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Jeff Kaplan

What Jeff Kaplan thinks about video games

@jeff-kaplan · 29 positions · On ppll ↗

American game designer and director, for nineteen years at Blizzard as a World of Warcraft quest designer and then game director of Overwatch; now runs the independent studio Kintsugiyama.

Jeff Kaplan did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

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Only Jeff Kaplan on video games. See everyone on video games

13 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Jeff Kaplan has said — not written or endorsed by them.

  1. Our readingNot knowing what they were doing is why the World of Warcraft team succeeded, and being full of experts is why the Titan team failed.

    Their wordsAnd we failed horribly, and we had the best of the best on that team. And it’s because everybody was too much of an expert on how to make a groundbreaking phenomenon MMO.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 6th of 29 in this recording

  3. Our readingCrunch is wrong when it is imposed — an executive on a forty-hour week has no business telling anyone to stay late — but a person choosing long hours on their own life's work is not the same thing.

    Their wordsI don’t think executives who take off and work 40-hour weeks should be telling anybody to stay late. I think that’s wrong and immoral. But to me as an individual, as long as I’m not telling other people to do it, my life’s work is my passion and I want to do it as much as possible.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 7th of 29 in this recording

  5. Our readingOther players must be present in an online world but never compulsory: forcing interaction is what kept MMOs small, and letting people play alone is what made World of Warcraft enormous.

    Their wordsAnd what makes an MMO, massively multiplayer online game, massive is having the other people there. And they’re so important or else the world feels kind of wrong and dead. But the concept that we have to force you to interact with them to do anything is very off-putting to a lot of people.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 9th of 29 in this recording

  7. Our readingA live game has to be architected so it can be hotfixed on a dime; waiting for a client patch to fix what is broken is already too slow.

    Their wordsYou know, obviously, we patch our games and that’s where we fix a lot of bugs, but if you really wanna run a game like Overwatch or World of Warcraft successfully, you need master level engineers who have architected the client and server in such a way that you can hotfix the game on a dime.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 14th of 29 in this recording

  9. Our readingA game is at its best on the day it is pitched, and every day of development moves the real thing further from the imagined one.

    Their wordsWhen you come up with the idea and you start pitching it to people, that’s the best the game is ever gonna be, and then you work on it.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 15th of 29 in this recording

  11. Our readingA game must be incubated by the smallest possible group with whatever technology is to hand, and the team expanded only once the idea is proved.

    Their wordsThe right way to incubate a video game is you have the smallest group possible and you try to get the idea across with whatever technology you can get your hands on, using other engines, using art from whatever. You prove out that idea, and once you know what you’re doing, then you expand the team.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 19th of 29 in this recording

  13. Our readingThe best feature you can add for the player is shipping.

    Their wordsThe best feature we can add for the player is shipping.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 20th of 29 in this recording

  15. Our readingScope is a creative decision, not a production one: the game, art and tech directors have to do the cutting themselves.

    Their wordsThe mistake I see on a lot of game teams is scope becomes a production problem.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 21st of 29 in this recording

  17. Our readingPlayers say they want a fair match, but what they actually want is to be slightly better than the other side — and no matchmaker can deliver that.

    Their wordsAnd the reality of what they want is they want a match where they’re slightly better than the other guy.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 22nd of 29 in this recording

  19. Our readingOverwatch put too much weight on whether the team won; a hero shooter built today should foreground individual contribution, because that is how people actually play.

    Their wordsSo I would, if I was to redo it today, or for any aspiring hero shooter makers out there, I would actually downplay the team factor, and try to put more focus on individual contribution.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 23rd of 29 in this recording

  21. Our readingAlmost no game ever catches the wave, so a game that has caught one should be ridden to the end rather than paused to build its sequel.

    Their wordsThere’s this phrase of catch the wave, ride the wave. Most games fall off the back of the wave. They don’t catch the wave. No one plays it or plays it for two weeks.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 24th of 29 in this recording

  23. Our readingBreath of the Wild is the greatest game ever made: most games become best in their genre for getting one thing right, and it gets all of them right.

    Their wordsThere’s so many things that that game gets right that other games are lucky if they get one of those things right, and are… become best in their genre just for getting that one thing right. And Breath of the Wild does them all right and the best.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 26th of 29 in this recording

  25. Our readingSmall studios are the future of gaming: the genuinely new ideas come out of them, and the big studios acquire rather than generate them.

    Their wordsSmall studios are the future of gaming. The big studios basically acquire the small studios for new IP and ideas, and the small studios grow in. The really compelling, new, innovative ideas are gonna come out of small studios.

    ↗Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493youtube.com 29th of 29 in this recording