Former Overwatch recreation director and one-time face of the model Jeff Kaplan left Blizzard Leisure in 2021, after 19 years on the firm. He is been quietly engaged on one other recreation since leaving, and not too long ago spoke about his choice to depart Blizzard, the corporate he as soon as thought he “would retire from.” Unsurprisingly, Kaplan has revealed that the catalyst for his departure from Blizzard and Overwatch was what many anticipated: company meddling and unchecked greed by dad or mum firm Activision Blizzard.
Kaplan appeared on the Lex Fridman podcast on Wednesday for a five-hour interview, throughout which he touched on his early profession at Blizzard, his work on World of Warcraft, and the highs and lows of Overwatch. Whereas Kaplan largely shows a passion for his time working at Blizzard, he identifies the place issues began to go fallacious with Overwatch and what finally led to his resignation.
“The most important derail was Overwatch League,” Kaplan stated, referring to the now-shuttered esports league based in 2017. On account of Activision Blizzard over-selling Overwatch League, the “govt stress was monumental,” he stated.
“There was a number of pleasure about Overwatch League. Like, an excessive amount of,” Kaplan recalled. “It bought over-marketed to the individuals shopping for the groups. They went on this roadshow […] and so they have been just about promoting the Brooklyn Bridge, that Overwatch League was going to be extra widespread than the NFL.”
After billionaire buyers purchased into the league, to the tune of $20 million, they began demanding new options in Overwatch that the event workforce wasn’t outfitted to deal with — at the very least not whereas they have been attempting to run Overwatch as a stay recreation and develop it. Constructing Twitch integration, digicam management for broadcasts, and uniforms for OWL groups strained the Overwatch workforce, Kaplan stated.
“All of your plans at that time type of exit the window,” Kaplan stated. “You are not engaged on new world occasions, you are not likely even centered on Overwatch 2, you are simply type of treading water.”
Kaplan known as the Overwatch League “a home of playing cards” and “an awesome thought with the fallacious instincts.”
“There was an excessive amount of concentrate on let’s make a lot of cash actually quick,” he stated.
Finally, Overwatch League’s homeowners realized that, no, Blizzard’s esports league wasn’t going to outshine the NFL.
“Initially, the enterprise mannequin was going to be that they have been going to do in-person [Overwatch League] occasions, and there is going to be massive ticket gross sales and merch and all of that,” Kaplan recalled. “Actually shortly, all people realized we won’t do in-game occasions when we’ve a London workforce and a Shanghai workforce. How does this work? In order that fell aside tremendous shortly. The merch was good, however it wasn’t going to be making NFL-level cash, no matter madness anyone thought that was going to be.
“So all people shortly defaulted again to, ‘Hey, did not Overwatch make $500 million simply within the stay recreation final yr?’ What can we promote, and what are you able to give us? That stress comes onto the workforce, after which the stress to ship Overwatch 2, after which all of the care and love that we had for the stay recreation and the stay service — let’s make occasions, new heroes, new maps — we’re shedding all these assets.”
Kaplan stated that in 2016 and 2017, he “felt very in management” as a recreation director, however that because the Overwatch League got here to life, “it ended up being an albatross.”
Whereas the stress sounds intense, it wasn’t the Overwatch League’s failure — the league formally shut down in 2024 — that satisfied him to surrender his dream job. It was one assembly with an Activision Blizzard govt.
“What finally broke me and my Blizzard profession was I bought known as into the CFO’s workplace, and he sits me down and he says […] ‘Overwatch has to make [redacted] in 2020, after which yearly after that it wants a recurring income of [redacted],'” Kaplan recalled. “After which he says to me, ‘If it does not do [redacted] {dollars}, we’re gonna lay off a thousand individuals, and that is gonna be on you.’ And that was simply the most important fuck you second I’ve had in my profession. It felt surreal to be in that situation.”
(Kaplan’s feedback about particular figures are bleeped and redacted within the podcast as a result of a non-disclosure settlement.)
“I had believed I might by no means work anyplace however Blizzard,” Kaplan stated. “I liked it, it was part of who I used to be, and I felt I used to be part of it. And I actually thought I might retire from the place. I by no means thought the day would come, and that was it. I used to be like, We’re achieved right here. Fortunately for Blizzard, that CFO is now not there.”
Activision Blizzard’s chief monetary officer on the time was longtime govt Dennis Durkin. He left the corporate in Could 2021, one month after Kaplan.
Kaplan is now engaged on a brand new recreation, The Legend of California, which does not look something like Overwatch. Kaplan’s new studio, Kintsugiyama, describes its new enterprise as “a multiplayer, action-survival FPS set on the Island of California throughout the gold rush period.” Dreamhaven, the writer based by ex-Blizzard boss Mike Morhaime, is publishing the sport.
