GAMES are a serious business for young Rockwell Green man Sam Couzens, who spends six or seven hours a day, seven days a week playing the computer game FIFA.

He makes a living out of what was once just a fun activity by live streaming himself playing the game on Twitch, Amazon’s streaming company.

Sam, 24, has been on the site for two-and-a-half years and now has more than 21,000 followers and 200 subscribers.

He said: “I was playing all these games anyway, so I thought ‘let’s stream and see what happens’. Even if one person comes in and says ‘you know what, you have made my day,’ my job is done.”

FIFA is the biggest sports-related computer game and Sam makes money from people watching him play from subscriptions, donations and advertising.

Sam has also been given his own one-hour show on a new gaming channel on US television coming soon to Europe, and has just been awarded a prestigious official partnership on Twitch.

Sam, who used to play football for Wellington AFC and is a Chelsea fan, says he may have 50-100 people watching him gaming a day but the most popular streamer has 160,000 people a day watching him. “Imagine, it’s like Ed Sheeran playing a massive stadium, only more so,” he said.

Sam, who attended Court Fields School in Wellington, works from his bedroom and built all his own computers, learning how to do so through YouTube videos.

“It seems a bit daunting but it’s like Meccano, pretty much. As long as you have the right parts, putting it together is simple.”