Former Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan explained how he protects his psyche by completely avoiding online discussions and subreddits about Blizzard’s hero shooter.
If you’re a die-hard Overwatch player, you’re likely familiar with the name Jeff Kaplan. He was essentially the face of the game for years, endearing fans with his regular developer updates and memorable interactions with its fanbase.
After leaving Blizzard in 2021, Kaplan founded his own game development studio and is currently working on an open world, action-survival shooter called The Legend of California. He has firmly put Overwatch behind him — to the point where he avoids interacting with it at all costs online.
“With Overwatch, I had a very almost clinical separation, knowing how the WoW thing had gone,” Kaplan said in a recent interview with GameSpot. “I’ve literally not played the game since April 2021.
“I don’t, for my own psyche, I don’t read the subreddits. After I said my goodbye to competitive Overwatch and the Overwatch subreddit, I never go back and read. I don’t watch YouTube [videos]. I don’t search for my name in Overwatch. I don’t search for Overwatch. I sort of just disconnect. I actually tell all the algorithms like, ‘Yeah, I’m not really interested in Overwatch anymore. I know you think I’m the Overwatch guy, but like, that’s just not for me anymore.’”
He told the outlet that it was surprisingly more painful for him to leave the World of Warcraft team to work on Overwatch than it was to put the hero shooter in his rear view, calling it a “training moment” for taking the next step in his career.
“WoW was who I was at that point,” he explained. “I worked every minute, every waking minute, on WoW. If I wasn’t working on WoW, I was playing WoW. And every time I played WoW, I had this notepad next to the desk that I’d be filling out to walk in the next morning and go, ‘These are all the things we need to change.’ It was kind of shocking in a very negative emotional way to step away from WoW, because it was such a part of who I was and how I identified. It was who I was as a game developer.”
After learning the hard way that the games he worked on didn’t belong to him, but were instead an IP under Blizzard’s ownership, it was easier for him to move forward.
“Overwatch happened. I was a part of it. There’s a group there now, and Overwatch is now about them. Both the players and the developers, that’s their Overwatch now. They’re making it, they own it, they play it. I’m onto this new thing, and that’s where I’m at in my life,” he said.
Kaplan hasn’t shied away from sharing his thoughts on the current gaming industry since making his exit from Blizzard almost half a decade ago. Most recently, he had some harsh words for players who complain about games they’ll never actually play.
“If a game comes out, and you don’t want to play it, and you’ve never played it? Shut the f*** up. No one cares,” he said.
And in March, he revealed the reason why he actually left Blizzard behind, describing a specific meeting that he called “the biggest f*** you moment I had in my career.”
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Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s News Editor. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, she’s got a storied background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze.