Former Overwatch director claims Blizzard ordered him to meet revenue goals or be "responsible" for 1,000+ job losses

Jeff Kaplan, the former Overwatch lead who left Blizzard in 2021, has revealed that the catalyst for his departure was being given an ultimatum to “make sure Overwatch meets certain revenue goals, or 1,000 developers would lose their jobs.”

The details:

• In a new interview with Lex Fridman, Kaplan shared that the Overwatch League, Blizzard’s now-defunct franchised esports circuit, put a major strain on the game’s development team and pulled away much-needed resources. “In 2016 and 2017 I felt very in control of the Overwatch team and of the game as a game director, working with Ray Gresko as the production director,” Kaplan explained. “It felt like we were running Overwatch, and we were very, very successful, and doing a good job, and I think the fans were happy. And then as we transitioned, Overwatch League was the best intention—my parents always say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions; that was the Overwatch League—and it ended up being an albatross. And then Overwatch 2 was the same thing.”
• However, Kaplan noted that the final straw that marked the end of his 19-year career at the company was when he was presented with an ultimatum that would’ve placed the blame for a wave of mass layoffs on him as a director. “What ultimately broke me in my Blizzard career was I got called into the CFO’s office. And he sits me down, and he gives me a date, which at the time was 2020 and was going to slip to 2021, but at the time it was 2020,” the director shared. “He said, ‘Overwatch has to make $[redacted] in 2020. And then every year after that it needs a recurring revenue of $[redacted]. And then he says to me, "If it doesn’t do $[redacted], we’re going to lay off 1,000 people, and that’s going to be on you."
• Kaplan went on to explain how the Overwatch League made creating Overwatch 2 and delivering tasks more difficult despite beginning as a good idea on paper, as team owners pushed to make returns on their investments. “Originally, the business model was going to be that they were going to do in-person events, and there were going to be big ticket sales, and then merch and all of that,” he said. “And I think really quickly everybody learned we can’t do in-game events when you have a London team and a Shanghai team. How does this work? So that fell apart super quickly.”