Overwatch co-creator Jeff Kaplan on his exit from Activision-Blizzard: ‘It was the largest f**ok you second I’ve had in could profession’

Overwatch co-creator Jeff Kaplan was the general public face of Overwatch earlier than he left Activision-Blizzard in 2021. In case you have been concerned about videogames between 2014 and 2021, it is possible you will recognise his face. In a brand new interview on the Lex Fridman podcast, Kaplan particulars for the primary time how and why he left Activision-Blizzard, and it isn’t fairly.

The way in which Kaplan explains it, the great ship Overwatch began to buckle when unreasonable expectations have been positioned on the Overwatch League, a vastly hyped esports league based in 2017 and closed in 2024.

“The place it acquired away from us is that there was a number of pleasure about Overwatch League, like an excessive amount of,” Kaplan stated. “It acquired overmarketed to the folks shopping for the groups. They went on this roadshow the place that they had a deck—and you may put something in a deck, and promote something—they usually have been just about promoting the Brooklyn Bridge, that Overwatch League was going to be extra in style than the NFL.”

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It acquired to a degree the place commitments made to Overwatch League and its “billionaire traders” began to intrude with work on Overwatch itself, or at the least, the a part of it the general public performed. This included the event of Twitch integration, spectator digital camera management, in addition to skins within the type of workforce uniforms. In different phrases, the cash folks saved promising options that soaked up growth sources.

“And so all of your plans [for Overwatch content] at that time kinda exit the window,” Kaplan stated. “You are not engaged on new world occasions, you are not centered on Overwatch 2, you are simply treading water.”

Kaplan additionally describes how when Activision-Blizzard wasn’t in a position to meet sure investor expectations with Overwatch League, the onus could be positioned on the dev workforce to make good. “I do not know how one can phrase this in a means that is not damning, however there was an excessive amount of concentrate on ‘let’s make numerous cash actually quick’ and lots of people acquired drawn into it,” Kaplan stated.

Ultimately it wasn’t simply Activision and Blizzard who had monetary stakes in Overwatch, however many different traders, all of whom began to precise their opinion.

“Initially the enterprise mannequin was going to be that they [Overwatch League] have been going to do in-person occasions, and there is going to be massive ticket gross sales and merch and all of that. I feel, actually rapidly, everyone discovered we won’t do in-game occasions when we’ve got a London workforce and a Shanghai workforce… like, how does this work? In order that fell aside tremendous rapidly. The merch was good however it wasn’t going to be making NFL cash, no matter madness folks thought that was going to be.

“So everyone [the investors] rapidly defaulted again to, ‘hey, did not Overwatch make 500 million {dollars} simply within the stay sport final 12 months?’ What can we promote, and what are you able to give us? That strain comes onto the [dev] workforce, and [add to that] the strain to ship Overwatch 2, after which all of the care and love that we had for the stay sport and the stay service—like let’s make occasions, new heroes, new maps—we’re dropping all these sources.”

Kaplan says that in 2016 and 2017, he felt in charge of Overwatch and the course of the sport, alongside the product director Ray Gresko. “It felt like we have been working Overwatch and we have been very, very profitable and doing a very good job, and I feel the followers have been pleased,” he stated. Overwatch League, regardless of the great intentions behind it, “ended up being an albatross”.

What to learn subsequent

Ultimately, after enduring the difficulties of managing Overwatch League expectations with growth on the core sport itself, Kaplan was despatched over the sting by an exquisitely merciless assembly with the corporate’s then CFO.

“What in the end broke me and my Blizzard profession was I acquired referred to as into the CFO’s workplace and he sits me down and he says—he offers me a date which on the time was 2020 and was going to slide to 2021, however on the time it was 2020—and he stated: ‘Overwatch has to make [redacted] in 2020, after which yearly after that it wants a recurring income of [redacted]’ after which he says to me ‘if it does not do [redacted] we will lay off 1,000 folks, and that is going to be on you.’ And that was the largest fuck you second I’ve had in my profession, it felt surreal to be in that situation.”

The redacted figures are resulting from a confidentiality settlement signed by Kaplan.

“As somebody who’s labored on a number of video games, made a number of video games, you get in these conferences the place they’re like ‘Fortnite has 1400 folks engaged on it, so if we simply rent 1400 folks and make it free-to-play, we’ll make that cash, proper?’ I had believed that I’d by no means work in anywhere however Blizzard, I cherished it, it was part of who I used to be, and I assumed that I used to be part of it. And I actually thought I would retire from the place. I by no means thought the day would come, however that was it. Fortunately for Blizzard, that CFO is not there.”

Dennis Durkin was CFO of Activision-Blizzard from 2019 to Could 2021; Armin Zerza held the function from then till 2025. Kaplan’s departure was introduced on April 20, 2021.

I’ve reached out to Activision-Blizzard for remark.

After releasing in 2023 with out many key marketed options, together with a long-promised PvE mode, Overwatch 2 was finally renamed Overwatch earlier this 12 months.