

Having a bunch of games means you can bounce around while these idle games build up resources, that way you are not wasting time looking for things to do.  

On my tablet for instance, I will run a casino slot game that requires just a few taps here and there, while playing a more involved game on the phone (it's still just tapping red indicator dots to progress, not that much thinking).  I always try to run one game that is "more idle" on one device, while running another that requires more involvement on the other. (In the beginning I tried to do surveys while gaming, but it gave me a tremendous headache).

This should be enough to get you started on your journey.  If you need 5$,10$, or even 20$ and need it in a day, there's absolutely no reason you can't get any of those goals with just a cellphone, a Paypal account, and a linked bank account to that account (or a paypal card).

Surveys' will get you there, but chances are you will get fed up after a few dozen.  "Play to earn" will at least keep your sanity (mostly).

But these payouts are just a starting point: the kind of money you make when you are "a noob."  Obviously, just like anything, as you do it more, you get better at it, and begin to develop unconscious and organic systems of efficiency through trial and error.  The payouts get better, and you become more knowledgeable about which pitfalls to avoid, of which there are quite a few.

This grand experiment of mine is ongoing.  I will update the results and findings each week here, on this blog, so be sure to come back and visit for updates.  

Upwards and onwards!