Jeff Kaplan Leaving Blizzard - New Leadership for Overwatch

[Zenfoldor]

100% true. The "greedy game dev" memes being all about EA is a bit off given how horrendously bad Actiblizzion is. EA is greedy, we all know that, but like you said they've given their studios space in some areas. Jedi: Fallen Order is a good example of a game from them that wasn't destroyed by greed.

It Takes Two is another super great game EA published that just came out. It really is just super great, better than 90% of other games at least, and a totally epic artistic project.

[Gurluas]

Even Papa Jeff? Blizzard truly is lost

[Zorachus]

I won't say WoW is dying, it's not. It's still the #1 most successful MMO on the market by far, with still no real competition. But...it seems all the smart experienced and talented people that made WoW great are leaving, and the game will be left in lesser hands more newb developers, meaning cheaper employees and less of a budget.

I think Blizzard will just keep this trend going, cheapening the development team, cutting costs behind the scenes, until it gets so bad that sales tank and subs start leaving in droves. But they're not at that point yet. WoW has such a devoted following, they can easily squeeze out another mediocre generic expansion like Shadowlands and still make good money. It will be like 2 expansions from now, they might finally see a massive drop in subs. But that's only if they don't make another excellent expansion, then they'll go on for another decade.

[vsb]

So here goes last chance of WoW being resurrected. The only person capable of it has left.

[GnomeEU]

I love how people act when someone decides to change jobs. Like... Do everyone in your life stay at the same job forever? No one I know have worked at the same place their entire life. 19 years is a long time and just proves how much he wanted to stay for so long, not the opposite,.

Avg time at Google is just 3 years or something.
19 years is an eternity in the same job.
Most ppl I know quit way earlier.

I don't believe in the new studio until they deliver a great game. Because this is like the 10th ex Blizzard studio.

Most of the guys that made the great Blizzard games we loved are retired long ago.
What would you do after you become rich from your game?
I would retire after 10 to 20 years.

[Austilias]

Does Blizzard have any talent or experienced devs left?

Doubtful at this point.

[Zenfoldor]

I won't say WoW is dying, it's not. It's still the #1 most successful MMO on the market by far, with still no real competition. But...it seems all the smart experienced and talented people that made WoW great are leaving, and the game will be left in lesser hands more newb developers, meaning cheaper employees and less of a budget.

I think Blizzard will just keep this trend going, cheapening the development team, cutting costs behind the scenes, until it gets so bad that sales tank and subs start leaving in droves. But they're not at that point yet. WoW has such a devoted following, they can easily squeeze out another mediocre generic expansion like Shadowlands and still make good money. It will be like 2 expansions from now, they might finally see a massive drop in subs. But that's only if they don't make another excellent expansion, then they'll go on for another decade.

Well, WoW could continue on auto-pilot for a few years and I don't think many people would notice. I think they set their template with Legion and I suspect they might continue to carry that forward. I don't expect any giant innovations coming WoW's way, but I could be wrong.

I think they rolled in Vicarious Visions recently to make sure that Diablo 2 Remake ends up being great, which it should. Beyond that though, I'm personally not very optimistic.

[ro9ue]

Do you honestly believe it was his decision to make ow2? Seriously get a grip

When he announced OW2, I stop following him. What a money grab move...

From the perspective of someone who played Destiny 2 and followed their updates before and after the split from Activision... I have a feeling the sequel thing is being forced on OW. After the Destiny devs left Activision they said it was a part of their 'deal' with Activision to make a Destiny 1 2 3 because they like the Call of Duty model of huge financial windfalls every release. Once they broke off they immediately became transparent about that and said they're never making a Destiny 3 because they didn't want to segment the playerbase.

I guarantee the same thing happened with OW/OW2, and it was probably a huge uphill battle just to get them to agree to let players who still only have OW1 continue to play with all of the OW2 updates and with the players who bought the sequel.

Jeff is a long time MMO guy and probably understands the value of keeping everyones's investment in the game intact. It would be entirely speculative to say this is the reason but I'm a speculator and I think given the info from Bungie and the Activision investor calls of basically holding up CoD as the gold standard of their financial success, I don't think it's too far off.

[glowpipe]

Is it confirmed he's going to Dreamhaven? He was both a VP and game director at Blizzard, working on his own brainchild at that. It's hard to imagine him moving to another developer unless he can head up his own studio and projects.

Nothing confirmed that i know of. But it does look like Dreamhaven is working hard towards poaching old blizzard members and Jeff just quiting his job now when he has been working long on OW and OW2, which would probably give him a rather hefty bonus when released in not too long. I would say he either got a really good deal with another company, or things are really really bad at actiblizz

[Diatribe]

We all know they're all biding their time before they rejoin their friends that have left already. That whole non compete clause I'm sure must be met first.

[MrPaladinGuy]

Might as well call this New Blizzard

[GnomeEU]

Well, WoW could continue on auto-pilot for a few years and I don't think many people would notice. I think they set their template with Legion and I suspect they might continue to carry that forward. I don't expect any giant innovations coming WoW's way, but I could be wrong.

I think they rolled in Vicarious Visions recently to make sure that Diablo 2 Remake ends up being great, which it should. Beyond that though, I'm personally not very optimistic.

I agree.
Altho I'm not sure what to expect of a d2 remake.
The game has like 10 hours of content.

The game is literally, beat 3 and a half act.
Uhm beat it again.
Beat it... Again.
OK u did everything the game has to offer, congrats.

Meanwhile in a few years path of exile they added 10 acts. 160 maps. Hundred of unique bosses. Superbosses. Tons of single player challenges.

While Blizzard thinks. Ok 3 acts is fine after that here's some random rifts, have fun! Blizzard is lazy af when it comes to Diablo games.

And I wish blizzard would add more fixed difficulty content.. In diablo and mythic plus. Adding 10% hp and 10% monster dmg per lvl (mythic+, GR) keeps me interested for exactly one week before I quit a game.

[ro9ue]

I won't say WoW is dying, it's not. It's still the #1 most successful MMO on the market by far, with still no real competition. But...it seems all the smart experienced and talented people that made WoW great are leaving, and the game will be left in lesser hands more newb developers, meaning cheaper employees and less of a budget.

WoW has a long life ahead of it. EverQuest still lives. But I don't necessarily think the bolded part is true anymore. FF14 is right on its heels now and as WoW trends downward FF14 seems to be trending upward.

[BetrayedOf52]

I always liked him, more than metzen or anyone at blizzard for that matter. He just seemed like a super genuine guy, and his Christmas fire log video always gave me a good laugh.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Fuckin doomsayers in this thread, lol. I know losing jeff is bad since he was such a long member of blizzard but people make it sound like the world explodes.

Won't be any different from the other departures, people just like to burp the same inane shit each time but never have their doomspeak pay out it seems.

He hasn't been involved on anything that interests me for the past 10 years, so can't say I'm distressed as far as my titles go. Overwatch being forced into releasing an uninspired sequel would be my time to cut and run too, if I wasn't financially reliant on the employment.

- - - Updated - - -

I won't say WoW is dying, it's not. It's still the #1 most successful MMO on the market by far, with still no real competition. But...it seems all the smart experienced and talented people that made WoW great are leaving, and the game will be left in lesser hands more newb developers, meaning cheaper employees and less of a budget.

.

Yet they hired more developers as of SL and increased the budget.

They can't on one hand be hungry for money and on the other do shit that'd go in direct contrast with making money from the title, which cutting corners and development in WoW, achieves. WoD being a prime warning example. We haven't yet seen what SL's performance is like, but the long release patch alone could hurt their numbers even though there is to be another patch. There is that little fact of the pandemic to consider though.


It's 1 guy leaving. 1 guy that's been on other titles. If it were 50 or more from the WoW team walking out, I'd be concerned. As it stands, I'm not concerned for the game's future life, only my own future enjoyment of it if they continue with the design choices as of late. But that's me.

- - - Updated - - -

So here goes last chance of WoW being resurrected. The only person capable of it has left.

Something needs to be dead and gone in order to be resurrected.

Learn words hard.

[Cæli]

no wonder that wow looks so different. they probably hired a new set of devs that don't get the feel of the artstyle of wow. but the meme about fans are true, some would defend blizzard even if everything before wod never happened.

[Daedius]

Nothing lasts forever. Blizzard's a husk with Bobby riding on its back dragging it through the dirt to its once good name.

Got my eyes on Dream Haven though!

[GreenJesus]

I won't say WoW is dying, it's not. It's still the #1 most successful MMO on the market by far, with still no real competition. But...it seems all the smart experienced and talented people that made WoW great are leaving, and the game will be left in lesser hands more newb developers, meaning cheaper employees and less of a budget.

I think Blizzard will just keep this trend going, cheapening the development team, cutting costs behind the scenes, until it gets so bad that sales tank and subs start leaving in droves. But they're not at that point yet. WoW has such a devoted following, they can easily squeeze out another mediocre generic expansion like Shadowlands and still make good money. It will be like 2 expansions from now, they might finally see a massive drop in subs. But that's only if they don't make another excellent expansion, then they'll go on for another decade.

Jeff Kaplan hasn't been on the wow team for like at least 5 years now.

[Ulfric Trumpcloak]

Very exciting news for the future of gaming, and bad for the future of Blizzard games. Won't be long before all the talent departs.

[iloveplanets]

Nothing lasts forever. Blizzard's a husk with Bobby riding on its back dragging it through the dirt to its once good name.

Got my eyes on Dream Haven though!

Yeah people have said that since Cataclysm. Keep dreaming.