Identical twin brothers had paid off their parent’s mortgage and helped finance their brother and sister’s university education as they each earn more than £100,000 ($131,000) a year making video games.
Ben and Matthew Horton started making money when they were 13, and their dad was understandably worried – fearing that his twins are dealing drugs.
Instead, they turned every normal teenager’s addiction into a moneymaking hobby.
They first came up with free-to-play online game called Boat Ride, which charges £5 to unlock extra features for players to enjoy as they played.
“When I showed my dad we’d earned £600, he thought it must be from drug-dealing as it was so much. He was so surprised,” Matthew said.
“We only got about £1 a week pocket money, so that first £5 was a lot. It bought about 5,000 marshmallows. We had a lot of tubs of sweets,” Ben added.
Their hobby turned into a full-fledged business, with Matthew learning to produce video trailers while Ben continues to improve his programming skills.
Despite dropping out of school at 16, their huge success has quickly seen them gain millions of fans around the world.
“We did all this stuff because we enjoyed doing it. We’re really fortunate,” Matthew said in an interview.
The twins’ interest in video game creation started when they discovered the online gaming platform Roblox, which teaches youngsters how to make their own from scratch.
“It gave us access to interesting creations by hundreds of people. At first, we just played them, then in the 2013 Christmas holidays we started experimenting with creating our own,” Matthew said.
The pair has so far created 20 games together on Roblox, including Roleplay World.
“It’s really overwhelming to have that many people playing our games,” Ben said.
The brothers now live and work together in Crawley, West Sussex, and hopes to move to LA – known as the global hub of the gaming industry.