Valve not doing so hot or something else? "Up to 25 fired/laid off"

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**kenshin620**

Very recent news thats rippling through, Valve has apparently started some staff cuts

Valve, out of all the companies. Sure they're slow at making "The 3rd game", sure they may have had some odd games up on Steam that should not have been there, sure they rely on Hat purchases, but those are all hardly reasons for the company to start doing bad. In fact the news these past few months should have all been positive. Gabe and JJ Abrams discussing movies, the steam box, recent deal with wizkids for some heroclix/chess, their recent games like dota 2 and cs go have been relatively successful

This is all very strange

And these arent just "random people", we got entire art leads let go

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

In a first for the company, Valve let go an unspecified number of employees across multiple teams including hardware and Android development, according to a report by Gamasutra.

Valve hasn’t released official word on the number of departures or how this affects its Steam Box project, but Gamasutra says it’s hearing such descriptions as “great cleansing” and “large decisions” from those let go. “We’ve seen the number ’25′ tossed around, but are unable to confirm this,” the Gamasutra article claims.

Yesterday, hardware hacker Jeri Ellsworth, who was hired by Valve to join its hardware team, tweeted a sudden announcement that she’d been fired and was moving on to “new and exciting projects.” Elsewhere, the LinkedIn profile of Ed Owen, a senior mechanical engineer, shows an end employment date of February 2013 at Valve.

Though layoffs happen from time to time in the industry, Valve’s reputation as one of the most secretive (and lucrative) studios in the business underscores the peculiarity of this development, especially when the terms “layoffs” and “fired” aren’t normally associated with a company known for its free-form work philosophy.

We’ve reached out to Valve for an explanation and for further confirmation about how many people have been let go. We’ll update this story if more information arrives today.

UPDATE: Garry’s Mod creator Garry Newman tweets the appearance of a number of differences on Valve’s staff page seen through Diff Checker. The comparison tool indicates the removal of nine employee bios from the People section of Valve’s company page, listed below:

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

**Soladrin**

To be fair, valve has 400 if not more employees.

This isn't that big.

**LordofHats**

Tis indeed odd... Quite odd... It can't be money. There's no way in hell Valve is having money problems unless something extremely bizarre is going on under the hood.

Maybe this is a sign of a shift in company policy? It's been theorized by commentators that Valve may be getting out of the development game in favor of the retail/publishing game. The people laid off are mainly developer positions.

Or maybe there's some kind of trouble in paradise. Valve wouldn't be the first company to experience a 'civil war' that ended in people getting fired.

**Soladrin**

They are also going into the hardware market so.. yeah.

**purplefood**

It's also possible that they are restructuring the company.
A fairly common practice.

**illuknisaa**

Are people being fired or are they just leaving?

It seems really odd that Valve would fire somebody (considering that they don't have management who could fire people).

**Soladrin**

Heres a little update.

Almost all the people fired were working on mobile software.

So, nobody actually cares.

**WarOne**

It was probably a failing enterprise for them and therefore jettisoned some flotsam.

I agree with Soladrin, carry on forums.