"We're going to lay off 1,000 people and that's going to be on you": Ex-Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan says redundancy ultimatum led to his Blizzard exit

"That was conscionable the biggest ‘fuck you’ infinitesimal I had successful my career"

Former Overwatch manager Jeff Kaplan has said his 2021 departure from Blizzard followed an ultimatum astir redundancies which "ultimately broke" his resoluteness and led him towards the exit door. The developer frames that infinitesimal arsenic the culmination of a fig of pugnacious years moving connected the leader shooter, which included a 2018 propulsion into esports with the Overwatch League serving arsenic a drain connected resources for a squad who were besides trying to get Overwatch 2 disconnected the ground.

"Where it got distant from america is that determination was a batch of excitement astir Overwatch League, similar excessively overmuch and it got overmarketed to the radical buying the teams," Kaplan recalled successful an interrogation with Lex Fridman. "They were beauteous overmuch selling the Brooklyn Bridge, that Overwatch League was going to beryllium much fashionable than the NFL." Cue "billionaire investors" and a broadcasting rights woody with Twitch that enactment the onus connected Blizzard to present a clump of in-game features and additions for the archetypal Overwatch.

According to Kaplan, delivering the likes of Twitch integration, spectator camera controls, and a heap of Overwatch League squad skins not lone took up resources, but "huge method challenges". That near Blizzard's developers stretched thin, with Kaplan explaining; "all of your plans astatine that constituent benignant of spell retired the window. You’re not going to enactment connected caller satellite events. You’re not truly adjacent focused connected Overwatch 2, you’re conscionable benignant of treading water." "It was a large thought that the incorrect instincts...I don’t cognize however to operation this successful a mode that’s not damning, but determination was excessively overmuch absorption connected ‘let’s marque tons of wealth truly fast’, and a batch of radical got dragged into it," the developer summarised of the league, which folded successful 2024.

During Kaplan's past fewer years astatine Blizzard, though, it remained an albatross astir the Overwatch team's neck, with the overblown expectations for the league to marque slope fueling unit connected the devs to summation the magnitude of currency Overwatch and its sequel could rake in. That fed into the manager gradually losing the feeling of power implicit Overwatch's absorption backmost successful 2016 and 2017, with Overwatch League and Overwatch 2 muddying the waters.

According to Kaplan, the straw that broke the camel's backmost successful presumption of his tenure astatine Blizzard was a gathering with the company's CFO which saw him issued an ultimatum. "He gives maine a date, which astatine the clip was 2020 and was going to gaffe to 2021, but astatine the clip it was 2020," the developer recalled. "He said ‘Overwatch has to marque [a redacted magnitude of wealth owed to Kaplan's confidentiality statement with Blizzard] successful 2020 and past each twelvemonth aft that it needs a recurring gross of [a redacted magnitude of money]’. And past helium says to me, ‘if it doesn’t bash [a redacted magnitude of money] we’re going to laic disconnected 1,000 radical and that’s going to beryllium connected you’. That was conscionable the biggest ‘fuck you’ infinitesimal I had successful my career. It felt surreal to beryllium successful that condition.

"I virtually thought I would discontinue [at Blizzard]. I ne'er thought the time would come. That was it, I was like, ‘we’re done here’. Luckily for Blizzard, that CFO is nary longer there." While Kaplan didn't sanction the CFO, Dennis Durkin held that relation astatine Blizzard betwixt 2019 and May 2021 according to his LinkedIn profile, departing astatine the second constituent pursuing a 9 twelvemonth stint astatine the company. Armin Zerza subsequently took implicit arsenic Blizzard CFO from April 2021 to May 2025. Kaplan's departure from Blizzard was announced by the steadfast connected April 20th, 2021.

It's depressing, if not excessively surprising, to perceive that moneyfolks' insistence that important windfalls turn connected trees was down the Overwatch bid taking a dip from the stellar watermark it sailed astatine arsenic of its peak. That highest mightiness not person lasted everlastingly without the added complications of an esports league and a sequel, but it says a batch that Overwatch 2's been rebranded arsenic conscionable Overwatch this year, the latest determination successful a drawstring of glances backmost to much favourable leader shooty times