As the discussion and response to Overwatch’s legendary toxicity problem continues, even the development team isn’t spared from the impact of this, ahem, “passionate” community.
Game Director Jeff Kaplan wrote a somewhat raw essay to tell players what it is like to be a developer on the project and deal with the stress and harassment that comes with it. “Developers speak to you directly, using our real names,” he said. “And if you’ll allow me to speak openly for a moment — it’s scary. Overall, the community is awesome to us. But there are some pretty mean people out there. All of our developers are free to post on these forums. Very few of us actually do because it’s extremely intimidating and/or time consuming.”
Kaplan also paints a somewhat sad picture of a team that is pressured to keep up with the game and on top of all of its controversies: “Overwatch is a 24/7, 365 days a year affair for us. Overwatch doesn’t stop because it’s 5 o’clock on a Friday evening. Overwatch doesn’t stop because it’s our kids’ birthday.”
Maybe it’s OK to take a break once in a while? That kid deserves a dad to watch him blow out the candles on his cake. Just saying.
