The Game Director of Overwatch may not have charisma, but he has come a long way.
Jeff Kaplan simply does not belong in front of a camera and has no charisma. At least that is what he himself says and laughs about his parodies.
A few days ago, Jeff Kaplan took part in an “Ask me anything” session on the Overwatch subreddit. The community took the opportunity to ask him a lot of questions – not all of them were directly related to the game.
Some of the most famous fan works of Overwatch are the mash-ups by Dinoflask. Here, the official “Developer’s Update” videos by Kaplan are cut into many individual parts and then reassembled, creating a completely different meaning. For example, dinoflask has put words in Jeff Kaplan’s mouth like this:
- “We at Blizzard feed off your negative emotions. We want you to be so frustrated in Ranked that you put all your money into loot boxes and rejoice at display images.”
- “When we at Blizzard have different ideas, the designers just fight it out among themselves. And I’m pretty good at it. We have a saying: ‘Wrestle with Jeff, prepare for death.'”
These videos are very popular in the community, and many are longing for new Developer’s Updates just so dinoflask can create something different from them. But how does Kaplan see it himself? He promptly provided an answer:
“He [dinoflask] is super talented. The videos are hilarious. Of course, I feel embarrassed when I watch them. I mean, I’m this middle-aged, quirky nerd with 0 points in charisma and really shouldn’t be in front of a camera in any way or form. But when I watch these videos objectively – as if it were someone else and not me – then they are damn funny.
I always say that dinoflask says what I wish I could really say.”
Other topics were also addressed. One user asked what Kaplan likes least about the community, and he also gave a clear answer:
“I don’t like it when you’re mean to each other. I don’t like it when you’re mean to people I work with… especially when you call them lazy. They are the hardest working people in the game industry. I also don’t like it when people say ‘Hero X needs a rework’ when they actually just want to say that the character needs a minor balance improvement. Generally, I don’t like toxic behavior or exaggerations.”
And even if Kaplan has no charisma points, he surely must have gained some sympathy points with the players.
The next hero in Overwatch, Orisa, has a release date, by the way.
