Jeff Kaplan spent nearly two decades at Blizzard Entertainment , rising to the position of vice president while contributing to World of Warcraft as a core designer.
He later became one of the most recognizable figures behind Overwatch , serving as its lead director and public face. In a recent interview with Gamespot , the veteran game designer reflected on the challenges of moving from a major AAA developer to running an independent studio, describing the experience as “humbling. Like, think of World of Warcraft and Overwatch and the levels of success that those games have had. “You go from that success to essentially having the reset button pushed on you. It makes you realize that there’s a lot of managing up and people using you as a means to an end. “It’s a little weird to me that people aren’t returning my emails, you know? I’m like, ‘I made you a billion dollars. You’d think you’d return my email,’ you know?
However, Kaplan left Blizzard in 2021 to pursue independent game development, eventually establishing his own studio, Kintsugiyama. “It’s very humbling because… you go from a lot of success.
Also the level of success that I enjoyed personally in my career being associated with those games,” Kaplan told Gamespot. You start completely from square one, at the bottom of the mountain,” he said. Kaplan reflected on the situation through a “glass half-empty, glass half-full” perspective, explaining that he prefers to focus on the positive side of the experience. He said, “The half-full version of it, which I really enjoy, is it shows you where truth is, it shows you where loyalty is, it shows you people’s true nature. But hey, whatever,” he said.
