Jeff Kaplan digs those supercuts as much as you do
Overwatch players’ love for the game is far-reaching, extending way beyond the game itself. One of the community’s most beloved parts of the award-winning multiplayer shooter has little to do with Overwatch itself: director Jeff Kaplan’s video developer updates, which have given away to a recurring parody series produced by a prominent member of the game’s subreddit.
It turns out that those Jeff Kaplan supercut videos, created by user dinoflask, are popular with the star himself. In a recent Ask Me Anything session on the Overwatch subreddit, Kaplan called the web series — which repurposes his developer updates to make him say some … fairly outrageous things — “hilarious.”
“He is super talented,” Kaplan wrote of dinoflask. “The videos are hilarious.”
But Kaplan quickly turned self-deprecating. That comes as no surprise, considering his sense of humor displayed throughout the Ask Me Anything thread. The videos also paint Kaplan in a comic light, slowly transforming his mundane, slightly awkward reports on Overwatch development progress into specific diatribes about Hanzo mains and other absurdst in-jokes.
“Obviously, I feel embarrassed when I see them,” Kaplan said of the videos. “I mean, I am this middle-aged, awkward nerd with 0 points in charisma and really don’t belong on camera in any way, shape or form. But if I look at the videos objectively — like if they were of anyone but me — they are hilarious.”
Overwatch fans agree, as dinoflask’s Kaplan videos have racked up millions of views thus far. In replies to Kaplan’s sheepish praise for the series, fans insisted that they’re laughing with the director, not at him. Myriad comments thanked Kaplan for how open he is with players.
“The entire Overwatch community is so happy with how great of developers we have and that we all love you guys so much!” wrote user hangman401, who asked the initial question. “I wish other devs would put half as much work into interacting with their community as much as you guys do.”
For the full effect of the beloved Kaplan-by-way-of-dinoflask webseries, check out the latest Overwatch developer update — followed by the re-edited parody, embedded below.
Source: Polygon – Full
GameUP24 