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Jeff Kaplan, the former game director of Overwatch, has spoken publicly about why he left Blizzard Entertainment back in April 2021 after nearly two decades with the company. In a long interview with Lex Fridman, Kaplan pointed to a specific meeting with Blizzard’s CFO as the moment everything changed for him.
According to Kaplan, the CFO called him into his office and laid out a revenue target that Overwatch needed to hit in 2020 and warned him that if those numbers weren’t met, 1,000 people would be laid off, and that it would be his fault.
“That was just the biggest ‘fuck you’ moment I had in my career,” Kaplan said. He described feeling blindsided by the ultimatum, especially after years of dedication to the company. Kaplan added that he had always believed he would retire from Blizzard and never imagined leaving. That meeting changed his mind. He also noted that the CFO in question no longer works at Blizzard.
A big part of Kaplan’s frustration traces back to the Overwatch League, the city-based esports competition that ran from 2018 to 2024. Kaplan said he actually helped pitch the idea and believed in its potential, particularly its goals around protecting players from shady team management and raising the profile of esports overall.
But things quickly got out of hand. During the process of selling teams to investors, Blizzard reportedly made some very bold promises including suggestions the league could become more popular than the NFL.
When the original business plan around live events and merchandise didn’t pan out the way anyone hoped, the pressure shifted back to the game itself. Suddenly the Overwatch development team was being asked to carry the financial weight of the entire league.
“You’re not going to work on new world events. You’re not really even focused on Overwatch 2, you’re just kind of treading water,” Kaplan said.
Kaplan said the resource drain from the Overwatch League directly hurt the development of Overwatch 2. The team had a clear vision for what the game was supposed to be, but the constant pressure and shifting priorities meant that vision never fully made it to launch.
“Overwatch 2 is out now, but it’s not the Overwatch 2 we planned and announced,” he said.
He didn’t place all the blame on any one person or decision, but summed it up as a case of good intentions leading to bad outcomes — with too much focus on making money quickly at the expense of the game and the team behind it.
“There was too much focus on ‘let’s make lots of money really fast’,” he said.
