{"id":541,"date":"2026-03-12T04:37:33","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T20:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/connectword.dpdns.org\/?p=541"},"modified":"2026-03-12T04:37:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T20:37:33","slug":"493-jeff-kaplan-world-of-warcraft-overwatch-blizzard-and-future-of-gaming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/connectword.dpdns.org\/?p=541","title":{"rendered":"#493 \u2013 Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeff Kaplan is a legendary Blizzard game designer of World of Warcraft and Overwatch, now preparing to launch a new game, The Legend of California, from his new studio Kintsugiyama \u2013 available to wishlist on Steam today, with alpha later in March.
\nThank you for listening \u2764 Check out our sponsors: https:\/\/lexfridman.com\/sponsors\/ep493-sc<\/a>
\nSee below for timestamps, and to give feedback, submit questions, contact Lex, etc.<\/p>\n

CONTACT LEX:<\/b>
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\nOther<\/b> \u2013 other ways to get in touch: https:\/\/lexfridman.com\/contact<\/a><\/p>\n

EPISODE LINKS:<\/b>
\nThe Legend of California (Steam Page): https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/app\/2550530\/The_Legend_of_California<\/a>
\nJeff\u2019s Game Studio: https:\/\/www.kintsugiyama.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

SPONSORS:<\/b>
\nTo support this podcast, check out our sponsors & get discounts:
\nFin:<\/b> AI agent for customer service.
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OUTLINE:<\/b>
\n(00:00) \u2013 Introduction
\n(02:24) \u2013 Sponsors, Comments, and Reflections
\n(10:47) \u2013 Early games: Pac-Man, Zork, Doom, Quake
\n(25:12) \u2013 Writing career \u2013 170 rejection letters
\n(40:45) \u2013 EverQuest obsession
\n(53:43) \u2013 Getting hired at Blizzard
\n(1:09:11) \u2013 Lowest point in Jeff\u2019s life
\n(1:15:16) \u2013 One of Us
\n(1:19:33) \u2013 Early Blizzard culture
\n(1:39:15) \u2013 Building World of Warcraft
\n(1:56:59) \u2013 How WoW changed video games
\n(2:14:21) \u2013 Single-player vs Multi-player
\n(2:35:15) \u2013 How Blizzard made great video games
\n(3:01:04) \u2013 Online toxicity
\n(3:08:38) \u2013 Why Titan failed
\n(3:25:48) \u2013 Overwatch in six weeks
\n(3:52:46) \u2013 Best Overwatch heroes
\n(4:01:16) \u2013 The challenge of matchmaking
\n(4:04:40) \u2013 Rust
\n(4:15:01) \u2013 Why Jeff left Blizzard
\n(4:37:14) \u2013 Diablo IV
\n(4:38:42) \u2013 Getting back to making video games
\n(4:47:38) \u2013 The Legend of California
\n(5:01:23) \u2013 Greatest video game of all time
\n(5:09:30) \u2013 AI and future of video games<\/p>\n

PODCAST LINKS:<\/b>
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\n\u2013 Podcast Playlist: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4<\/a>
\n\u2013 Clips Channel: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/lexclips<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeff Kaplan is a legendary Bli…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/connectword.dpdns.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/connectword.dpdns.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/connectword.dpdns.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connectword.dpdns.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connectword.dpdns.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/connectword.dpdns.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connectword.dpdns.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/connectword.dpdns.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connectword.dpdns.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connectword.dpdns.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}