Overwatch Director Talks Impact of Toxic Player Feedback

"It often feels like there's no winning," Jeff Kaplan said.

By Brian Barnett

In light of recent discussion about player feedback, Overwatch Game Director Jeff Kaplan detailed the effect of extreme fan reactions on the game's development team.

In a post on the Blizzard forums, Kaplan wrote in response to a fan post asking if the Overwatch team simply didn't have enough people to handle communication with fans.

Although every member of the Overwatch development team is free to post on the forums and wants to let the community know the team is listening, "very few of us actually do because it's extremely intimidating and/or time consuming," Kaplan explained. That intimidation comes in part because anything a developer is said, Kaplan worries, can be taken as an official announcement without any wiggle room for change.

"It's very easy to post the wrong thing and make a 'promise' to the community that no one intended to make. Once we say we're working on something, we're not allowed to 'take it back.' It's set in stone," he wrote, noting that, when Blizzard execs receive emails calling for the firing of Overwatch devs, it doesn't create "exactly what I would call a safe environment for creative people to openly express their thoughts and feelings."

"The 'public speaking/posting' part of the job is downright scary and intimidating. It often feels like there is no winning," he continued.

From the game's launch, the team wanted to be open and communicate freely about the game's development, to assure players their concerns were being heard, and so the team will strive to continue being open and transparent. Kaplan simply wanted to provide some insight into the reason much of the 100-plus member development team may not frequently be seen on the game's official forums.

"Player feedback is what has made this game great. We will try to communicate as much as we can. We love being a part of the community and we don't ever want to view ourselves or be viewed as being separate or removed from that," he said.

Kaplan has frequently been a voice of the development team for the audience, speaking in developer update videos, like one calling for players exhibiting bad behavior to realize the effects of what they do.

"...Bad behavior is not just ruining the experience for one another, but the bad behavior is actually making the game progress at a much slower rate," Kaplan said in a recent developer update, viewable above.

Kaplan's full post can be read on the Overwatch forums. For the latest on Overwatch, check out the latest episode of IGN's Expert Mode, which dove into the creation of the Blizzard multiplayer shooter, below and read about what Kaplan had to say about the next playable hero.

Brian Barnett is an IGN Freelancer. If you like juicy memes, you can follow him on Twitter @ribnax.

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