Jeff Kaplan explains why he left Blizzard

Jeff Kaplan left Blizzard Entertainment in 2021 after 19 years and has been quietly working on a new game. In a five-hour conversation on the Lex Fridman podcast he revisited his time at Blizzard, including his work on World of Warcraft and Overwatch, and explained what pushed him to leave.

Kaplan said the turning point for Overwatch was the Overwatch League. Launched in 2017 and aggressively marketed to investors, the league drew heavy executive pressure and early investment — billionaire buyers paid as much as $20 million for teams — and began driving feature requests the development team could not absorb.

Requests for Twitch integration, camera-control tools for broadcasts and team uniforms strained resources and pulled attention away from new maps, events and Overwatch 2. Plans for the league, Kaplan said, rested on in-person events and big-ticket sales that proved impractical for a global game with teams in London and Shanghai.

jeff kaplan, blizzard entertainment, overwatch, overwatch league, overwatch 2, wow, twitch integration, camera control, team uniforms, billionaire buyers