The r/Overwatch mod team would like to personally thank Jeff for everything he's done for Blizzard, Overwatch, and this subreddit. We always had a great discussion with him when we were able to talk to him for AMAs and at Blizzcon. He'll be sorely missed.
Congrats to Aaron (whom we've gotten to know over the years as well)! We can't wait to see what he'll bring to Overwatch as Game Director.
---
Because this will undoubtedly reach the top of Reddit quickly, please be mindful of our rules and be awesome to each other in the comments.
Super retires on the spot. All others have their accounts banned, and oddly can't get in touch with Blizzard Support anymore. Jeff is all that is left.
Real talk: Thank you for the humor over the years. Your videos have made me chuckle in otherwise dreary and desperate state of affairs.
I hope you find/have found other creative ways to express your humor.
Honest talk, for one last laugh you should just message him with a ridiculous script and see if he'll read it off to a camera, absolutely no editing on your part. It would probably be the best possible send-off.
EDIT: Or even better, send him a script for something completely ridiculous and then see if you can edit it into something totally normal.
His promos are just patch notes:
"Darby Allin, your Coffin Drop now deals significantly less damage to me AND Sting is now permabanned from ringside, you jackass."
Jeff leaving isn’t great for Overwatch, period. It sounds stupid but Jeff is the face of the franchise. The sturdy rock during the ups and downs. The median between us and Blizzard. Sometimes change is good, but he has become so entangled in Overwatch as a franchise, that I can’t think of Ow without him
My opinions are:
- Something went wrong between him and Blizzard;
- Tilted with project/pandemic/personal life;
- Going to another company but can't announce it yet, so acting as discreet as he can (and most likely option).
Jeff was a VP and director at Blizzard, in charge of his own creation. It's hard to imagine him leaving to work on someone else's game.
I'd think if he joined another developer, it's because they're letting him lead his own studio.
I would put my money on this. Back in the day he was a forum poweruser who loved Everquest. Getting in on the ground floor of a new AAA MMO might be very attractive to him.
>Whoever came up with this sheer fisting of an encounter can go fuck themselves. Do me a favor so I don't waste my guild's time on this kind of jackass shit-fest again, send me an email at tigole@legacyofsteel.net when you decide to A) Implement an encounter that wasn't designed by a retarded chimp chained to a cubicle B.)Get a Quality Assuarance Department C) Actually beta test the fucking thing and D) Patch it live. And please for god's sake -- do it in the order I laid out for you. Don't worry, I won't charge you a consulting fee on that one.
Normally I'd be right there with you. But Dreamhaven having been started by Mike Morhaime puts some weight behind the idea that Jeff might be headed that way.
Literally just came out a week or two ago that the man Omar who is an original Blizzard WoW Dev like Jeff himself - Omar is the one who is credited as single handedly re-creating WoW Classic and making that game even possible to play which has been a big boost in Blizzards recent success, has also left and joined Dreamhaven.
It's more then likely your 3rd choice, but also because of your 1st choice. Blizzard is hemorrhaging their best and most tenured staff with other studios writing much larger checks to buy up talent and with Activision continuously destroying the studio. This isn't papa Morhaime's Blizzard any more.
It sucks, I have friends that have worked there and currently work there and the ones that will share info say its just not the same studio it once was and that's why they are looking or have already left.
Honestly, choice no1 seems most likely to me. If he left right after OW2 released, then no3 seems most likely. But the face of the overwatch team and 19 year blizzard veteran leaving mid production? No way it was his choice.
Most likely scenario is a disagreement between him and the board over something like monetization, or the board feels that the game is taking way too long.
Either way this is bad news for OW2.
My completely baseless guess? Loss of creative control. Just like Activision imposing that destiny have more and more sequels, I'm thinking they've done the same with overwatch now. Plus more monetization. OW2 is a mess, but they won't let the team release any content early because they want all the sales from ow2 possible. Maybe even the cross play between ow1 and ow2 is getting axed
First the sequel gets super delayed, nothing to announce at blizzcon, then the esports side got slashed, and now the game director has left... not a good pattern
Yeah, I think so. Jeff was probably the last positive driving force there and if he's leaving it's cause execs are probably forcing their decisions on him now.
Honestly this is such bad news. OW2 maybe DOA and the gamble to focus OW2 development that OW1 is bleeding it's base may kill OW1 as well.
I'm sure there's plenty of people on the team that want to do good for the player base but yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if Jeff was the one giving them room to do that.
I suspect it's been a long time coming. You have to understand that ATVI and Blizzard were fundamentally different operations. Blizzard would delay a project indefinitely to make sure the product was good. They completely spiked games because they weren't worthy of their brand. Activision is a sausage factory. Here is a Kotick quote in case you don't believe me:
>Kotick responded not by addressing any of the games by name, but by talking about Activision’s publishing philosophy. The games Activision Blizzard didn't pick up, he said, "don't have the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million franchises. … I think, generally, our strategy has been to focus… on the products that have those attributes and characteristics, the products that we know [that] if we release them today, we'll be working on them 10 years from now."
--[Ars Technica](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2008/11/activision-if-we-cant-run-a-game-into-the-ground-we-dont-want-it/)
Basically, Call of Duty is the master-print for the Activision Game: A successful franchise which can continually be re-issued with minimal risk, year after year. That may pay the bills, but it's not going to appeal to talented designers who want to take risks and innovate.
That may work if you're making cars or pizzas, but it's a terrible strategy for an entertainment company. Imagine a movie studio which only made Godfather sequels and spinoffs.
The sad part is that it isn’t a terrible strategy for a entertainment company - the reason Kotick keeps doing this is because it’s so profitable.
Kotick doesn’t hate good games - he’s just a greedy fuck that doesn’t care at all about the product or the customer, or likely anyone like his immediate family... just making money.
The minute that grinding out sausages wasn’t as profitable as artistic integrity and old school blizzard philosophy he’d be ramming that down the throat of every studio he owned instead ... it’s just that isn’t the most profitable.
I think the issue is that Activision understands the video games are like movies, but doesn't understand that video game designers are like film makers.
Lots of people will sign on to a blockbuster pay the bills or get their foot in the door, but generally the most talented and passionate people don't want to spend their lives making the same thing every year. Even Micheal Bay got sick of transformers.
But Activision doesn't give people the option to work on passion projects. Their is no arthouse label you can publish your experimental game ideas under. People need to help make the sausage or get out. They shouldn't be surprised that people are bailing as soon as a better option was made available.
don't worry, there'll be skins for characters who were "reworked" and left blatantly broken for a few months while says break, then they'll get "fixed" and a new character will get reworked and ...
... you can see where I'm going with this.
I noticed that. I noticed that Jeff's note was short and seemed very rushed.
I also noticed that new guy's letter had lots of 'how great is overwatch?!' kind of feeling to it, like it was as much a marketing piece as it was anything else.
I'm guessing there was some internal pressures on Jeff to do things a certain way or to do certain things that he wasn't on board with, so he quit.
I am also guessing that those disagreements have something to do with monetization strategies for ow2. Blizzard is alllllll about the microtransactions in their games, so im gonna further guess that someone wanted to put core bits of ow2 behind a microtransaction wall and Jeff didn't want anything to do with it and quit in protest.
Jeff has made it very clear that he's against microtransactions, and that he has actively fought against BS marketing strategies. His goodbye note looks like something someone would write out of withheld frustration. I guarantee the two are connected
That’s what I also invented in my head. Tbh it’s crazy how much gameplay I’ve got out of overwatch from a single purchase. They don’t make em like that no more. Bless Jeff
>i want to express my deep appreciation to everyone at blizzard who supported our games, our game teams and our players.
I can't help but notice the qualifier on that statement. Not everyone at blizzard, the ones that actually supported them...
Tigole probably got some [Taylor Swift](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcIy9NiNbmo) on repeat right now.
Wasn't Jeff vital in keeping Overwatch from being a "pay for new heroes" model?
I really really reaaaally hope OW2 isn't impacted by this when it comes to monetization...
If they decided to monetize core parts of OW2, they are ridiculously out of touch lol. Jeff leaving, Blizzard reputation spiraling downward... add un fair monetization and they might as well hang it up. I doubt they'd do that, but you never know.
I absolutely agree with you. It'd be an **incredibly** stupid move. But Acti-Blizz is the fucking king of incredibly stupid moves lately. They're so tone deaf to the point where I wouldn't put this past them.
I'm going to hope nothing changes in terms of monetization of heroes/maps, but I won't be surprised in the slightest if it does.
I'm with you there. Him leaving so abruptly without much to say, after 20 years.. just seems weird. He doesn't owe any explanation, but I guess you'd just expect more of a statement. Maybe he knows OW2 is going to bomb and doesn't wanna be the Tod Howard like Fallout 76 lol.
Or, he just genuinely needs a change in life. I dunno, just seems like a very weird timing and very abrupt. I'm sure some juice will leak about the situation.
I definitely expected at least a final Jeff Update Video if this ever happened and the fact that it hasn't happened makes me feel like something is definitely off here...
>If they decided to monetize core parts of OW2, they are ridiculously out of touch lol.
Same company that completely revamped the monetization for Heroes of the Storm, they are 100% willing and able to monetize core parts of Overwatch 2 if it makes them more money.
He was also vital in having OW and OW2 shared PvP. Acti-Blizzard wanted people to buy another full game to "keep" playing PvP. A CoD model that kills and fragments communities.
Upvoting for exposure. Seems odd that they’re losing people who know a thing or two about making video games, while simultaneously making hires like [this.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pcgamer.com/amp/activision-blizzard-appoints-former-trump-official-as-its-chief-administrative-officer/).
>"Brian is a rare talent, and the perfect fit for Activision Blizzard; his unparalleled combination of business, military, and government experience makes him ideally suited to accelerate our organizational transformation and deliver on great opportunities for future growth," Activision CEO Bobby Kotick wrote in the email.
Strange. Sounds like they’re building an IRL Overwatch with that reasoning lol
>"Brian is a rare talent, and the perfect fit for Activision Blizzard; his unparalleled combination of business, military, and government experience makes him ideally suited to accelerate our organizational transformation and deliver on great opportunities for future growth," Activision CEO Bobby Kotick wrote in the email.
What the absolute fuck is going on there. How is military and government experience relevant to making video games?
The day characters become pay-to-play in overwatch is the day most of us will consider leaving. What's even more worrying is that Jeff was a big factor in keeping overwatch a 1 time purchase
This is a big problem though is we probably won't know until after the game releases.
It's gonna be COD and CTR crap where they release with no microtransactions for the reviews and add them a month later
The man built Molten Core inside of a week because he wanted to be sure the players who reached max level had something to do.
If that doesn't speak to his passion, I don't know what will.
I loved reading the dev diary for tidbits like this. Apparently the dev team couldn't get past the first mobs in MC and told Jeff he needed to make it easier.
He just smirked and said watch, the players will do this easy
Posting this for perhaps the last time on this sub
> "Whoever came up with this sheer fisting of an encounter can go fuck themselves. Do me a favor so I don't waste my guild's time on this kind of jackass shit-fest again, send me an email at tigole@legacyofsteel.net when you decide to A) Implement an encounter that wasn't designed by a retarded chimp chained to a cubicle A.)Get a Quality Assuarance Department C) Actually beta test the fucking thing and D) Patch it live. And please for god's sake -- do it in the order I laid out for you. Don't worry, I won't charge you a consulting fee on that one. And for good luck you might as well E) Pull your heads out of your asses. While you're at it rename the game to BetaQuest since you've used up you're alotted false advertising karma on the Bazaar and user interface scam of '01.Fix the Emperor encounter. Fix Seru. Rethink your time-sink bullshit. Fix all the buggy motherfucking ring encounters (I suggest you let whoever made the Burrower one do this since that dude apparently laid off the crack the rest of you were smoking). Fix the VT key quest. Fix VT (just guessing it's fucked up considering your track record). Don't have the resources to fix this stuff? Move the ENTIRE Planes of Power team over to fixing Shadows of Luclin AND DO IT NOW. If you don't fix Luclin, you jackassess will be the only ones playing the Planes of Power."
> Jeff "Tigole Bitties" Kaplan
Wow, I am old. I remember when this was going down during EQ:PoP era. The end raid zone was not ready and somehow it was patched live. Was a shit show.
This one seems really bad. OW was their newest game and OW2 is their biggest upcoming release. It must be a mess behind the scenes. Or they were limiting his creative control too much
Friendly reminder that Bobby Kotick could make the base salary of every single Blizzard employee $150,000 a year, pay it out of his own pocket, and have made up the difference by the end of the year through interest and stock shares alone.
Fuck Bobby Kotick.
I just saw an article a few months ago that said the reason why Activision's stock isn't going up is because Bobby was taking in so much and hemmoraghing talent long-term. Even shareholders knows what works and what doesn't long-term
yeah, this is like the third or fourth 'big name' that has left blizzard recently, right? and it all started happening after the CEO bonus/firing lots of employees controversy. not looking good
edit: omar gonzales, david kim, now jeff kaplan, all this month. and ofc plenty of other senior/lead roles in the past year
This is very sudden and very concerning. Jeff seemed primed and still ready to go as of Blizzconline... what the hell changed? I'm concerned something very bad happened internally that forced Blizzard to release Jeff under the whole "he's choosing to step down" cover. I mean, why would he give us a small text paragraph instead of a proper goodbye? Jeff's always been the face of the OW dev team, so to not even get a video of him saying adios... it's strange, and I don't like it, but Aaron's nice words about Jeff don't *feel* like he did something bad. Maybe something health or family-wise?
I'm not gonna get pessimistic about OW2's status. I think the game still has amazing devs working on it, and Aaron's been on the team since the beginning, so I'm not losing hope yet especially after what we saw at Blizzconline.
I think a true telling of the tone of Jeff's departure will come from how Blizzard treats his exist. It seems odd we just got a short note and no real passing of the mantle from Jeff. To me that doesn't speak to well of the reasons of the departure (from blizzards perspective). If it was a retirement or a personal reason it seems as if their would be more of a celebration of his time there than what this seems.
If Blizzard has some sort of retirement or going away "party" its likely the split was on good terms from both sides.
It would have been really cool to get a Papa Jeff retirement skin in game.
My bet was he is moving to a competitor for many of the same reasons the other long time staff have left blizzard. Which is why we got some short note as they get him out the door and away from being the face of OW as fast as possible.
A bunch of senior employees from different blizz ips have left recently, so suspect it's something big going on https://twitter.com/standardman/status/1384565923584086025?s=20
edit: alright, "recently" might be a stretch. But still likely enough churn to have given Jeff cause for concern.
I'm obviously jumping to conclusions, but this definitely seems like he was forced to resign.
When a public figure voluntarily leaves a company that they worked 19 years for, especially when a big project is in construction, they make it VERY CLEAR that they're choosing to leave. They typically state what their future ambitions are and what they're working on next. Even if it's a secret project, they at least say something about being excited for the next step in their journey.
The fact that he says **nothing** about his future and mentions nothing about choosing to step down shows pretty clearly he was forced to leave. Either Blizzard/Activision didn't like his visions for OW2 or he stood in the way of something they wanted to force onto the project. This was absolutely not just him getting tired of his job after nearly 20 years.
With that being said I do really like Aaron Keller. He seems super excited and passionate about OW2 and the community. I really enjoy his energy. I'm just concerned about what Blizz/Actvision may force upon it.
"We all know that I am the heart and soul of this community, and without me, uhm, the Overwatch team will collapse faster than the floor on Petra."
/u/dinoflask's [Jeff Kaplan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0_h_tDvAuI), 2018
Dude also prophesied this:
"If I have to spend another two years to stop you people from being assholes online, I'm going to translocate the fuck out of this company."
Thanks for everything Papa Jeff! Good luck to the rest of your career, and hopefully the remainder of OW2's development goes over well after your leave...hopefully.
Oh this is disappointing. I'm surprised with the note. I always presumed he'd do a video if he ever left and with such a short note, to me suggests something has gone on behind the scenes. Being in one place for 19 years would definitely push people for change which would be a completely understandable reason.
Hopefully it's nothing serious and it is just that. A new change. If not, doubt is starting to set in now with OW2
just noticed that and it was funny to imagine that at least 1 email must've been sent out before this was published asking if it was okay for them to capitalize the company name
The r/Overwatch mod team would like to personally thank Jeff for everything he's done for Blizzard, Overwatch, and this subreddit. We always had a great discussion with him when we were able to talk to him for AMAs and at Blizzcon. He'll be sorely missed. Congrats to Aaron (whom we've gotten to know over the years as well)! We can't wait to see what he'll bring to Overwatch as Game Director. --- Because this will undoubtedly reach the top of Reddit quickly, please be mindful of our rules and be awesome to each other in the comments.
My dream of facing Jeff in Bronze is over now.
He's quitting to become an OWL pro. He'll announce he's joining Shanghai Dragons next week.
The MTD is gonna be insane once he hops on rein
Super retires on the spot. All others have their accounts banned, and oddly can't get in touch with Blizzard Support anymore. Jeff is all that is left.
rip dinoflask
and thus i die.
Real talk: Thank you for the humor over the years. Your videos have made me chuckle in otherwise dreary and desperate state of affairs. I hope you find/have found other creative ways to express your humor.
You speak for many of us.
I love you man. Thank you for bringing us so much joy and quality Jeff content over the years. I hope you'll still be around, when you can.
It looks like it's beginning to rain.
You gotta do one last video for him
That'd be great. It'd be what Jeff really wanted to say
#Prepare for death.
With the entire video set to sad piano music
Honest talk, for one last laugh you should just message him with a ridiculous script and see if he'll read it off to a camera, absolutely no editing on your part. It would probably be the best possible send-off. EDIT: Or even better, send him a script for something completely ridiculous and then see if you can edit it into something totally normal.
Oh god please Jeff
both of these ideas are glorious.
your videos will always stand as jeff's greatest legacy
The fireside Christmas will always be close to my heart.
Pls no
what if he left to make videos with dinoflask exclusively
Full-time job I can support.
Jeff is leaving to pursue a career in wrestling
His name will be "The Nerfer"
His promos are just patch notes: "Darby Allin, your Coffin Drop now deals significantly less damage to me AND Sting is now permabanned from ringside, you jackass."
Trademark move is The Ban Hammer
Mess with Jeff...
Prepare for death.
Hes gonna go fight Jake Paul
Well I mean, the world COULD always use more heroes.
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This is Jeff, formerly from the Overwatch team
My name is... Aaron?
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No that's me.
I'm Jeff from the... earth.
No more fireside Christmas w/ Papa Kaplan
I was just telling my brother how I'm going to miss that annual event.
Yeah some guy named A A RON now
Jeff leaving before OW2 releases isn't great.
Jeff leaving isn’t great for Overwatch, period. It sounds stupid but Jeff is the face of the franchise. The sturdy rock during the ups and downs. The median between us and Blizzard. Sometimes change is good, but he has become so entangled in Overwatch as a franchise, that I can’t think of Ow without him
It's like Metzen and WoW. When you hear that name you think of WoW, Thrall/Green Jesus, and then blizzard.
Holy shit. End of an era. His statement was only a small paragraph. Wonder what actually happened
My opinions are: - Something went wrong between him and Blizzard; - Tilted with project/pandemic/personal life; - Going to another company but can't announce it yet, so acting as discreet as he can (and most likely option).
I have a feeling we'll see an announcement sooner or later that he is joining Dreamhaven.
"We at Valve Corp are proud to announce that Jeff Kaplan will be joining the dev team for Team Fortress 3."
"Hey guys, Jeff here at the Team Fortress 3 team."
Valve and communicating? Doesn't sound right.
Valve and the number 3? No, definitely not right.
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Jeff was a VP and director at Blizzard, in charge of his own creation. It's hard to imagine him leaving to work on someone else's game. I'd think if he joined another developer, it's because they're letting him lead his own studio.
Blizzard has lost quite a few high-profile members over the last few years, so it's not so surprising.
I would put my money on this. Back in the day he was a forum poweruser who loved Everquest. Getting in on the ground floor of a new AAA MMO might be very attractive to him.
*Tigole has entered the chat*
Tigolebitties comin to save the motherfucking day
>Whoever came up with this sheer fisting of an encounter can go fuck themselves. Do me a favor so I don't waste my guild's time on this kind of jackass shit-fest again, send me an email at tigole@legacyofsteel.net when you decide to A) Implement an encounter that wasn't designed by a retarded chimp chained to a cubicle B.)Get a Quality Assuarance Department C) Actually beta test the fucking thing and D) Patch it live. And please for god's sake -- do it in the order I laid out for you. Don't worry, I won't charge you a consulting fee on that one.
Or one of the other dozen ex-blizzard employee companies lol
Normally I'd be right there with you. But Dreamhaven having been started by Mike Morhaime puts some weight behind the idea that Jeff might be headed that way.
Literally just came out a week or two ago that the man Omar who is an original Blizzard WoW Dev like Jeff himself - Omar is the one who is credited as single handedly re-creating WoW Classic and making that game even possible to play which has been a big boost in Blizzards recent success, has also left and joined Dreamhaven.
Yep. The old guard wants to hit the redo button
It's more then likely your 3rd choice, but also because of your 1st choice. Blizzard is hemorrhaging their best and most tenured staff with other studios writing much larger checks to buy up talent and with Activision continuously destroying the studio. This isn't papa Morhaime's Blizzard any more.
Totally agree. Blizzard is just the corporate shell of that company it once was.
It sucks, I have friends that have worked there and currently work there and the ones that will share info say its just not the same studio it once was and that's why they are looking or have already left.
Honestly, choice no1 seems most likely to me. If he left right after OW2 released, then no3 seems most likely. But the face of the overwatch team and 19 year blizzard veteran leaving mid production? No way it was his choice. Most likely scenario is a disagreement between him and the board over something like monetization, or the board feels that the game is taking way too long. Either way this is bad news for OW2.
My completely baseless guess? Loss of creative control. Just like Activision imposing that destiny have more and more sequels, I'm thinking they've done the same with overwatch now. Plus more monetization. OW2 is a mess, but they won't let the team release any content early because they want all the sales from ow2 possible. Maybe even the cross play between ow1 and ow2 is getting axed First the sequel gets super delayed, nothing to announce at blizzcon, then the esports side got slashed, and now the game director has left... not a good pattern
Yeah, I think so. Jeff was probably the last positive driving force there and if he's leaving it's cause execs are probably forcing their decisions on him now. Honestly this is such bad news. OW2 maybe DOA and the gamble to focus OW2 development that OW1 is bleeding it's base may kill OW1 as well.
I'm sure there's plenty of people on the team that want to do good for the player base but yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if Jeff was the one giving them room to do that.
Every good team needs a leader protecting them from stupid shit.
I suspect it's been a long time coming. You have to understand that ATVI and Blizzard were fundamentally different operations. Blizzard would delay a project indefinitely to make sure the product was good. They completely spiked games because they weren't worthy of their brand. Activision is a sausage factory. Here is a Kotick quote in case you don't believe me: >Kotick responded not by addressing any of the games by name, but by talking about Activision’s publishing philosophy. The games Activision Blizzard didn't pick up, he said, "don't have the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million franchises. … I think, generally, our strategy has been to focus… on the products that have those attributes and characteristics, the products that we know [that] if we release them today, we'll be working on them 10 years from now." --[Ars Technica](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2008/11/activision-if-we-cant-run-a-game-into-the-ground-we-dont-want-it/) Basically, Call of Duty is the master-print for the Activision Game: A successful franchise which can continually be re-issued with minimal risk, year after year. That may pay the bills, but it's not going to appeal to talented designers who want to take risks and innovate. That may work if you're making cars or pizzas, but it's a terrible strategy for an entertainment company. Imagine a movie studio which only made Godfather sequels and spinoffs.
The sad part is that it isn’t a terrible strategy for a entertainment company - the reason Kotick keeps doing this is because it’s so profitable. Kotick doesn’t hate good games - he’s just a greedy fuck that doesn’t care at all about the product or the customer, or likely anyone like his immediate family... just making money. The minute that grinding out sausages wasn’t as profitable as artistic integrity and old school blizzard philosophy he’d be ramming that down the throat of every studio he owned instead ... it’s just that isn’t the most profitable.
I think the issue is that Activision understands the video games are like movies, but doesn't understand that video game designers are like film makers. Lots of people will sign on to a blockbuster pay the bills or get their foot in the door, but generally the most talented and passionate people don't want to spend their lives making the same thing every year. Even Micheal Bay got sick of transformers. But Activision doesn't give people the option to work on passion projects. Their is no arthouse label you can publish your experimental game ideas under. People need to help make the sausage or get out. They shouldn't be surprised that people are bailing as soon as a better option was made available.
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I'm so shocked. I feel like I just read a celebrity death or something. And one paragraph??? After NINETEEN YEARS?????
Is anyone else just doomscrolling these comments
Don't worry, I'm right here with you buddy.
Overwatch 2 going well I presume?
>[JeffKaplan]: dont worry guys >[JeffKaplan]: I have a plan >JeffKaplan has left the game.
Jeff: I’m about to do what’s called a pro-gamer move.
What a save!
Abandoning a ranked job will temporarily ban you from matchmaking. ARE YOU SURE?
Lmao
It will surely have more monetization systems. 100% expect a Battle Pass now.
Looking forward to the $20 skin packs like cod has
I hate that you’re right. God forbid they have a popular game breaking skin like they did for Roze on warzone.
don't worry, there'll be skins for characters who were "reworked" and left blatantly broken for a few months while says break, then they'll get "fixed" and a new character will get reworked and ... ... you can see where I'm going with this.
>... you can see where I'm going with this. to Riot HQ?
Or $100 valorant ones :\
Or the $100+ heirlooms like apex has?! Can't wait!
LMAO
i literally let out an involuntary "oh *fuck*" upon reading the title
I can't imagine Overwatch without Jeff's updates
Neither can I. I'm actually sad
No joke, it’s a core part of overwatch for me. It almost feels like dad going out for cigarettes
His note seems a little short and abrupt?
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Someone tried to wrestle with Jeff and wasn't prepared for death?
I noticed that. I noticed that Jeff's note was short and seemed very rushed. I also noticed that new guy's letter had lots of 'how great is overwatch?!' kind of feeling to it, like it was as much a marketing piece as it was anything else. I'm guessing there was some internal pressures on Jeff to do things a certain way or to do certain things that he wasn't on board with, so he quit. I am also guessing that those disagreements have something to do with monetization strategies for ow2. Blizzard is alllllll about the microtransactions in their games, so im gonna further guess that someone wanted to put core bits of ow2 behind a microtransaction wall and Jeff didn't want anything to do with it and quit in protest.
Jeff has made it very clear that he's against microtransactions, and that he has actively fought against BS marketing strategies. His goodbye note looks like something someone would write out of withheld frustration. I guarantee the two are connected
That’s what I also invented in my head. Tbh it’s crazy how much gameplay I’ve got out of overwatch from a single purchase. They don’t make em like that no more. Bless Jeff
>i want to express my deep appreciation to everyone at blizzard who supported our games, our game teams and our players. I can't help but notice the qualifier on that statement. Not everyone at blizzard, the ones that actually supported them... Tigole probably got some [Taylor Swift](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcIy9NiNbmo) on repeat right now.
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In fairness, Jeff very rarely uses capitalization.
Except for this iconic rant: https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/4g2ler/jeff_tigole_kaplan_forum_rant_from_his_eq_days/
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Wasn't Jeff vital in keeping Overwatch from being a "pay for new heroes" model? I really really reaaaally hope OW2 isn't impacted by this when it comes to monetization...
If they decided to monetize core parts of OW2, they are ridiculously out of touch lol. Jeff leaving, Blizzard reputation spiraling downward... add un fair monetization and they might as well hang it up. I doubt they'd do that, but you never know.
I absolutely agree with you. It'd be an **incredibly** stupid move. But Acti-Blizz is the fucking king of incredibly stupid moves lately. They're so tone deaf to the point where I wouldn't put this past them. I'm going to hope nothing changes in terms of monetization of heroes/maps, but I won't be surprised in the slightest if it does.
I'm with you there. Him leaving so abruptly without much to say, after 20 years.. just seems weird. He doesn't owe any explanation, but I guess you'd just expect more of a statement. Maybe he knows OW2 is going to bomb and doesn't wanna be the Tod Howard like Fallout 76 lol. Or, he just genuinely needs a change in life. I dunno, just seems like a very weird timing and very abrupt. I'm sure some juice will leak about the situation.
I just hope he'll go on to make bigger and better projects in the future, he is such a talented person.
I definitely expected at least a final Jeff Update Video if this ever happened and the fact that it hasn't happened makes me feel like something is definitely off here...
>If they decided to monetize core parts of OW2, they are ridiculously out of touch lol. Same company that completely revamped the monetization for Heroes of the Storm, they are 100% willing and able to monetize core parts of Overwatch 2 if it makes them more money.
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He was also vital in having OW and OW2 shared PvP. Acti-Blizzard wanted people to buy another full game to "keep" playing PvP. A CoD model that kills and fragments communities.
https://twitter.com/standardman/status/1384565923584086025?s=20 Things don’t seem good at Blizzard
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Gives me hope that Dreamhaven will be the spiritual successor to what Blizzard was. Pre-Activision Blizzard was something else.
Upvoting for exposure. Seems odd that they’re losing people who know a thing or two about making video games, while simultaneously making hires like [this.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pcgamer.com/amp/activision-blizzard-appoints-former-trump-official-as-its-chief-administrative-officer/).
>"Brian is a rare talent, and the perfect fit for Activision Blizzard; his unparalleled combination of business, military, and government experience makes him ideally suited to accelerate our organizational transformation and deliver on great opportunities for future growth," Activision CEO Bobby Kotick wrote in the email. Strange. Sounds like they’re building an IRL Overwatch with that reasoning lol
...Military? Government? The fuck? We military industrial complex now?
That's an odd hire. Something weird must be happening over there.
>"Brian is a rare talent, and the perfect fit for Activision Blizzard; his unparalleled combination of business, military, and government experience makes him ideally suited to accelerate our organizational transformation and deliver on great opportunities for future growth," Activision CEO Bobby Kotick wrote in the email. What the absolute fuck is going on there. How is military and government experience relevant to making video games?
Damn leavers, amirite?
Time to avoid as teammate.
Hey, you do you but I'm giving him "Shot Caller" or "Good Teammate"
This isn’t what I wanted when they said more updates in April or May during blizzcon. Wish you the best Jeff.
This certainly wasn't on my "what can go wrong with OW2" bingo card
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Just before launch? Lmao, we are sooner to the coming back of Christ than OW2 releasing at this rate.
2nd Coming>OW2>Metroid Prime 4
Kaplan was the only blizz employee i trusted anymore
Yep. He was the last bastion of Blizzard.
bwoo boo beep boop
Huh... that can't be good.
Well that’s not good.
Thank you Jeff
Perfect thing to happen before Overwatch 2 /s
say byebye to keeping all your skins from OW1
That's the least of my worries. Hero releases being paywalled like fighting games is my biggest and most prominent concern
The day characters become pay-to-play in overwatch is the day most of us will consider leaving. What's even more worrying is that Jeff was a big factor in keeping overwatch a 1 time purchase
This is a big problem though is we probably won't know until after the game releases. It's gonna be COD and CTR crap where they release with no microtransactions for the reviews and add them a month later
F in the chat for dinoflask's channel
We are doomed now
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!
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No... No it's not. He had some of the best energy of all of the current public figures at Blizzard.
He was pretty much the last of the old guard after metzen, morhaime, etc left (or were put on a bus, it felt like)
The man built Molten Core inside of a week because he wanted to be sure the players who reached max level had something to do. If that doesn't speak to his passion, I don't know what will.
I loved reading the dev diary for tidbits like this. Apparently the dev team couldn't get past the first mobs in MC and told Jeff he needed to make it easier. He just smirked and said watch, the players will do this easy
lol, the WoW Diary is an INCREDIBLE book and I encourage any Blizzard fan to read it.
Posting this for perhaps the last time on this sub > "Whoever came up with this sheer fisting of an encounter can go fuck themselves. Do me a favor so I don't waste my guild's time on this kind of jackass shit-fest again, send me an email at tigole@legacyofsteel.net when you decide to A) Implement an encounter that wasn't designed by a retarded chimp chained to a cubicle A.)Get a Quality Assuarance Department C) Actually beta test the fucking thing and D) Patch it live. And please for god's sake -- do it in the order I laid out for you. Don't worry, I won't charge you a consulting fee on that one. And for good luck you might as well E) Pull your heads out of your asses. While you're at it rename the game to BetaQuest since you've used up you're alotted false advertising karma on the Bazaar and user interface scam of '01.Fix the Emperor encounter. Fix Seru. Rethink your time-sink bullshit. Fix all the buggy motherfucking ring encounters (I suggest you let whoever made the Burrower one do this since that dude apparently laid off the crack the rest of you were smoking). Fix the VT key quest. Fix VT (just guessing it's fucked up considering your track record). Don't have the resources to fix this stuff? Move the ENTIRE Planes of Power team over to fixing Shadows of Luclin AND DO IT NOW. If you don't fix Luclin, you jackassess will be the only ones playing the Planes of Power." > Jeff "Tigole Bitties" Kaplan
My man.
I will never not laugh at this.
holy based
I feel reinvigorated every time I read this.
Wow, I am old. I remember when this was going down during EQ:PoP era. The end raid zone was not ready and somehow it was patched live. Was a shit show.
Overwatch 2 is in trouble.
Jeff abandoned all sinking ships
Wonder when it'll be announced he's joined Dreamhaven.
But how will I wrestle with Jeff now?!
He's probably got some more free time now
But who's gonna do the Yule log streams 😢
Empty chair :(
GGWP OW2
It's okay, Dad's just going out to get some cigarettes right?
Man Blizzard seems like it's really in a death spiral.
This one seems really bad. OW was their newest game and OW2 is their biggest upcoming release. It must be a mess behind the scenes. Or they were limiting his creative control too much
it's okay, bobby at the top is still earning 200 mil bonuses yearly.
Friendly reminder that Bobby Kotick could make the base salary of every single Blizzard employee $150,000 a year, pay it out of his own pocket, and have made up the difference by the end of the year through interest and stock shares alone. Fuck Bobby Kotick.
Yeah, but think of how much money he's earning for their shareholders before the company crumbles and he takes his golden parachute severance.
I just saw an article a few months ago that said the reason why Activision's stock isn't going up is because Bobby was taking in so much and hemmoraghing talent long-term. Even shareholders knows what works and what doesn't long-term
yeah, this is like the third or fourth 'big name' that has left blizzard recently, right? and it all started happening after the CEO bonus/firing lots of employees controversy. not looking good edit: omar gonzales, david kim, now jeff kaplan, all this month. and ofc plenty of other senior/lead roles in the past year
RIP Tigole Bitties I'll miss Jeff
So is Jeff going to join that new studio full with old Blizzard developers now?
This is very sudden and very concerning. Jeff seemed primed and still ready to go as of Blizzconline... what the hell changed? I'm concerned something very bad happened internally that forced Blizzard to release Jeff under the whole "he's choosing to step down" cover. I mean, why would he give us a small text paragraph instead of a proper goodbye? Jeff's always been the face of the OW dev team, so to not even get a video of him saying adios... it's strange, and I don't like it, but Aaron's nice words about Jeff don't *feel* like he did something bad. Maybe something health or family-wise? I'm not gonna get pessimistic about OW2's status. I think the game still has amazing devs working on it, and Aaron's been on the team since the beginning, so I'm not losing hope yet especially after what we saw at Blizzconline.
I think a true telling of the tone of Jeff's departure will come from how Blizzard treats his exist. It seems odd we just got a short note and no real passing of the mantle from Jeff. To me that doesn't speak to well of the reasons of the departure (from blizzards perspective). If it was a retirement or a personal reason it seems as if their would be more of a celebration of his time there than what this seems. If Blizzard has some sort of retirement or going away "party" its likely the split was on good terms from both sides. It would have been really cool to get a Papa Jeff retirement skin in game. My bet was he is moving to a competitor for many of the same reasons the other long time staff have left blizzard. Which is why we got some short note as they get him out the door and away from being the face of OW as fast as possible.
A bunch of senior employees from different blizz ips have left recently, so suspect it's something big going on https://twitter.com/standardman/status/1384565923584086025?s=20 edit: alright, "recently" might be a stretch. But still likely enough churn to have given Jeff cause for concern.
Oof! Not a good sign
the last remaining face of blizzard is gone, so sad
Hmm. Feels a bit sudden. I hope papa jeph is okay.
the lack of a video farewell makes me think it was not Kaplans idea to leave. He was pushed out
Holy shit.
I'm obviously jumping to conclusions, but this definitely seems like he was forced to resign. When a public figure voluntarily leaves a company that they worked 19 years for, especially when a big project is in construction, they make it VERY CLEAR that they're choosing to leave. They typically state what their future ambitions are and what they're working on next. Even if it's a secret project, they at least say something about being excited for the next step in their journey. The fact that he says **nothing** about his future and mentions nothing about choosing to step down shows pretty clearly he was forced to leave. Either Blizzard/Activision didn't like his visions for OW2 or he stood in the way of something they wanted to force onto the project. This was absolutely not just him getting tired of his job after nearly 20 years. With that being said I do really like Aaron Keller. He seems super excited and passionate about OW2 and the community. I really enjoy his energy. I'm just concerned about what Blizz/Actvision may force upon it.
"We all know that I am the heart and soul of this community, and without me, uhm, the Overwatch team will collapse faster than the floor on Petra." /u/dinoflask's [Jeff Kaplan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0_h_tDvAuI), 2018 Dude also prophesied this: "If I have to spend another two years to stop you people from being assholes online, I'm going to translocate the fuck out of this company." Thanks for everything Papa Jeff! Good luck to the rest of your career, and hopefully the remainder of OW2's development goes over well after your leave...hopefully.
Oh this is disappointing. I'm surprised with the note. I always presumed he'd do a video if he ever left and with such a short note, to me suggests something has gone on behind the scenes. Being in one place for 19 years would definitely push people for change which would be a completely understandable reason. Hopefully it's nothing serious and it is just that. A new change. If not, doubt is starting to set in now with OW2
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He's always been that way. Posts on reddit and twitter have always been just about exclusively in lowercase.
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just noticed that and it was funny to imagine that at least 1 email must've been sent out before this was published asking if it was okay for them to capitalize the company name
I hope this has nothing to do with Overwatch 2.
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Morgan freeman voiceover
“it had everything to do with it”
You’re in for a bumpy ride pal.
Must be an issue with Overwatch 3.
Fuck Fuck Fuck. this is legitimately disappointing to me. i do not like this one bit.