Meet Eric Yurko

We recently connected with Eric Yurko and have shared our conversation below.

Eric, so glad you were able to set aside some time for us today. We’ve always admired not just your journey and success, but also the seemingly high levels of self-discipline that you seem to have mastered and so maybe we can start by chatting about how you developed it or where it comes from?

Oh! That’s mostly just routine. I know that’s not necessarily the most exciting answer, but I find there’s a lot of calm in being able to set my expectations for myself and follow through. I also started making a lot of to-do lists during the pandemic, and that helps a lot with organizing my life. I’ve been trying to make my habits regular and manageable, though; for a few years, I was writing a lot more reviews than I could handle doing each week, and after I moved to Seattle, it became untenable to keep all that writing and photography happening when I was trying to do other things with my life and explore a new city. So I kept my routine, somewhat, but tried to find a flexible spot for my review work and ended up going from three or four reviews a week to two reviews a week, a spot that I’m much happier with. The best part about having a routine is being able to check in with yourself and figuring out what parts of that routine aren’t working for you anymore.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I’m a board game reviewer for my own website – What’s Eric Playing?! Every Monday, I publish two new board game reviews on my website. I’ve spent the last nine years working on developing a board game review website, and I do all the writing and photography myself. I’ve reviewed over a thousand games! It’s been really fun to get a chance to learn more about the world of board gaming, from manufacturing to design to art, and I’ve even recently become part of the American Tabletop Awards Committee, helping pick the best games that have come out in the last year, each year. Professionally, I work on various education projects, so I think that motivates a lot of why I think board games are so fun. It’s really great to see how players pick up and learn strategy when they’re first learning a game, and even losing can be fun if you get to see someone really get how a game is played. I think that’s part of what motivates me wanting to learn more about board games, and thinking about games from that learning and strategy angle motivates a lot of my writing.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I’m going to go with curiosity and consistency for qualities. For skills, honestly, you can build most of the ones you need for content creation and reviewing as long as you are willing to develop those two qualities. Curiosity helps you learn more about the art and practice of actually making stuff; consistency helps build a good reputation and helps set expectations with both the publishers (who will occasionally send games for review) and the readers or viewers, so they know when to check out your channel or your site! I think that a lot of the best way to get started is just to build up a repertoire of content before you even go for trying to build the brand. This way, people have stuff that they can read or watch while you’re making more! Plus, it gives you a sense of your style and your voice. Hitting that consistency early on helps build good habits and makes for good practice.

Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?

I’ve been dealing a lot with burnout over the last few years and, honestly, my best strategy is just withdrawing for a bit and focusing on myself and what makes me happy. The work will still be there tomorrow or the next day, but if I get too completely burnt out, I won’t be able to do anything useful. It’s one of the biggest dangers to hobby creatives, I think. There’s a real temptation to monetize everything and figure out how to sell something and go full capitalism. I did that for a bit and got really exhausted. Can’t recommend. But have some activities you can do to relax or decompress between really productive creative sessions and you’ll be able to avoid getting totally burnt out.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://whatsericplaying.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/whatsericplaying
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/whatsericplaying
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/whatseplaying