In Bristol, 17-year-old Mason Bristow has flipped the script on traditional teenage pursuits by earning money through playing video games.
His unexpected success in the virtual reality game, Rec Room, has led to his parents actively supporting his gaming over homework.
Since 2018, Mason’s knack for content creation in Rec Room has resulted in a handsome £17k. His gaming income has funded holidays with friends, new clothes, shoes, and even his college education.
Mason, who has dyslexia, is keen to show that learning difficulties aren’t a hindrance to success. In fact, he’s motivated his school-struggling friends to give the game a go.
He lives in Bristol with his parents Alan, 63, a support worker, and Natalie, 50, a nurse, along with his four siblings. The whole family has been astounded by Mason’s earnings from his bedroom gaming setup.
The young gamer aims to continue monetising his gaming whilst he studies. Although not officially employed by Rec Room, Mason earns real money, trading in-game currency for cash with the game developers.
Mason dedicates 10 to 20 hours per week playing the game and developing new content. He said: “I used the money to go on trips with friends, buy clothes and shoes and pay tuition fees at the college I’m going to – I pay £1,200 per year.
“It’s a musical theatre course and I’m doing two years; it’s just helping fund my studies and uniform.
“The game has given me the opportunity to follow a dream – when you have money it allows you to do things that I wouldn’t have been able to do normally.”
He discovered Rec Room in 2018, during lockdown. The game allows users to socialise, build rooms, and play team games. Mason’s creative rooms gained traction, amassing 21,000 followers and over 1.5 million visits.
When the game’s creators realised his popularity, they decided to pay him.
In April 2021, he received his first payment of £800, the largest amount he’d ever had in his bank account. Since then, his earnings range from £800 to £1.2K each month, totalling £17,000.
Mason explained, “When you create a room, you get game tokens when people visit the rooms, and they reward creators who build things the community likes.
“Once you hit a big amount of tokens you can either use it in the game or when you have quite a few million you can cash that out for real money.
“When I received the first payment, I was very sceptical and wasn’t sure if this company in America would send me the money – then one month later I had my first paycheck.
“I was shocked, it was the most I’d ever had in my bank account at once, I was so shocked by the amount I had – I felt my life was going to change from that point.
“I can do this remote from my room when I like and get paid rather than going to a job after college.
“Throughout the whole of school, it was embedded that you need GCSEs to have a job and the better GCSEs you have, the better job you can get.
“I only passed my English GCSE and was at a low point when I did them and was stressing a lot.
“But then I found the video game and made money where I didn’t need any qualifications or training.
“I thought I wouldn’t be able to do some things because of my dyslexia but here I am with £17k in my bank account.
“I just want to break the stereotype that being dyslexic doesn’t stop you from doing stuff or define who you are as a person.
“I want to prove to people it doesn’t matter who you are or what disabilities you have, everything is possible – I just had a driven mindset and went for it.”
Mason’s father, Alan, said: “Mason’s been under pressure with education and is dyslexic so he struggles sometimes.
“As a parent I’m so proud of him – he wanted to go to acting college and we couldn’t afford it as a family. But because he started earning his own money it’s enabled him to go to the college he wanted.
“It was a shock and I was skeptical with the internet stuff and when he said he’d earned £3k from a company in America, I reached out to them and they showed me the details and kept in contact with me.
“They’ve recently sent him new software so he can design in 3D now – it’s over my head how quickly you can make money online and what a massive following he has.
“I’m proud of him, he’s up against it – it’s been so many years of hard work for him and it’s come good.”
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