Overwatch was originally called "Monetized Shooter" because you had to buy each of its heroes, says co-creator Jeff Kaplan: "F***ing terrible, but at the time, I actually thought that was a good idea"

Many players have felt conflicted about Overwatch since the hero shooter rebranded to Overwatch 2, then re-rebranded to Overwatch, then introduced the eye-wateringly adorable Jetpack Cat, who also gets banned all the time for being too powerful. But it could all have been an even bigger mess. Ex-Blizzard vice president and Overwatch co-creator Jeff Kaplan could have decided to officially name the game "Monetized Shooter," which is what he first pitched it as.

"It was a seven-page deck," Kaplan tells AI researcher and podcaster Lex Fridman in a recent interview. "And it was called Monetized Shooter at the time. It just said 'Monetized Shooter,' and then the first slide was League of Legends plus Team Fortress 2 logos."

Overwatch's first title came from Kaplan's plan to make it "free-to-play, and you had to buy the heroes, which is fucking terrible. But, at the time, I actually thought that was a good idea." So Kaplan was inches away from pitching Blizzard his Monetized Shooter when he remembers initial Overwatch producer Matt Hawley stopping him and saying, "I refuse to put up a deck in front of the team where the first slide says 'Monetized Shooter.'"

Hawley requested Kaplan give his game idea a real name rather than an inflammatory placeholder title, and Kaplan remembers immediately saying, "It's Overwatch" – which Blizzard developers once wanted to name canceled multiplayer Titan.

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