GameKit Review

URL: gamekit.com  

Since it's the holidays here in the U.S. and nobody wants to think about work until at least January 3 or so, let's have a little fun with this update.

This one is an indirect moneymaker in that the pay is in gift cards or digital items only ... but it's also the easiest job you'll ever have by far. To put it as simply as possible, GameKit pays you to play games. Specifically, MMO (massive multiplayer online) games.

NATURE OF WORK AND PAYMENT

The main activity at GameKit is to play the games that are currently listed as having rewards available. From what I've seen thus far these are mostly fairly big-name, free-to-play (F2P) MMO games that are relatively recent (went live or had a big expansion in the last year or so).

Each rewards-eligible game has a list of five tasks to accomplish. Hit the goal, take a screenshot of it, and upload the screenshot through your GameKit account. They usually review and approve within 24 hours from my experience, and once approved you get points that can eventually be traded in for rewards.

If you don't really care much about the games and are just in it for the money, let's cover what exactly is available. The list of available rewards is very long and kind of messy, but it basically breaks down to the following things:

• Amazon gift cards ($10)
• Gift cards for various digital gaming platforms such as Steam and PlayStation Store (various amounts)
• Codes for digital games and skins on Steam
• In-game currency for games like FIFA and Roblox
• Subscription time for games like World of Warcraft
• Gaming-related physical rewards like keyboards, mice and copies of PS4 / Xbox games

I did also see prepaid credit cards listed, but the only brand was Paysafecard, which is common in Europe but never really seen in the United States.

There are a few other gaming-related tasks you can do for smaller amounts of points. These include:

Quizzes - A ser of 10 trivia questions on popular game series both old and new, you only get 3-5 points for these but there seem to be a ton of them and no cap

Rate Photos - You're given game screenshots to rate on a 1-5 scale, do 40 for 5 points. When I tried this I kept getting the same four shots over and over again, however.

Play CS:GO - If you play Counter-Strike: Global Assault on Steam, you can earn 5 points per hour (with a cap of 40 per day) by adding "Gamekit" to your Steam name and linking your account somehow.

Trailers - Similar to watching ads at survey sites, but you exclusively watch game trailers at a rate of 14 2-ish minute videos per one point.

Offerwalls - I don't mess with these on any site as they're usually a spamfest nightmare, but Gamekit draws stuff from Trialpay and Adgaterewards if you're familiar with such things

Polls - Occasional short poll question for 10 pts

There is one final catch to all this you need to be aware of, however. In addition to earning points, you also gain "EXP" and gradually level up as you complete game objectives and submit your screenshots. Each reward has a level requirement, and you need to be a fairly high level (12) to get the most valuable ones. So there is potentially a big up-front time investment, depending on what you want to cash out for (some stuff is available almost immediately, like Steam games).

SITE HISTORY / LEGITIMACY

Gamekit appears to have launched in 2014 in their native Poland before expanding to other European countries in 2015 and then the United States somewhere in 2016-2017 somewhere. So the company has a few years under their belt at this point and appears to be fully legitimate - a decent rating on Trustpilot is brought down mostly by complaints about waits of 1-2 months for some rewards to arrive and the usual grumbling about bans for using multiple accounts.

Full disclosure, I haven't tried cashing anything out yet. I'll update this review when I do. But all my points for game milestones have come through in less than 24 hours (some in just a couple of hours) and my screenshots have never been rejected. The site doesn't try any funny business with "toolbar" or other adware installs either (though third-party offers through the Offerwall are likely to have this crap, of course you can just completely ignore that section like I do). Likewise, the few games I've tried are pretty straightforward and don't try to sneak any crapware on your system - they're mostly bigger titles from legitimate fairly-big publishers.

So how is Gamekit making money if this deal is really as straightforward as it appears? It's a pretty safe guess that they're just getting paid by the game publishers for referrals. There's a "partner link" URL visible when you click over to a game from your Gamekit account, and the screenshots are likely being sent to the publishers as metrics of player engagement. Gamekit delivers "quality leads" to the game who stick around, and the longer they play the more likely they'll end up spending some money on in-game Canadough.

INTERNATIONAL ACCESS

I don't see anything in the terms of service excluding any particular countries. However, a message on the Steam forum indicates there are countries that are not yet supported. I can't find a list of them anywhere, however, so basically you just have to try to create an account and find out it seems.

I found a post on Reddit from early 2018 that transcribes parts of the Gamekit FAQ that has a list of supported countries, but that segment doesn't seem to be listed in the current FAQ at the Gamekit site. So I'm still left confused as to the full range of countries, but the confirmed ones appear to be: United States, Canada, Australia, just about all of Western Europe, a good chunk of Eastern Europe, Brazil, Russia, Ukraine and Turkey. If you're elsewhere, just try to create an account and the site will let you know if you're allowed in based on your IP address.

PROBLEMS WITH GAMEKIT

The biggest potential problem I see here is with slow payouts, just based on various comments found around the internet. While they may be outliers, some people are reporting 1-2 months on delivery of their requests. What complicates this is that in typical internet comment style, they usually don't list what it is they cashed in for! So it may be a slow turnaround time for physical items but a much faster one for digital gift cards and downloads. As I mentioned before, I'll come back and update this review with my own experiences once I cash out a couple of times.

The only other real issue is that you really have to pay attention to detail when taking screenshots, and follow them to the letter. For example, a milestone for a lot of games is to "reach level X" in terms of experience points. They want a screenshot of you at exactly that level and nothing higher. Yes, a higher level should be just as acceptable, but that's not how they do things. It's a bit iffy, but it's also an easy term to comply with if you're paying basic attention.

The games may also not be to your personal taste if you're not already an established gamer. They're all of the MMO variety, which means they are aimed more at "hardcore" gamers and may feel a little too big and complicated if you're not much into computer games. On average they're definitely much more like World of Warcraft than something simple you would play on your phone like Candy Crush or Fruit Ninja.

Finally, there's the fact that you can't really get cash from it (unless you can get and use a Paysafecard). The $10 Amazon gift cert seems like the most flexible redemption item. A physical item (like gaming hardware or a PS4 game) that you can sell is also a possibility. A lateral possibility is to put it into CS:GO skins and then sell or gamble those ... that's too big a topic for me to get into in this space but here are some decent starting points for information on trading/selling and betting if you're interested.

FINAL VERDICT: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

The lack of adware/malware/spying and the fact that some of the featured games are legitimately fun to play make this one work. It's not enough of a per-hour rate to even match a minimum wage job under the best conditions, but it's a nice way to turn some relaxing gaming downtime into a profitable enterprise.

As far as the games go, the two I really liked (and would play even without being paid for it are War Thunder and MapleStory 2. War Thunder  is more of an action-oriented game with some simulation elements (absolute heaps of actual military vehicles from throughout history in battle with each other), so you don't have to mindlessly grind. MapleStory 2 is more of a grindy RPG game, but in a genuinely appealing and colorful universe with a lot to do besides mindless battling and also a bit of an action-oriented element to keep combat more interesting than the usual RPG. It's like a more cute and quirky World of Warcraft but with more ability to physically dodge enemy attacks in battle and lots of other little side stuff layered on top. Plus you can use a gamepad, I like to switch to a pad after spending the day typing and mousing for work.

Some other promising possibilities I haven't got to yet: Magic the Gathering: Arena, and Crossout (some sort of post-apocalyptic vehicle combat MMO). Would love to hear hot tips and hot takes about which games to play in the comments if anyone gives this a whirl.

URL: gamekit.com