The Overwatch League and the pressure to deliver Overwatch 2's PvE mode—driven by executive revenue targets and a CFO who told Kaplan a missed revenue number would result in a thousand layoffs 'on you'—broke Kaplan and led him to leave Blizzard.
Kaplan describes how Overwatch League's overhyped financial promises and escalating corporate pressure to ship Overwatch 2 eroded the team's autonomy, culminating in a CFO demanding specific recurring revenue or else layoffs would be Kaplan's responsibility—the moment he knew he had to leave the company he thought he would retire from. ✦ AI generated
What eventually broke me was... I got called into the CFO's office, and he sits me down and he says... 'Overwatch has to make [dollar amount] in 2020, and then every year after that, it needs a recurring revenue of [dollar amount].' And then he says to me, 'If it doesn't do [dollar amount] dollars, we're gonna lay off a thousand people, and that's gonna be on you.' And that was just the biggest fuck you moment I had in my career.
verbatim transcript · starts at 416:00
The Ultimatum That Broke Jeff Kaplan
·CFO demanded a fixed revenue target from Overwatch in 2020
·Required recurring revenue every year thereafter
·Missed target meant 1,000 layoffs — 'on you,' said the CFO
✦ AI generated · slide 1Why Kaplan Left Blizzard
·Overwatch League & OW2 PvE pressure eroded team autonomy