August is Edinburgh Fringe season for much of the funny business; a month or so where performers, facilitators and just fans of comedy gather in Scotland's historic capital to stage and watch shows, some of which are so wonderfully niche that one big question often springs to mind: what on earth do these people do to earn a crust the rest of the year?

Even for fairly successful stand-ups, making a living isn't easy, and making a good living is flipping difficult. Even if you do a bit of telly, maybe headline your own tour show, applying for a mortgage as a self-employed stand-up must be like applying to be an astronaut when you're an asthmatic eight year-old. At best you'll get a patronising pat on the head and be told to come back in a few years.

A lot of comics keep their other jobs anyway, which can help with material as well as keeping the wolf from the door. But for those who've just taken the full-time plunge, finding enough to do during the day must be tricky. Making your other hobbies pay would be handy, then, and this SlotSpinners article raises some enticing paid-pastime possibilities, notably playing video games. Now that would be a dream quasi-job for many comics.

Certainly at this time of year, you can imagine that a lot of acts would find the fantasy carnage of World of Warcraft or Call of Duty fairly cathartic, if they've just been lambasted by a vitriolic critic.

Simba Games, an online UK casino is one of the gambling sites performers could try and win cash on, but a good few comedians have monetised gaming already, by turning them into shows.

At this year's Fringe, for example, the talented comic and singer Sooz Kempner is following up 2017's critically-acclaimed, movie-focussed show Sooz on Film with Super Sonic 90s Kid, featuring a Sega-style poster and promise of much autobiographical stuff about how games made Sooz the Sooz she is today.

Last year the admirable head Weirdo Adam Larter threw a memorable hunk of Sonic antics into his show L'Art Nouveau, donning a home-made virtual-hedgehog costume, asking audience members to hold up large gold rings, then diving through them in a fashion that looked potentially knee-knackering.

One comic whose bold video game gambit really paid off was Tony Jameson, back in 2014. Football Manager Ruined My Life did seem a seriously niche concept, as it would only really appeal to fans of the famous football management game, but that's quite a sizeable and lucrative niche, it turned out. His Edinburgh Fringe run sold handsomely, then word spread and he toured it - plus an updated version - for a good few years afterwards.

Look through this year's hefty guide and there are a good few video game-related shows, from full-on interactive kids events (Game On!) to nostalgic affairs like Kempner's, most of them probably hoping to emulate acts like Jameson or Steve McNeil and Sam Pamphilon, whose comedians-play-games live show eventually spawned a TV version, Go 8 Bit, hosted by Dara O Briain.

Let no-one criticise your daytime activities, then, because even the most pointless wastes of time can end up amusing the public. Well, within reason.