Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan thinks that Overwatch 2 leaking was “extremely demoralising” and left developers feeling deflated.
Talking to Kotaku, Kaplan acknowledged that leaks happen and can be unavoidable, but that doesn’t change the disappointment that developers feel when their hard work does get leaked prematurely.
"We know leaks happen," said Kaplan.
"The example I used this week a lot with the team was The Burning Crusade. And a lot of the team hasn't been around that long, or weren't part of Burning Crusade, but Burning Crusade leaked in an Italian magazine the week before Blizzcon or the week of Blizzcon that we were supposed to announce [the] expansion."
"If you fast-forward to 2019, everybody looks back at Burning Crusade as one of WoW's strongest moments, their favourite expansions, and nobody remembers that Burning Crusade was leaked at all.
“Leaks are very interesting in that they have more of a moral impact on the team than anything else. It's extremely demoralising. You feel totally deflated."
Kaplan claims that the biggest gripe developers have is when their games are leaked without all the facts. Thus leading to fans drawing their own conclusions, which can have a negative impact.
"When you're trying so hard to deliver something for somebody and to have it be spoiled in a way that's not coherent," explained Kaplan.
"That's the part that bothers us the most, where people are not given all the information and all of the context that they need to understand what we're doing."
Overwatch 2 was officially announced at BlizzCon 2019, however, this wasn’t much of a surprise given the leaks that were revealed in the run-up to the event.