Feb 2013 Valve Layoffs

Looks like Valve had a round of layoffs today, as posted by Podunk on the twitters.

Several out of work as Valve makes large decisions about its future

That sucks. Sounds like it's hardware-focused? Maybe? Suddenly I feel compelled to buy more keys in TF2.

No way!! Never thought Valve would be laying off its employees, out of all the companies out there... Certainly appears to be one of the most healthy!! o_O

They were letting off some Steam.

Seriously, that sucks.

Without knowing what those 'large decisions' relate to, it's hard to make much meaningful comment on this. That said, Valve does have it's fingers in many pies, so it wouldn't surprise me to see some reorganisation. If Valve drops an interest in an area, I'm sure they can't just keep people around because they're cool to be with, at least not in a work environment.

Scratched wrote:

If Valve drops an interest in an area, I'm sure they can't just keep people around because they're cool to be with, at least not in a work environment.

Given their "cabal" structure, that seems likely, as that's fewer project teams that need help.

Sad news, but given how well regarded Valve is, I doubt the people affected will have a hard time finding work.

It doesn't seem like it's some desperate necessity out of money or anything. Not that it doesn't suck when people lose their jobs, but it just sounds like Valve is much less interested in the hardware business. It kind of makes sense, when you consider after all the talk about Steambox, it seemed like Valve became more comfortable just supporting companies who are making the hardware already and sticking to the actual software.

Interesting it seems to be the Hardware team..

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...

Wonder what impact if any on the Steam Box project.

I too would be surpised if this was for financial reasons. I will assume that all laid off employees recieved very generous serverance packages to keep my warm fuzzies for Valve.

kuddles wrote:

It kind of makes sense, when you consider after all the talk about Steambox, it seemed like Valve became more comfortable just supporting companies who are making the hardware already and sticking to the actual software.

That's what I'm thinking. Perhaps they needed a few people internally to start the ball rolling externally. The only other thing that says 'hardware' to me is the biometric/controller stuff, but again I'm not sure how much of that is an internal aid to Valve in playtesting rather than something that would be targeted at a public release.

Scratched wrote:

That's what I'm thinking. Perhaps they needed a few people internally to start the ball rolling externally.

That seems to be the thinking over at RPS: a few people to bootstrap the project, let the hardware partners handle the rest.

The only other thing that says 'hardware' to me is the biometric/controller stuff, but again I'm not sure how much of that is an internal aid to Valve in playtesting rather than something that would be targeted at a public release.

Nintendo's vitality sensor didn't go anywhere either, although Valve seemed a lot more enthusiastic about their biometric sensors than Nintendo.

It's definitely not for money. Gabe keeps talking about how insanely profitable Valve is. I'm guessing that with the partnerships they're making in the hardware world (I raised an eyebrow when they said they invested in that Xi3 company), they've decided to make the Steam box more of a concept and a standard and let others do the high COGS work of building and selling the actual hardware. Given that Jeri Ellsworth was one of the people let go, I would guess they've just decided to either get out of physical hardware entirely or just shrink down what they're going to be involved in. And I can imagine that it would be hard to integrate hardware engineers into the other parts of what is largely a software company.

Eleima wrote:

No way!! Never thought Valve would be laying off its employees, out of all the companies out there... Certainly appears to be one of the most healthy!! o_O

Healthy companies can't grow forever; pruning is part of staying healthy.

From what I understand, Valve fires people pretty regularly but between NDAs and general good will, we don't hear a lot about it.

LobsterMobster wrote:

From what I understand, Valve fires people pretty regularly but between NDAs and general good will, we don't hear a lot about it.

That's how I'm thinking too. Saying "Fired" gives an image of something negative (Gabe yelling "GET OUT!"), but from the little information available it seems more like redundancy. Given the 'no bosses' image from the employee manual, it would seem that those people out of work couldn't find a place to be useful within Valve, so they're out.

Having Valve in your employment history can't be a bad thing for them, I'm sure they'll do fine.