{"id":91179,"date":"2026-10-14T12:34:55","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T16:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=91179"},"modified":"2026-10-14T13:44:43","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T17:44:43","slug":"ex-overwatch-director-jeff-kaplan-says-he-never-wanted-the-spotlight-but-the-game-needed-a-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=91179","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Overwatch Director Jeff Kaplan Says He Never Wanted The Spotlight, But The Game Needed A Face\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Being the face of a video game is a demanding role, as the people who step into these positions involved in these roles often find themselves on the receiving end of a lot of toxicity. Former Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan knows this all too well, as he promoted the hero shooter for several years and regularly interacted with its fans&#8211;albeit at a &#8220;personal cost.&#8221;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/articles\/former-overwatch-boss-describes-f-k-you-moment-that-led-to-blizzard-exit\/1100-6538752\/\">\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/articles\/former-overwatch-boss-describes-f-k-you-moment-that-led-to-blizzard-exit\/1100-6538752\/\">After leaving Blizzard Entertainment<\/a> in 2021, Kaplan has been quietly working on<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/articles\/overwatch-vets-new-game-the-legend-of-california-wont-starve-the-player-early-on\/1100-6538772\/\"> The Legend of California<\/a>, the in-development game at his new studio, Kintsugiyama. Reflecting on his time as the face of Overwatch, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/articles\/jeff-kaplan-was-an-industry-icon-now-peers-ignore-his-emails-ex-overwatch-director-talks-humbling-reality-of-indie-dev\/?_thumbnail_id=1918870\">Kaplan spoke to GameSpot<\/a> about how Overwatch needed someone to fill that role. For Kaplan, this was part of Overwatch&#8217;s growth and continued existence, and he felt it was needed at the time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;This is going to sound ridiculous, but I&#8217;m not someone who likes attention,&#8221; Kaplan said of his time in the public-facing position. &#8220;I&#8217;m not much of an extrovert. I don&#8217;t have a heavy social media presence. And so, a lot of me putting myself out there when I was at Blizzard was sort of to serve my game and my team&#8211;doing a job and a role.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Overwatch&#8211;and Blizzard as<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Being the face of a video game is a demanding role, as the people who step into these positions involved in these roles often find themselves on the receiving end of a lot of toxicity. Former Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan knows this all too well, as he promoted the hero shooter for several years&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":91181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-external"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91179"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=91179"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91182,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91179\/revisions\/91182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/91181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=91179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=91179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=91179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}