Several Valve employees are now looking for work.
It looks like this is just a bad time to be an employee of a video game developer. On the heels of THQ going bankrupt, now some Valve employees are looking for work. There isn’t an exact reported number of Valve employees who lost their jobs but rumors going around the internet have that number at 25 but it could be more.
Employee accounts of the purge were a "great cleansing" and "large decisions.” It was also reported that the firings hit other departments at Valve. Firings happened in the Hardware and Android Development departments. There was speculation that there were senior staff members included in this cleansing today. On the plus side, most of the twitter community is wishing the cut employees nothing but the best in their future endeavors.
It looks like this whole thing started with the tweet from Jeri Ellsworth, who was working on a new controller for the Steam Box. She is also leaving Valve and that in turn opened the flood gates on employees either getting fired or leaving. If Jeri is leaving the company, then that could mean that Valve is leaning in a different direction, away from the Steam Box, which several opinions online feel is the case. Also leaving Valve is Director of Business Development, Jason Holtman. The Steam Online Store was Holtman’s baby and for the most part had been at Valve for the “Steam Era.”
The employees who had to go through this were asked not to mention anything specific. It would appear that the cuts because thee company was having "issues." It doesn’t appear that employee performance and work history had anything to do with the firings. It’s just a bad time for video game companies right now. If you’re not getting fired, your company is bankrupt. Hopefully the companies pull themselves out of this funk they’re on, but it isn’t looking too good.
