Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming | Lex Fridman Podcast #493
Jeff Kaplan is a legendary Blizzard lead game designer of World of Warcraft and Overwatch, now preparing to launch a new game, The Legend of California, from his new studio Kintsugiyama.
Transcript:
https://lexfridman.com/jeff-kaplan-transcript
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/
Timestamps
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Episode highlight
00:00
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Introduction
01:27
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Early games: Pac-Man, Zork, Doom, Quake
04:07
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Writing career - 170 rejection letters
18:33
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EverQuest obsession
34:06
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Getting hired at Blizzard
47:04
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Lowest point in Jeff's life
02:32
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One of Us
08:37
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Early Blizzard culture
12:54
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Building World of Warcraft
32:36
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How WoW changed video games
50:20
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Single-player vs Multi-player
07:42
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How Blizzard made great video games
28:35
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Online toxicity
54:25
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Why Titan failed
01:59
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Overwatch in six weeks
19:09
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Best Overwatch heroes
46:07
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The challenge of matchmaking
54:37
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Rust
58:01
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Why Jeff left Blizzard
08:22
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Diablo IV
30:35
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Getting back to making video games
32:03
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The Legend of California
40:59
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Greatest video game of all time
54:44
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AI and future of video games
02:51