Overwatch’s Jeff Kaplan questions what people like to watch on Twitch
During Overwatch’s annual Yule Log stream, the game’s director Jeff Kaplan wondered aloud about the strange things people want to see streamed on Twitch.
Every year on Christmas Eve, Jeff Kaplan sits in front of a roaring fire for several hours on Twitch to celebrate the holidays with Overwatch fans.
This year, Uncle Jeff decorated the tree with ornaments sent in from Overwatch fans, shared messages from personalities, and even drank some milk tea boba as an early Christmas present to himself.
[ad name=”article1″]
For one of his skits, reflected on the strange things people seem to enjoy watching on Twitch, while putting together an Overwatch LEGO set.
“I used to think it was weird people would watch streamers eat, you know there’s the ‘eating’ category,” Jeff said while building away. “But we have a guy who works on our team who’s a tech artist who streams, he would stream Overwatch and stuff, and we all thought ‘wow he’s going to be one of the most popular Overwatch streamers because he works on the game and has all the knowledge about what we do that nobody else knows.”
But, surprisingly enough, not even a member of the Overwatch team was able to draw in viewers while playing the game. Instead, it was his eating streams that drew the most viewers.
[ad name=”article2″]
“Nobody watches his Overwatch stream, except for us, we all tune and watch him when he’s streaming to support him,” Kaplan explained. “But his top viewers were when he streamed himself eating two pizzas.”
“I think that says something about society,” Kaplan continued. “I’m not sure what it says about society, but I’ll let you all draw the conclusions.”
Besides pondering the things people like to watch on Twitch, like a video game director sitting in front of a fire for several hours, for example, Kaplan also talked about his experience playing Overwatch with real players.
[ad name=”article3″]
“My wife actually teases me because I talk so much during video games, she said I should have been a streamer because I don’t shut up when I play games,” Kaplan joked. “With Overwatch, after a while people started recognizing my voice and at first I used to deny it.”
The Overwatch director explained that when players discovered it was him playing, it made games very strange with everyone focusing on him.
“I actually play with a voice changer when I play Overwatch,” Kaplan revealed. “It’s made the game a lot more fun because I can go back doing what I like doing, which is talking and calling out strategies.”
If you missed the 2019 Overwatch Yule Log stream on Christmas Eve, the full VOD of the festivities can be found in the YouTube video at the top of the story, along with a full replay of the stream on Twitch for Christmas Day.
