Rumor: Valve Cut Around 25 Staff; Ellisworth Confirmed
Steam Box controller designer Jeri Ellisworth was fired from Valve, and possibly 24 unconfirmed others.
Gamasutra reports that Valve Software may have cut around 25 of its staff. Reports of the firings began to emerge on Tuesday with an indication that the company is making "large decisions" and going through a "great cleansing." Affected departments include Valve's Android and hardware development efforts.
According to the report, affected employees were asked not to speak about the specifics. But there's speculation that the cuts weren't made over performance issues (as in Valve is cutting the slackers), but that the cuts are driven by "company challenges".
One of those that were fired was Jeri Ellsworth who at one time was publicly talking about Valve's hardware efforts. She worked in the studio's year-old hardware division and indicated that hardware testing would actually begin in 2013. This division was working in tandem with Steam's Big Picture Mode, creating a hardware solution to the control-based limitations found in many titles offered on Valve's Steam platform.
But on early Wednesday morning, Ellsworth confirmed via Twitter that she was fired by Valve without offering any additional details. "Yep. Got fired today," she said. "Time for new exciting projects."
Another victim of the Valve layoff may be Ed Owen, former senior mechanical engineer at Valve. His LinkedIn profile page reveals that his tenure with the studio ended this month, and that he's now moved on to a product development consultancy.
PC Gamer points out that while layoffs happen from time to time, the words "layoff" and "fired" are normally not associated with the popular Half-Life developer. Valve's reputation as one of the most secretive and lucrative studios in the business "underscores this peculiarity of this development."
Agreed. Stay tuned for more as the details continue to slither across the newsroom floor. So far Valve has remained silent on the issue.
Steam is not just popular because of a few AAA titles. It is by far the best client to use for PC games (way better than Origin). It has decent sales often.
The only real issue with it is that it still is a form of DRM.
Black Mesa is superior to HL for the simple fact that a dedicated mod group recreated HL using the Source engine...something that Valve offers free to all owners of their games (something many other developers are taking mod support away from games).
For its time (1998), Half-life was among the best games around.
Now tell me which other developers make it
Gabe is too busy planning on how to cater to the console market with the steam box.
Gabe is too busy planning on how to cater to the console market with the steam box.
Steam is not just popular because of a few AAA titles. It is by far the best client to use for PC games (way better than Origin). It has decent sales often.
The only real issue with it is that it still is a form of DRM.
Black Mesa is superior to HL for the simple fact that a dedicated mod group recreated HL using the Source engine...something that Valve offers free to all owners of their games (something many other developers are taking mod support away from games).
For its time (1998), Half-life was among the best games around.
Now tell me which other developers make it
TF2 is one of the better multiplayer shooters out there. Unique, well balanced, and frequently tweaked. The cartoonish graphics are deliberate, as it's supposed to be whimsical.
Unlike many other games, you cannot "win" by yourself. Good teamplay is pretty much forced.
Also, I think the whole "no 3" business at Valve might be a marketing thing. Look how much interest there is because of it (think "meme").
Wow, HλLF-LIFE 2 is getting old! I honestly didn't realize how old it was because it still looks like a semi-recent game.
I suppose Valve don't want HλLF-LIFE 3 to be a flop. They work pretty hard on their games for replay-ability nowdays and guess what? It works.
You are saying that like it's a bad thing, it has allowed game developers the confidence to make a product knowing it will not be rampantly pirated, leading the way for price reductions that benefit everybody
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Some DRMs are bad, like the ones that enforce always on internet, but Steams imlementation has been almost invisible. It is seamless, non-intrusive and works.
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Remove the DRM and watch game studios abandon all PC development leaving only consoles, which not only have their won form of DRM but also enforce a hardware choice on you as well and the ever present risk of non-backwards compatability when the next gen comes out - Steam has allowed me to replay games that haven't seen light of day since the days of DOS and the prices are fantastic
so much shit in this post I dont know where to start...
is a game with a cartoonish art style really bad? no. variety of art styles is always a good thing in gaming industry. tf2 is a multiplayer behemoth whose community has been growing rapidly since 2007 with no signs of dying any time soon, and its because people find the game fun and balanced.
black mesa is a mod that took years of volunteer work using valves own surce SDK. There are many MANY widely popular releases on steam, and the reason its popular is because most publishers trust Valves form of DRM. most customers also prefer this form of drm above most other horrid ones.
HL2 set a big benchmark for valve. They have to make HL3 so that is just as, or more enjoyable than HL2. and its been said by gabe and other staff that HL3 has had a few revisions and builds, but the game isnt up to the level of HL2. its being made, we just have to wait until they make it amazing.
I so wish Gabe could use Steam box to kill off these 2 consoles. There is nothing more happy than seeing these 2 consoles FAIL, and I hope their next gen console FAIL as much as their mobile console counterparts.
I will always love the Half Life series, but Christ I was 8 when Half Life 1 came out, I'm 21 now. I'm playing less and less games over the years as age comes with responsibility. If Valve doesn't act soon, they'll completely miss the entire generation that's responsible for making Half Life and Counterstrike the epic titles that they are today. You won't see me rushing onto Steam or Gamestop at the age of 25 when I have a job/career, car payment, loans to pay off and rent to scrounge for.
Valve. Make HL3 (episode 3 - whatever) before you lose an entire generation of fans.
Most of the time when we hear companies firing people on this site, the figure's more like 25%, not 25
LOL You'd be surprised, you may not buy as many games or as often, but as long as good games come out you'll still find time. I'm 34 and still do (helps that my wife likes to play games too).
How would a console by Steam be any different? A console is a console. It will not be upgradeable, it will use a single hardware spec, and likely would use slightly older hardware like current consoles for the various reasons the current ones do as well.
If anything the Steam console would feature games optimized for it, and may not even be ported to the PC.
Naw, they were caught outsourcing their work to China....lol.
So how many braincells do you have?
I keep on seeing this "special" argument over and over again.
Valve owns and runs Steam, by far the most popular digital distribution service. Valve isn't worth 3 billion, probably more by now, because of it's games.