Major Layoffs at Valve

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Jason Holtman has left Valve, Develop understands.

 

A reliable source has told us Valve's director of business has departed the company, although it is currently unclear as to the reasons for his exit.

The news follows the studio's decision to also fire hardware engineer Jeri Ellsworth, who had been working on prototype controllers for the upcoming Steam Box.

Gamasutra has also reported up to 25 employees have been let go from the company, mainly in the hardware and Android development divisions.

Holtman acted as one of the company's primary points of contact for devs using Valve's digital distribution platform Steam, playing a key role in developer relations at the studio, and has worked at the development giant since 2005.

 

The news of his departure will come as a shock to many, given has important role at the firm and the continued success of Steam, a platform driving the success of the PC games market.

 

Develop has contacted Valve for more details on the matter and we will update the story as soon as we learn anything.

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Been just informed from a friend of mine who knows them:

 

Moby Francke, the art lead of TF2, is gone

Bay Raitt (lead of SFM) is gone too [source Film Maker]

 

Well, Bay and Moby both removed from the Employee Roster just now :(

 

Also has other employees who were fired.

 

Moby Francke, Half-Life 2 character designer and Team Fortress 2 art lead

Jason Holtman, director of business development for Steam and Steamworks

Keith Huggins, character animator and animator for Team Fortress 2 Meet the video series

Tom Leonard, software engineer for Half-Life 2 and Left 4 Dead

Realm Lovejoy, artist for Half-Life 2, Portal, and Left 4 Dead. She was also part of the original DigiPen-turned-Valve team that created Narbacular Drop, the inspiration for Portal

Marc Nagel, test lead for Half-Life, Counter-Strike, and patch updates

Bay Raitt, animator for Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal

Elan Ruskin, engine programmer for Left 4 Dead, Portal 2, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Matthew Russell, animator for Team Fortress 2 Meet the video series

:(

of fuck no

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Apple's chief executive Tim Cook reportedly visited the Bellevue, Washington headquarters of Valve Corporation earlier today, inciting questions about new potential for collaboration between the two companies.

Valve, created by two former Microsoft employees in the mid 90s, has grown into a major video games developer and maintains the Steam gaming platform, which distributes over 1,400 games to an audience of over 30 million active users.

Steam works similar to Apple's iOS App Store within iTunes, providing a market for PC video game titles and a mechanism for automatically delivering the latest software updates to players.


After months of rumors that suggested Valve would begin supporting Mac users in Steam, in early 2010 the company announced it would bring a series of its own video games, including Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead 2 and Team Fortress 2, to the Mac platform for the first time. It also announced it would simultaneously release Portal 2 for the Mac and Windows that winter.

At the time, John Cook, the director of Steam development at Valve, stated that Apple had "been a great partner so far and we look forward to growing our relationship with them over time."

Apple's big turn around in gaming

The shift was particularly significant because less than three years earlier, in late 2007, Steam co-founder Gabe Newell had publicly complained that Apple simply didn't get gaming.

"We have this pattern with Apple," Newell said in an interview, "where we meet with them, people there go 'wow, gaming is incredibly important, we should do something with gaming,' and then we'll say, 'OK, here are three things you could do to make that better,' and then they say OK, and then we never see them again.

"And then a year later, a new group of people show up, who apparently have no idea that the last group of people were there, and never follow through on anything. So, they seem to think that they want to do gaming, but there's never any follow through on any of the things they say they're going to do."

Newell added at the time that video games are "one of the biggest things holding them back in the consumer space. If you look at a Macintosh right now, it does a lot of things really well compared to a Vista PC, but there are no games. Why, I don't know. If I were a Macintosh product manager, it would be pretty high on my list."

iOS and Game Center

Apple's seemingly indifferent stance on gaming appeared to change rapidly following the release of iPhone and the new iPod touch in 2007, and in particular after the release of the App Store in early 2008.

Games became a major focus for iOS developers and accounted for a large percentage of the software Apple's new App Store began selling, threatening the business of entrenched gaming companies including Sony and Nintendo

http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/04/13/apple_ceo_tim_cook_spotted_at_valves_gaming_headquarters.html

oh fuck yes

/mac owner

i want half life 3 to be mac exclusive so i can taste your tears

TASTE

YOUR

TEARS

I only have an iMac and an old mac notebook. I am upset because Valve should not be bought out and controlled by shit fucks.

FUCK NO

Wasn't Gabe talking to JJ Abrams a few days ago re: film crossovers?

Sounds like they're desperate for capital.

Whatever happens, Gabe, please don't release any HL3 IP assets to Gearbox. Just let it die if you have to. Just let it die.

"If you look at a Macintosh right now, it does a lot of things really well compared to a Vista PC"

Wait, how bloody old is this 'news' ?

  On 2/13/2013 at 11:43 PM, mcbpete said:

"If you look at a Macintosh right now, it does a lot of things really well compared to a Vista PC"

 

Wait, how bloody old is this 'news' ?

It's an old article that could shed light on why there are all these sudden major position firings or people leaving to start their own company? Who knows, anyones guess. But I do not like it.

That apple story is from April of last year.

The recent apple-valve story is that Gabe mentioned Apple could disrupt gaming hardware (by making it super easy to play angry birds on your TV, basically). It was a pretty weird comment from Gabe given the recent publicity of valvebox plans.

Maybe this has to do with the partnership with Xi3 who made that Piston thing. Could be that they figured they would be better off having hardware done by an external partner. I don't think this is the end for a Steam box. They're pretty far in on the software side and I can't imagine Gabe Newell having much faith in Apple not fucking them over. Sad to see Jeri Ellsworth go. She's an amazing woman and I was very curious to see what she was working on. The android development division are probably just people working on the Steam android app. Those layoffs are understandable since that app isn't really useful or successful.

But pretty much all the people on that list are game developers. Both creatives and programmers. How can they be strapped for cash? They have a constant supply of cash coming in through Steam and haven't released a game since Portal 2... Maybe they're trying to downscale a bit to make things a bit more manageable?

http://www.develop-online.net/news/43261/Jason-Holtman-leaves-Valve

http://www.diffchecker.com/h14Uhs74

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/02/13/valve-layoff-hardware-mobile/

Just recently had to explain to my cousin what steam was when she asked. I just told her its like your iTunes but for games. Never thought of a possible merge between the two.

Those they let go seem like the least important people at Valve.

  On 2/14/2013 at 12:48 AM, ZiggomaticV17 said:

Just recently had to explain to my cousin what steam was when she asked. I just told her its like your iTunes but for games. Never thought of a possible merge between the two.

 

Those they let go seem like the least important people at Valve.

Idk about least important, some of them have been at the company for 9 years... but I hope this isn't some sign of some kind of major shift in the company for the worse.

Whatever the case may be I am watching Valve carefully...

  On 2/14/2013 at 12:23 AM, Ego said:

Maybe this has to do with the partnership with Xi3 who made that Piston thing. Could be that they figured they would be better off having hardware done by an external partner. I don't think this is the end for a Steam box. They're pretty far in on the software side and I can't imagine Gabe Newell having much faith in Apple not fucking them over. Sad to see Jeri Ellsworth go. She's an amazing woman and I was very curious to see what she was working on. The android development division are probably just people working on the Steam android app. Those layoffs are understandable since that app isn't really useful or successful.

 

But pretty much all the people on that list are game developers. Both creatives and programmers. How can they be strapped for cash? They have a constant supply of cash coming in through Steam and haven't released a game since Portal 2... Maybe they're trying to downscale a bit to make things a bit more manageable?

Actually Valve released Counter-Strike: Global Offensive last August. It's fundamentally not much different from its predecessors though, aside from a few new maps, guns, character skins, and a couple of new game modes.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/13/valve-gabe-newell-layoffs-statement/

Gabe:

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"We don't usually talk about personnel matters for a number of reasons. There seems to be an unusual amount of speculation about some recent changes here, so I thought I'd take the unusual step of addressing them. No, we aren't canceling any projects. No, we aren't changing any priorities or projects we've been discussing. No, this isn't about Steam or Linux or hardware or [insert game name here]. We're not going to discuss why anyone in particular is or isn't working here."

steam won't be the bomb forever. they're trying to taking it bigger and does anybody know what gonna happen? if so what if they wanna do it.. ??

the thought of an Apple gaming system is extremely exciting for some reason. something about it... Angry Birds 4 3D HD

I can't remember the last time I heard someone say "Macintosh". I'm sure a lot of Apple customers wouldn't know what you were talking about if you dropped the word into a conversation.

Who's Major Layoffs?

lol

my bro works there, just talked to him, his exact words were "We just thinned out people who were a negative value add to the company type stuff."

That's not surprising. Valve seem to be sitting quite pretty at the moment and going by things I've read about how they operate in a very individual and free-form fashion I can see it getting to the point where they have more staff than justifiable on the payroll and need to trim the fat to some extent.

I don't think it's just that, I know they have laid off some quite talented folks before simply due to the fact that they felt they weren't team players or didn't fit in with the team. I think it's more about cohesive team building than anything else. They will spend a lot of money to hire the best, but they expect them to work together well cooperatively. If not, then they don't seem to be hesitant about letting folks go.

Sounds more than fair to me. Naturally basement dwellers will freak out about the news and post sensational stories about Valve sinking or selling out though... RIGHT COMPSON!?