#493 – Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming
Episode publishedPodcast: Lex Fridman PodcastLex Fridman Podcast
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The following is a conversation with Jeff Kaplan, a legendary game designer of World of Warcraft and Overwatch, which are two of the biggest, most influential games ever made. He is genuinely one of the most amazing human beings I've ever met. In the many conversations I was fortunate enough to have with him, while playing video games, he was always kind, thoughtful, hilarious, and still and forever a legit gamer through and through. Of course, he's always quick to celebrate the incredible teams of creative minds he has gotten a chance to work with over the years, and they are truly incredible
I was lucky. I was born in that golden era of coin op. Mhmm. So I literally remember the first time seeing Pac Man. I was with my uncle Ronnie and he just kept feeding me quarters. I think he wanted to play but was too scared to. So he you know, his little nephew, he was just giving quarters to play Pac Man. I remember being at my brother's graduation in Philadelphia. They had an asteroids machine in the lobby. That was one of the first coin op machines I had played as well. And my brother and I would we would try to get the high score, and we'd finally get it, but we had to go to bed early be
Mhmm.
And it was just such a golden era. And I think the the big moment where it really blew open and kind of hit the next level was when the NES came out. And that, like, NES with Super Mario
Mhmm.
Was kind of gaming at the next level at that point. And I have, like, warm, fuzzy memories even thinking about it to this day. I I remember we played Super Mario for weeks, my brothers and I. And then I had a friend come over, and he showed me all the secret stuff in super that I didn't know existed at the time. And it's it was like suddenly the world opened up more and games could be more. And then there was, like, a big PC gaming push that hit me. My parents ran their own business. Like I said, my dad was an executive recruiter, and they bought an IBM. And this is, like, when it was DOS befo
It's a text based game?
Text based game. You know, you just type in, go west, open mailbox, you know, and Okay. It's that power of imagination. It's why the book is always better than the movie, you know.
Yeah. So you're starting to see these creations of worlds that you can navigate. Yes. You can step into this world and you can lose yourself in that world.
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