Report: Valve hit with layoffs; 'large decisions' ahead
Reports are beginning to surface that employee-friendly Valve Software is in the process of making "large decision" about the company's future, resulting in the layoff of as many as 25 employees from multiple departments.
Updates with Develop report of Valve's director of business leaving the company.
Reports are beginning to surface that employee-friendly Valve Software is in the process of making "large decision" about the company's future, resulting in the layoff of as many as 25 employees from multiple departments.
Gamasutra has confirmed that multiple people had been let go from the hardware and Android departments. The site said that the number 25 has been bandied about, but that is unconfirmed, and that those affected had used phrase like "great cleaning" and "large decisions" related to the terminations. In addition, engineer Jeri Ellsworth tweeted yesterday that she had been "fired," and senior mechanical engineer Ed Owen's LinkedIn profile (via PC Gamer) reflected an end to his employment this month.
Develop is also reporting that Jason Holtman, Valve's director of business and a primary go-between with developers using Steam, has left the company as well.
We have reached out to Valve for a statement and will update as more information becomes available.
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Shacknews
replyJohn Keefer posted a new article, Report: Valve hit with layoffs; 'large decisions' ahead.
Reports are beginning to surface that employee-friendly Valve Software is in the process of making "large decision" about the company's future, resulting in the layoff of as many as 25 employees from multiple departments.-
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yeah it all seems to be hardware and mobile games people so far. if they are deciding that the steam box thing isn't such a hot project, bullet dodged, I'd say.
maybe they finally got to see what the next gen of Xbox/Playstation are going to be, and that opened some eyes.-
Sony contacts Valve, Steam to be PS4 exclusive. You heard it hear first!
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Maybe Gabe's meetings at CES didn't go as well as planned.
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Yeah, hopefully they came to do their senses, jesus.
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It's the entire Episode 3 team.
lol no it'll be for the 25 currently employed TF2 hat designers -
wtf. i know they put a media blackout ever since team fortress 2 back in 1999, but it would be nice to have some clue as to how many games they are developing at once, how many they've scrapped, etc. it's strange that they'd be having a layoff at this point..it only leads fans to worry about HL3 and make baseless speculation.
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They should sell some kind of game
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Bad news, very bad news for the steambox project and linux support there. I'd guess this is the beginning of the end for both at Valve.
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My totally random guess: They point of the steambox was leverage and they've probably gotten the reassurances they wanted from various parties that their needs will be met. Leverage not longer needed and now jettisoned along with a few thousand screaming linux fans, into the void.
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That sucks, it really does.
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My guess is Sony will be using Steam for it's digital distribution channel on the PS4. That's the only thing that would make the Steam Box irrelevant.
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They fired the head of their hardware department and their controller person, along with other "android" people. This has to mean the end to the internal valve linux version of the streambox, at the very least.
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Personally I think nVidia's Shield project is doing the same thing that Valve was.
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"Maybe Valve partnered with a hardware provider and doesn't need in-house staff for that concern anymore?"
For those of us who like the steambox idea, this really is the last, best hope.-
Also, reading various reports, it talks about staff being reduced due to "redundancies", which would give credence to your idea.
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If PC gaming means Steam, and Steam is tied in with Sony, I imagine Microsoft's neglect of PC gaming will soon transition to outright hostility.
Seriously, I shudder to think how Microsoft would react to this. They're not going to take that lying down. -
There are so many synergies here:
Living room box: check
Linux running box: check
Incentive for devs to develop Linux games: huge fucking check
It would be a master stroke if true.
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If this means the cancellation of steambox I am perfectly fine with it. I honestly didn't think it would sell well at all. They should just focus on improving steam and releasing new games.
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If it means just giving up and letting consoles rule the living room, I weep. Such a lost opportunity, and it means a return to our living room prison masters.
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I submitted my resume to a couple of those hardware designer jobs back when they first popped up, but I've gone on the record as saying that I would be pretty surprised if they made first party PC hardware (in the vein of most people's expectations of a Steambox).
I don't know that Steam on Linux is dead (hardware and mobile departments), but the idea of a Valve-sourced Steambox is (and really should be, IMO) dead.
Speculation: They put together their specification, did a test run, and now they don't need the hardware engineers to shop out the spec to other houses. Or, my other REALLY INSANE guess is that the PS4 will be a type of Steambox.
That last one would be fucking nuts.-
And so, so awesome.
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Valve thinks WAY farther ahead than most companies. Part sounds like strategic restructuring, part sounds like ridding of bloat.
Lead art design for TF2? No offense to the guy but I don't think he is as important as the lead art guy for DOTA2 or their other internal projects from a 'moving forward' standpoint.
Is it just me or is this curiously positioned a week before the PS4 reveal? Coup de grace against Microsoft with Steamworks integration into the PS4 and dual PS4/PC gaming capabilities? Oh my fucking god that would be incredible (I'd wager a 1% chance of that happening if security/piracy concerns are dominant).
I'm just saying stupid shit.
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I want your REALLY INSANE prediction to come true.
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really insane guess please be right.
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Layoffs right before the ps4 announcement. Interesting....
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Tis Linux like if I remember correctly. The hardware can certainly run Linux.
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I have a hard time believing Sony would just cede their online services to a 3rd party
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That's only part of the goal and I don't think it's the main goal.
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Unless Sony is only producing the hardware for the PS4, and Valve gets to control ALL of the software, I can't see Valve teaming up with Sony. Gabe's too convinced that Apple is going to release v2 of AppleTV and create something that will end Sony, MS, and Nintendo in the living room (ironically because the Apple platform will be more open than the new consoles). A large number of analysts believe this will happen in the next year.
From the Develop article, the range of employees is so large that I don't think you could conclude it has anything to do with hardware. It's a lot of animators and artists too. I'd say it's stack system cuts.-
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That part is weird and speaks more to cost cutting for money issues.
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From everything i've heard, as much as the place is a paradise to work in, it doesn't mean you can float along if you're no longer relevant. If people arn't pulliing their weight, or they now have better people, why pay those you dont need?
I reaaaaally doubt Valve has money problems.-
This sounds the most likely. Valve may have over hired for their future projects, and now they're correcting.
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My guess is its just a clear out of redundant people. The company doubles in size nearly every year. Along the way they must double up on talent they don't require anymore.
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Its hilarious that anyone thinks valve could be experiencing financial problems.
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Haha, some elsewhere has refereed to this as "The night of the long crowbars." in reference to this:
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People are blowing this way out of proportion.
Gabe was all over town the last two weeks talking up their plans and roadmap for the future. Under a month ago they unveiled the first steambox; piston.
I doubt they've decided to drop all that on a whim. -
It's been 8.5 years since I've been this angry at Valve's lack of transparency. I've already gone through the Steam Armageddon Drill, taking inventory of what games will be unplayable in the event that Steam is suddenly inaccessible, or is acquired by a hostile entity.
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the archville, I never figured you for a prepper.
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Do you want Valve to email you before they fire people?
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Also please explain to me how valve could be acquired by a hostile entity when they are a 100% independent company.
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Not small scale, but "Valve lays off 25" is a much scarier story than "38 Studios lays off everyone".
Valve PR needs to understand what Valve is: a privately held (i.e.: not beholden to shareholders' whims) company that is legendary for quality consistency in games (mostly because of being privately held, therefore being able to say "when it's done"), with the biggest and (arguably) most consumer-friendly PC games digital distribution platform, that has developed a very good rapport with the gamer community since the release of The Orange Box, and abandoning their 2001-2007 attitude of "don't acknowledge the community EVER" attitude for one of better transparency and better customer advocacy.
My advice to head of PR at Valve: DON'T MESS WITH THAT. Finish revising your statement to the press and have it published by 23:00 UTC tonight.-
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Sorry, rushed on that conversion; I meant 01:00 UTC February 14 2013.
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Dude thats fucking crazy. You've gone off the deep end. Valve is just clearing house and getting rid of some unnecessary people. It would be very insulting to those people for Valve to make an official statement discussing the reasons for their firing.
Valve is one of the most powerful and profitable companies in the industry. Firing 25 people is and indication of nothing.
Honestly if you're this paranoid i recommend closing your steam account and unplugging your computer right this second and hiding under your bed. -
privately held - meaning that they're not beholden to you or any other type of share or stake holder.
they want to lay off, they can lay off, and they don't need to make an announcement about it. it doesn't mean anything.-
Archvile: Crazy is as crazy does.
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They apparently can't stop freshly terminated employees from changing their status on LinkedIn and posting on Twitter. They should've thought about that before letting go of this many employees at once.
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I'm pretty sure they knew thats exactly what employes would be doing, its what all newly unemployed people tend to do.. It still doesn't mean any thing.
Just because you decide to read non information as a impending doom, doesn't mean valve has to change their business practices.-
25 employees out of 400-500, too
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...out of a company that has never had a headline regarding a layoff wave exceeding 10.
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I think they should have just flown the archvile in for a private meeting before telling anyone they were fired, that would have avoided this whole mess.
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how many employees are they allowed to shed without an official press release? 3? 7?
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Less than the minimum amount required to result in an event like this. Non-Disparagement Agreements may help, as will spreading the layoffs over several weeks or months.
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An event like what? Nothing has happened. There is no story, people have been fired. We can only speculate about a better way to deal with the situation when there is a situation to deal with.
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so what I hear is "I reserve the right to make a story out of whatever number I see fit."
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If I gave an absolute number, you'd dispute that too, so I gave the conditions that would result in triggering the Steamageddon Drill.
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I mean, let's say they want to fire 50 people. Now to keep it under your radar they have to do what, 3 per week and spend 4 months just getting the company to the point they want? You're advocating less operational efficiency so that you won't have something to fearmonger about. That seems like exactly the kind of reason Valve stays private, so they don't have to do/answer to that kind of sillyness instead of just doing what's best for their business.
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Or force them to sign non-disparagement agreements, as GameSpot did to Jeff Gerstmann in November 2007 (as disclosed in the March 2012 video with John Davison).
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it sounds like they're actually being as transparent as you want. they fired people and allowed them to communicate about it, indidcating it's not a big deal.
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If it's not a big deal, why didn't they have a press release ready for when stuff got public?
Non-disparagement is probably not what I'm thinking of; what would a company force exiting employees to sign if they don't want them to communicate about their employment status change? That. If it's impossible, have a statement ready.-
Because they don't give a fuck about paranoid wackos who will read Armageddon into this move.
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I'm pretty sure you can't make someone sign something that say's they're not allowed to say they're unemployed. How the fuck would anyone find work if they can't tell a prospective employer their status?
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This discussion has gone from crazy to hilarious to bizarre.
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Why? Why would they do that? Please give examples of any other multimillion dollar private company who makes public statements before firing tiny percentages of their massive company.
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All right, all right... it's usually within 24 hours after. Uuuuuugh, I need something to get my heart rate down...
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Dude go and have a cup of tea or something :(
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because firing a few people is not news, it's what businesses do periodically. You want them to be more transparent, but then you want fired employees to be unable to talk publicly, then you want Valve to fire these people slowly over time so you don't notice (less transparent), you're all over the place.
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Do you not recall the MASSIVE fall out and stink around the Gamespot situation entirely because nobody would come out and speak honestly about the situation?
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Also forcing people to sign a non-disparagement agreement when there is nothing to disparage about would be slightly pointless.
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Yeah, because that worked out so damn well for Gamespot...
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It would also fucking suck for the employees who don't get fired to watch small batches of people get let go every week wondering when it's their turn.
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1. Make sure Steam is not running. Start a command prompt. Change directory to Steam directory.
2. Run "dir steamapps\(directoryname) /ad" for the following subdirectories: "common", "sourcemods", and "(username)" (repeat as necessary for all usernames). Take this list, exclude anything that's not a game, and that's your list of titles. Start copying to alternate storage.
3. Take your list of titles, and classify each title as to whether it uses SteamWorks DRM or was imported externally (YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS BY HEART; every purchase of a SteamWorks title should have resulted in empathic pain at the moment of submitting the credit card transaction to Valve). Every title that uses SteamWorks is Dead To You; cross it off the list, it's never coming back, but keep the files around in case there's anything unencrypted to scavenge.
4. Take the remaining titles, and copy them to alternate directories. Depending on what DRM they use, they might still be runnable, but some may require a reinstall from physical media (you kept the physical media, even after importing to your Steam Library, right? If not, cross that title off the list)
5. Take comfort in the fact that credit card data is protected under the PCI DSS, so whoever takes it over is responsible for following those Data Security Standards, or else is responsible for paying hefty fines, or potentially may have their PCI merchant status revoked. For other data stored on Valve servers... well, hopefully a lawyer posts an FAQ.
6. Continue to play classic PC games unencumbered by server-side DRM. Buy only titles released completely DRM-free (Humble Indie Bundle, etc.). Find a new hobby to replace the gaping void.-
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Why do you use a service you have so little faith in?
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Because I wouldn't have been able to play Half-Life 2. After that announcement, I vowed that Steam would be the first, and the last, such service that I would submit to to be able to play a video game.
http://www.shacknews.com/article/34045/evening-reading?id=8772683
http://www.shacknews.com/article/34295/first-post?id=8888718 -
Lots of titles require the use of Steam, you really don't have a choice if you want to play one of those games.
Also you should never have faith in a company. They are not a charity, they are not your friend, they are in the business of making money. Sometimes that aligns with respecting their customers, sometimes it doesn't.-
Sure and i'm not saying otherwise. But if i was as unsure about my investment as the Archvile seems to be, i'd find a different hobby.
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Every time I buy something on Steam, it's as though I'm setting $120 on fire. It's not like PC gamers have much of a choice anymore, but it's the equivalent of a quarantine: if things turn south, you cut Steam loose, and don't ever look back.
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Well its a good thing you are mindful about how you spend your money, i just think you'd do well not to get so worked up about it. Sorry for being so antagonistic in this thread, your line of thinking just sends me a bit mad sometimes.
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I'm a little too mindful; I fear debt more than I fear death.
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I N F ' D
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lmao
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I was going to take a picture with my shortwave radio and Technics 1200, but I think I'll just try to cool down for now.
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lololol
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Wait, where is that pic from? If that's actually "the archvile" then holy fuck this is like Micromancer's action pics all over again!
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it's not him, he's a normal looking dude
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QUICKLY EVERYONE! INTO THE BUNKER!
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because they laid some employees off?
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I hope he's a big supporter of GOG.com. Their whole thing is about not having DRM.
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they'd just issue you an unlock file or key and boom, you can just back up your entire library to HDD or disc, and access it locally in the future. it's not hard to envision any number of solutions for steam going away.
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This was discussion we went over and over and over years ago when nobody had any faith in the service. They also said they had a last resort plan in place for emergencies.
Hell nothing lasts for ever, but i think we'll see Sony and Microsoft disappear before Valve does.-
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There's a difference between that and losing the ability to play games because some DRM server doesn't exist anymore. Back when Bioshock had the SecuROM activation DRM, these concerns were brought up, and 2K answered them with "...if we ever stop supporting BioShock [online activation servers], we will release a patch so that the game is still playable." ( http://www.shacknews.com/article/53236/bioshock-pc-install-limit-lifted )
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it is
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Not all hardware people are gone apparently
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=47686476&postcount=1097
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cutting staff to look more profitable to attract investment
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Gabe has commented on this. No projects are changing, etc. Everything is so a go.
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hrmm, maybe just performance related?
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maybe a business being a business, reorg/realign/restructure as priorities change every few years
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Very likely. It's also annual review time for a lot of companies.
And unlike a lot of other creative centric game companies that run their businesses into the ground and then turn to Kickstarter; Valve seems to know how to balance running a business while maintaining a creative work environment.
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I think people forget in that talk Gabe gave last week or whenever, he specifically said the one thing they learned about the 'valve style' of running a company is you have to be more aggressive about getting rid of people.
In that environment, if you just don't "get" how it works, or if you don't make the effort to find shit to do, you're a cancer to everyone else and they're going to cut you.
Like take the TF2 art people; over time there's just less work to do that's specifically related to that project. Those dudes are expected to _find_ work to do on other projects. Or come up with a project everyone else agrees is a good idea and lead it. What they're not expected to do is to just coast along the TF2 art train. I have no idea if that's what's going on or not; but it's an example of the dangers of that environment and why you might see perfectly competent people just suddenly get booted out.
It's also not an environment lends itself to tolerating people that burn out.
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Looks like they are just cleaning out redundancies before moving forward.
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Sounds like spineless management to me.
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there's no management at valve.
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lol. it sounds like some kind of anarchist place to work that would be fun in your 20s but horrible as a grownup with a family and stuff.
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what?
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Not really. If these people were drifting without guidance, someone above them should have gently pushed them to a new direction OR when there is a problem with someone's performance to the point of needing to be fired, they should fire them. Instead, those employees were allowed to drift, thinking everything is ok, and management decided it would be best to have a non-confrontational lay off. Now they will go off and get hired at some other company thinking they weren't the problem. That's what I mean about spineless.
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So you know exactly how it went down at Valve. How's Source 2 looking?
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Did you not read their employee handbook? It's very explicit that you are expected to make your own work. The entire structure of the company is designed to cater to hyper productive people who do not need or want to be 'pushed'. The expectation is you will find your place in the various projects (because you think they are worthwhile projects) or you will create an project that is interesting enough that a team will form around you. If you can't handle that you don't belong there.
They are not a normal company, and the way they do things is completely alien from a normal corporate perspective. -
I think you're not understanding the part where there isn't anyone above them and there isn't any kind of management structure. You're speaking in terms that are nonsense when applied to Valve.
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Companies like Valve explicitly hire people that don't/shouldn't need that level of micromanagement and constantly making sure they're on task and being valuable.
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haha how?
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Excellent workers do not need micro management as you suggest. The best workers have initiative and motivation - they will find work to do to be an asset.
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No. If you work at Valve, you know what you are getting into (no management).
http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf
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nnnnnnnnrrrrrrrggghh.... http://chattypics.com/files/eton_e1_xe9px2obei.jpg
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*breathe* *breathe* ... http://chattypics.com/files/20130213_serenitynow_msv8yd5fdr.jpg
I still can't fathom it; if Valve's workplace is one that organically sorts out those who don't seek projects, why the sudden shock of departures and "I got fired" posts all at once? If it's a business realignment, that doesn't mean that nothing changed. It's basically a denial, but if he says that this isn't about Steam, then I guess we press on. I just... can't stop looking back at that event in time where 25 Valve employees got let go.-
good god dude, do you start looking for a new job for fear that your company is going under the moment anyone is let go too? Do you think this is the first time Valve has ever fired anyone?
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Because it's easier to clear people out in batches. If you trickle people out one by one constantly that has an impact on the work environment and the mindset of the employees. No one likes seeing their friend get fired; you chop 25 people at once and everyone is sad for a few weeks but they get over it and continue to work.
Now imagine instead you spaced those people out evenly over the course of a year or something. That's a lot of constant sadness not to mention a lingering 'am I next!?' environment.
It's also entirely possible they just go through a once-a-year-review of how people are doing and this was just a particularly bad year.
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gaben made a list of people working on hl3, and fired them. can't risk the game coming out.
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Kinda goes against what they talk about in Valve Handbook, especially the part about not being hired to do a particular thing. Guess they are just like any other company.
http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf-
How do you figure? Just because they don't expect people to exist for a single project doesn't mean they never let people go.
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what does this even mean? that they'd only hire people who were somehow perfect and would never be less effective or less useful to Valve's current (and ever changing) goals? It's just some people getting fired. It happens all the time at every company.
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Why would any of this change your mind?
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Yeah, still, that's a big house cleaning. Guess it makes since they are about to embark on a all or nothing Endeavour and might need all the buoyancy they can get. If any thing, it might be revealing just how serious they are.
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Hey I just wanna check if anyone else remembers this: This isn't the only time Valve has had a shakeup of this relative size, is it?
I seem to remember hearing about a bunch of people dropping off before HL2 was released, probably in numbers comparable to the relative size Valve was at the time.-
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So you're saying Half-Life 3 is releasing soon
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as a rule valve are not really fat trimmers, they like giving exceptional people time to be creative. the people build hl3 could be easily said to just be taking up time and money considering the dev time.
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In a studio as big as Valve, it's possible that 25 people were let go as housecleaning.
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