If you don’t want to play Jeff Kaplan’s new game, you better hold back. Because Kaplan shoots sharply at critics who are not constructive.
Many may still know Jeff Kaplan from the Overwatch days. He was the Game Director and often appeared in the game’s “Developer Updates,” where he calmly explained what changed in the game – even though his videos were often taken out of context to create funny parodies.
But as calm and composed as he always seemed back then, he is not. Because he can also be quite different and has a clear message for everyone who doesn’t want to play his new game The Legend of California: Shut your damn mouth.
What is The Legend of California? The Legend of California (link to the Steam page) promises to be an open-world shooter paired with some survival elements. You can gather resources and build structures while shaping your own legend in California during the Gold Rush – whether through raids or more peacefully.
Not many details emerge from the trailer yet, so we will have to wait and see how the game develops.
But that is just a side note – because it is actually more about how Kaplan deals with “haters,” and he finds drastic words for that.
Those who don’t want to play Kaplan’s game should shut their mouths
What does Kaplan say to critics? In a 10-hour live stream on Twitch, Kaplan had clear words. He has become quite frustrated over the years at how opinions are expressed on the internet – especially when it comes to video games that someone isn’t interested in, has never played, and doesn’t want to play, but still informs the world that they definitely will not play it. To those people, Kaplan says:
I understand that people want to express their opinion. But honestly, when a game comes out and you don’t want to play it and have never played it before, just shut your damn mouth. Nobody cares. We don’t need to hear that you’re not interested.
His opinion seems pretty cemented, as he adds:
[If you act like this], you’re spinning your wheels to the point where there’s no value in even listening to you.
There are forums, like Reddit and so on, where people just say: Yeah, whatever, that guy is just forever on ignore. He is in no way productive. It’s just about who gets the most points for being upset. It bores me so much.
Kaplan is well aware that with his words, he might be pushing it a bit:
I will probably face some issues because of what I’ve just said, but I am at a point in my life and career where I just don’t care anymore. What comes closest to a midlife crisis for me is that I simply couldn’t care less.
Has Kaplan always been like this? Many don’t really know Jeff Kaplan’s “origin story”. The fact that he even came to Blizzard was mainly due to his (loud) frustration with the first EverQuest. There, he was known under the name “Tigole” and was a pretty successful guild leader, who often lost his temper in forums. He explained to the developers in very aggressive language how they should develop their game and what mistakes and problems needed to be fixed.
This – albeit often toxic – passion for an MMORPG was essentially his invitation to Blizzard, where he would later shape large parts of the original World of Warcraft.
Cortyn says: I really like this unfiltered openness from Jeff Kaplan. You can really tell how he can say all those things now that wouldn’t have been possible in a big company like Blizzard. I also really appreciate that he speaks his mind and clearly names what currently bothers him about gaming communities, as I feel similarly.
When new releases are immediately attacked and posts shoot up everywhere only saying “Looks bad” or “Is this going to be the next Concord, I’m not playing it” – then that is incredibly exhausting and quite disrespectful to the people who have worked for years on a game. Of course, constructive criticism should be allowed, but in many cases, it’s just “hating for the sake of hating” – and that has yet to help any discussion in any way.
How Kaplan describes his time at Blizzard is especially interesting in recent years. Because he was tasked by a boss with an almost insoluble task on which the fate of 1,000 employees depended. Kaplan refers to this moment as “the biggest ‘f*** you’ of my life”.
