Overwatch’s Director Quit Following Outrageous Ultimatum from Blizzard Big Wig

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After nearly two decades with Blizzard, Jeff Kaplan shared the primary reason for his departure in 2021.

This excerpt is taken from a longer interview with Lex Fridman, where Kaplan discusses his entire career, including his time leading the development of the first Overwatch game.

We’ve time-stamped the moment he talks about what motivated his resignation in the video below:

Kaplan remembers a conversation with Blizzard’s finance chief, who said Overwatch had to reach a specific revenue goal by 2020. He explained that the game would need to continue hitting certain financial targets each year after that, though the exact numbers weren’t shared.

He was warned that if the goals weren’t achieved, the company would have to cut a thousand jobs, and he would be held responsible.

Kaplan describes that experience as the most disrespectful moment of his professional life. He says it felt incredibly strange and unreal to be in that situation.

Having worked on many games, I often heard suggestions like, ‘Fortnite succeeds because it’s free-to-play and has a huge team – if we just do that, we’ll be successful too.’ I always thought my career would be at Blizzard, but those meetings made it clear it was time to leave.

It’s a lot to ask of any single person, so we understand why Kaplan is choosing to leave.

Earlier in the conversation, Kaplan mentioned that there was perhaps excessive hype surrounding the Overwatch League. This initiative aimed to establish a professional esports scene for the game, with teams potentially selling for millions of dollars.

In the end, the Overwatch development team wasn’t able to succeed. Their plans were too ambitious and ultimately fell apart.

Following the success of the original game – which earned $1 billion in its first year – there was a push to create a sequel, largely to maintain that financial success. There was significant pressure to continue the game’s strong performance.

Overwatch is recovering after the difficult start of Overwatch 2. Now just called Overwatch, the game is gradually regaining players, though it faced a lot of challenges for quite some time.

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2026-03-12 18:36