Creator Spotlight - YooKay

Some pirates are just unstoppable when it comes to getting the most out of this game and community. An experienced pirate but a recent recruit to our Partner Programme, it’s the Sapphire Blade-sporting YooKay we’re catching up with today – a player with a Pirate Legend speedrun record under his belt, a drummer in a metal band and a Sea of Thieves Partner representing the Emerald Isle!

Interested in signing up to the Sea of Thieves Creator Crew? Find out more here.

[Q]: What was your introduction to the world of games?

[A]: One Christmas as a kid, the big man Santa got me a Game Boy and a Super Nintendo. I got The Rescue of Princess Blobette for the Game Boy and Super Mario All-Stars for the SNES.

[Q]: How did you become part of the Sea of Thieves community?

[A]: During the first year of Sea of Thieves I only really played the game with friends. With the announcement of the Anniversary Update, I found the Keelhauled Podcast from Captain Logun. It was my first introduction to the community itself beyond simply playing the game. From there It was moving through different Discords, Twitter, Reddit etc. and taking a much larger interest in the game and community.

[Q]: How did creating content become your ‘thing’?

[A]: I took an interest in tutorial-based content. I’ve been a drum teacher for quite a while and decided to attempt ‘teaching’ in my own way regarding Sea of Thieves.

[Q]: How do you decide what kind of content to create?

[A]: I either create content based on current events within the game, from content updates to the Pirate Emporium, or stories of adventure with my crew. Sometimes if I come across something niche or that I feel could be explained more, I might make a video on that too.

[Q]: What are some of the challenges you’ve faced while creating content?

[A]: Time, time, time. Between my full-time job, drums and social life it has essentially become trying to optimise my personal time to allow me to create content. When I do make time it’ll be for scripting, recording and releasing videos.

[Q]: What different channels do you have?

[A]: I currently use three channels: YouTube for my main content, Twitch for shouting live at players who still can't understand my accent, and lastly Twitter with a box of popcorn.

[Q]: What’s been your most memorable Sea of Thieves moment so far?

[A]: Recently I have been spending quite a lot of time speedrunning, even breaking the world record and getting to Pirate Legend in 4 hours, 53 minutes and 40 seconds. Even with that time, we are determined to continue pushing our own record to see how far we can really go.

[Q]: What do you enjoy most about the game now, and what are you looking forward to in future?

[A]: For me, the harpoon was a big game-changer. I love speedrunning elements of the game and it made it so much easier to place loot on the boat. More time saved! I was also excited for The Legend of Monkey Island Tall Tales, and now I’m looking forward seeing more quality of life updates to the game.

[Q]: What’s something you’re particularly proud of accomplishing in gaming?

[A]: Overall it’s been creating the YooKay channel/brand as a whole. I’ve always been massively into games and the industry, travelling to conventions and being a regular at Gamescom each year. Since I started creating gaming content it’s allowed me to meet a lot of people with the same interests, to the point where I’m hopping on planes just to hang out with friends. It has been a blast on the content creation journey.

[Q]: How did you come up with your channel name?

[A]: It started back when I was a kid playing Unreal Tournament. When I started playing competitively, I called myself UltimateUnrealKiller. Yes, I know, I was a cool 10-year-old with a name like that.

Going forward a few years to the release of Xbox Live, I tried entering my name only for it to be too many characters, so I eventually ended up taking the first letter of each word, leaving UUK. Over time, people just started calling me UK. Then several years ago when Yooka-Laylee was released, I just took the Yooka and added a Y, finally giving me YooKay. Marvel are currently in bids for my origin story.

[Q]: What do you like to get up to when you’re not making videos?

[A]: Other than gaming of course, I enjoy writing music, playing drums and travelling the world. Huge fan of finding a beach!

[Q]: What advice would you give to a new content creator?

[A]: Surround yourself with other creators regardless of whether or not they create the same content as you. You’ll be surprised at the amount you can learn from each other, whether it’s editing, managing your socials or helping you expand on ideas further to create the best content that you can make.

[Q]: What’s one thing you would advise a content creator not to do?

[A]: I guess my advice stems from writing music. As a YouTube creator, believe it or not, I don’t watch Sea of Thieves content on YouTube. It allows me to create content naturally without being influenced by other creators’ ideas, styles or other nuances that could carry into my own content. When writing drums for our albums, I would stop listening to Metal during the writing process so I would not be subconsciously replicating another sound.

So, I would say as a creator, try to create content that is you and not a copy of someone else. At the end of the day, you are the personality.

[Q]: Could you give us one more random fact about yourself?

[A]: When I’m not playing games or drums, I enjoy freestyle football. Literally anything with a trick element to it and I get hooked. Once I even learned how to juggle, then worked up to five balls within a few hours, all because I got bored!

Our thanks to YooKay for the chat and the insights into his life on the Sea of Thieves and beyond, and congratulations on his Pirate Legend speedrunning accomplishments! We’re sure to see more record attempts from YooKay and his daredevil crew soon. Check out those and his other content over on YouTube, or catch him live on Twitch.

Keep up with all the latest from Sea of Thieves by following us on our many social channels. You can also find previous Creator, Community and Legend Spotlights in our News section, catch the latest activity in our Community Hub and check out all our current Partners in the Sea of Thieves Partner Directory. Until next time!