Jeff Kaplan
| Jeffrey Kaplan | |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Game Director and Vice President at Blizzard Entertainment |
| Employer | Blizzard Entertainment |
| Title | Game Director of Overwatch |
Jeffrey Kaplan is a video game developer and currently serves as Vice President of Blizzard Entertainment. He is known for his work in designing elements of World of Warcraft and is the lead designer on Overwatch.
Kaplan had been an avid video game player during his school years, particularly influenced by the various Infocom adventure games; however, lacking programming skills, he never thought he would be able to get a career in the video game industry. He initially pursued a degree in film, but ultimately got a degree in creative writing at the University of Southern California. After working as a writing intern for Universal Pictures, he decided to get a graduate degree for creative writing from New York University. Following this, he worked for his father's recruiting business while performing creative writing on the side to try to get his stories published. He had been unsuccessful of getting any of his creative stories published for several years, with having received over 170 rejection notices in a single year. By 2000, he decided to drop creative writing, and spent his time playing video games, as well as toying around with the level editors from games like Duke Nukem 3D and Half-Life.
Kaplan became involved in the massively multiplayer online game (MMO) Everquest. Under his online handle "Tigole", he joined the "Legacy of Steel" guild, as well as became a well-recognized player for his accomplishments and his commentary about the game posted to the guild's website. He discussed some of his map making attempts which caught the attention of the guild's leader, Rob Pardo, who at the time was the lead designer at Blizzard for Warcraft III; Kaplan was aware that some of his guild members worked at Blizzard, but he had not recognized the importance of the company at that point. Around 2001, Pardo invited Kaplan to come visit Blizzard's offices in Los Angeles, during which he was introduced to several other Blizzard guild members, and they showed him the yet-announced MMO World of Warcraft (WoW) project they had been working on. Several similar meetings happened over the next few months. Later, after World of Warcraft was announced, Pardo suggested that Kaplan apply for a recently-posted job for a WoW quest designer there; Kaplan realized that the job description was tailor-made for his background, and that his previous visit to Blizzard had been an informal job interview. Kaplan applied and was hired into Blizzard by May 2002.
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