Tracy Kennedy, a current producer of Overwatch, said on twitter:
When the Overwatch directors resigned, they pointedly made comments about the company’s “cultural issues” in their goodbye speeches. The subtext was that ABK’s culture is at odds with our team’s culture, and that didn’t think they could fix it with the current leadership.
In response to Mike Ybarra (current leader of Blizzard) putting “change of leadership” down as the reasoning for the delays of OW2 & Diablo 4, Tracy said:
Of note is that the longer that cultural divide exists, the more we will lose extremely top tier talent and the more delayed all our games will be. Scapegoating OW2’s delay onto Chacko’s leaving was disingenuous
In response to a tweet about Jeff Kaplan, Tracy said:
The Kaplan I knew was a great guy who hated corporate BS and fought it until the bitter end. ABK’s corporate culture and business pressures to do things he felt would compromise the game or the devs. His philosophy was to shield us from it and that’s why we have the good team we do, but now the toxicity is quite public and many have left from the shock of it.
In short terms, directors like Chacko and - of course - Jeff Kaplan left because they disagreed with Activision’s “culture”.
https://twitter.com/dogspinster/status/1460683619228213248?s=20
https://twitter.com/dogspinster/status/1460685917245505537?s=20
48 Likes
Half sure Activision’s culture is basically a cult at this point
12 Likes
Jeff, Chacko and Julia left because of culture then. Chu as well most likely. He pursues high ideals, so if he caught the stench of something like this he would have left at his first sniff
I don’t know all the details, but I’m skewing towards Jeff Kaplan being an all round good guy.
23 Likes
I have not heard any negative about Jeff during all these debacles. Jeff is welcome to return if the culture changes in a good way. The only one who needs to leave at this point is the current CEO.
31 Likes
More than just him. But it’s a start and momentum will pick up.
6 Likes
I mean did people not connect the dots why the old devs have been leaving… or does this tweet just confirm it for them that still had doubts about them leaving the company
6 Likes
There’s no way that’s true. There was MASS harassment and yes, some enablers were let go but do not confuse that with the absolute scum of Blizzard being gone. The bottom-feeders are still around, surely.
People forget that Jeff is a big reason why we have a content drought in OW1 currently. People forget that he wasn’t that good at his job and OW1 became better balanced after he left and the stagnation allowed for smaller tweaks. Why do we need Jeff back when Jeff was responsible for Sigma 1.0, Brigitte 1.0, numerous patches just for OWL, etc. He’s also responsible for 2CP which is the most hated map-type and even people who like it can’t get a good experience because either a) the maps aren’t in comp or b) they’re plagued by leavers in QP. He kinda sucked and I’m surprised people remember him so fondly.
5 Likes
What is this… like the 200th time that staff has tried to oust Kotick? He’s never going to leave willingly and he’s made that abundantly clear.
2 Likes
Completely false. Jeff wasn’t the reason why there is a content drought in OW1. Since he’s gone, shouldn’t we be receiving more content? no.
2.) Overwatch being “Unbalance” wasn’t his fault. It’s a team effort to decide how to balance a game, not Jeff alone. Third, this game STILL has some heroes who are “unbalanced.”
6 Likes
Geoff goodman is responsible for characters. Jeff kaplan was responsible for his team lol.
10 Likes
Activision CEO is going nowhere unless the govt regulatory authority leave him no other choice but to resign .
2 Likes
Pretty sure this is why Alyssa Wong didn’t hang around all that long, too.
Sucks, man. And it seems like most of the rot is at the executive level (although, of course, the WoW team had their own issues).
There needs to be shareholder pressure on the board to remove the CEO. We also need to be supportive of the devs in their industrial action - even if that may mean further delays in new content.
4 Likes
Cause he is also responsible for ow1.
Also early wow content.
Tigole bitties was badass
2 Likes
He’s not ‘responisble for OW1’.
All I see in Jeff Kaplan is an average forum dude that got hired in an era where you could just post on a forum and get considered for a job, like ANYONE would take that seriously as a way to find a game director these days, and hire them with no prior experience in that position (without being laughed out of the room.)
He was put at the head of a team of talented people who all made something great because of their talent, resources, and capabilities - he didn’t make anything, a group of people made something together that no one of them can lay ownership of. As far as I’m aware it wasn’t even like Overwatch was his concept or idea, it was all from Project Titan which was 10 years in development prior to all of this.
Nothing gets my goat than mediocre men getting more credit than they deserve just because someone made them the figurehead of a project, eugh. Disgusting.
2 Likes
sounds like what the community needs is the firing and removal of the activision CEO and maybe some people from the wow and diablo teams then maybe we can get some of the overwatch team to come back
2 Likes
Uh oh…
It was super fishy when their “Hey look we’re being diverse and fair” co-head announced she’d be ceasing duties immediately and leaving…
Guess it was exactly what everyone was thinking.
That really sucks.
For all Kotick postured and claimed… He’s just as bad as those under him if not worse for covering it up willingly.
9 Likes
This is such a dumb take it’s out of this world. A lot of developers during that time were making mods for games, low level 3d levels and writing or crafting scenarios for guilds with game design in mind. They didn’t have youtube videos or schools back then or farming fields of talent like they do now. Jeff came in just like everyone else, he was just good at doing his job.
3 Likes
okay i guess that’s good… in a way, I was worried that Jeff left because of his envolement in stuff.
Holy crap, Michael Chu is gone too? Who’s even left???