#493 – Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming
March 11, 2026
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Show notes
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 – available to wishlist on Steam today, with alpha later in March.
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Transcript:
https://lexfridman.com/jeff-kaplan-transcript
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EPISODE LINKS:
The Legend of California (Steam Page): https://store.steampowered.com/app/2550530/The_Legend_of_California
Jeff’s Game Studio: https://www.kintsugiyama.com/
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OUTLINE:
() – Introduction
() – Sponsors, Comments, and Reflections
() – Early games: Pac-Man, Zork, Doom, Quake
() – Writing career – 170 rejection letters
() – EverQuest obsession
() – Getting hired at Blizzard
() – Lowest point in Jeff’s life
() – One of Us
() – Early Blizzard culture
() – Building World of Warcraft
() – How WoW changed video games
() – Single-player vs Multi-player
() – How Blizzard made great video games
() – Online toxicity
() – Why Titan failed
() – Overwatch in six weeks
() – Best Overwatch heroes
() – The challenge of matchmaking
() – Rust
() – Why Jeff left Blizzard
() – Diablo IV
() – Getting back to making video games
() – The Legend of California
() – Greatest video game of all time
() – AI and future of video games
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