Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493

target acquired

I had to do a double take when I saw this in my feed. What the hell. Awesome

Hi this is Jeff from the Overwatch team.

DAD'S BACK FROM GETTING THE MILK

wtf this came out of nowhere

Jeff meeting his wife in Everquest is crazy and finding Blizzard through his guild leader is insane

I remember Jeff as Tigole, The Milkman of Norrath. He was later our guild leader in LOS. I have not played with a more selfless, just straight up good dude. He didn't get upset when I gave away all my raid resist gear to newbies for a trick or treat Halloween event. In fact he helped. He spent hours going around zones passing out milk to other players. It's good to see him on here and doing well, some 27ish years after we first played together. Thanks for the memories brother! - The Man in the Purple Pants.

Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridman.com/sponsors/ep493-sa See below for timestamps, transcript, and to give feedback, submit questions, contact Lex, etc. 0:00 - Episode highlight 1:27 - Introduction 4:07 - Early games: Pac-Man, Zork, Doom, Quake 18:33 - Writing career - 170 rejection letters 34:06 - EverQuest obsession 47:04 - Getting hired at Blizzard 1:02:32 - Lowest point in Jeff's life 1:08:37 - One of Us 1:12:54 - Early Blizzard culture 1:32:36 - Building World of Warcraft 1:50:20 - How WoW changed video games 2:07:42 - Single-player vs Multi-player 2:28:35 - How Blizzard made great video games 2:54:25 - Online toxicity 3:01:59 - Why Titan failed 3:19:09 - Overwatch in six weeks 3:46:07 - Best Overwatch heroes 3:54:37 - The challenge of matchmaking 3:58:01 - Rust 4:08:22 - Why Jeff left Blizzard 4:30:35 - Diablo IV 4:32:03 - Getting back to making video games 4:40:59 - The Legend of California 4:54:44 - Greatest video game of all time 5:02:51 - AI and future of video games *Transcript:* https://lexfridman.com/jeff-kaplan-transcript *CONTACT LEX:* *Feedback* - give feedback to Lex: https://lexfridman.com/survey *AMA* - submit questions, videos or call-in: https://lexfridman.com/ama *Hiring* - join our team: https://lexfridman.com/hiring *Other* - other ways to get in touch: https://lexfridman.com/contact *EPISODE LINKS:* The Legend of California (Steam Page): https://store.steampowered.com/app/2550530/The_Legend_of_California Jeff's Game Studio: https://www.kintsugiyama.com/ *SPONSORS:* To support this podcast, check out our sponsors & get discounts: *Fin:* AI agent for customer service. Go to https://lexfridman.com/s/fin-ep493-sa *Blitzy:* AI agent for large enterprise codebases. Go to https://lexfridman.com/s/blitzy-ep493-sa *BetterHelp:* Online therapy and counseling. Go to https://lexfridman.com/s/betterhelp-ep493-sa *Shopify:* Sell stuff online. Go to https://lexfridman.com/s/shopify-ep493-sa *CodeRabbit:* AI-powered code reviews. Go to https://lexfridman.com/s/coderabbit-ep493-sa *Perplexity:* AI-powered answer engine. Go to https://lexfridman.com/s/perplexity-ep493-sa

Being a teenager, WoW was since release my escapism and therapy dealing with many problems at home, taking care of my mum. Now at 38, I will always be greatful and will never forget many of my best moments in life playing vanilla wow . The creation of a character (Nathrezim EU) with the epic intro, questing in Elwynn Forest, the music, the people I met and then the first dungeon, the deadmines and the long, exciting journey to lvl 60. The possibility of walking from Stormwind till Undercity, or taking a flight to Ironforge over those gorgeous lands, the day and night shift, spending time with players for hours in a tavern, not caring about time or "progress" and the abundance of possible things one could do, where everyone was new and didnt know "what's behind that hill". Thank you Jeff, thank you old Blizzard, you saved me from harm, it might sound weird, but you rly did. To me you're super heroes.

I laughed, I cried, I didn’t want these 5.5 hours to end. Thank you, Jeff, and Lex.