- Joined
- Aug 8, 2004
- Messages
- 12,234
- Reaction score
- 239
Last year saw Valve take strides into hardware development by hiring an array of talent with electrical engineering backgrounds. A big name in that team was Jeri Ellsworth who today has revealed she's been fired.
Only a few days ago at DICE 2013 we heard Gabe reiterating Valve's desire to innovate in this space. He sees the PC as being cutting edge in most facets with exception to hardware input where it lags behind consoles. The hardware team at Valve have been assembled to drive innovation for the industry, but not necessarily to ship a product of their own.
As such, Jeri's departure comes as a surprise, especially given her talents in the field of electrical engineering. We don't know the reason behind her leaving however we've also learned a colleague of hers, Ed Owen has also left Valve. Potentially this could mean Valve's hardware focus is taking more of a backseat going forward or progress has been slow and a couple of new faces are needed to give the project a shot in the arm.
We wish the best of luck to Jeri in her future projects.
UPDATE:
We've also learned today that Bay Raitt, a long term modeler & animator at Valve has also left the company. His most recent major contribution being the Source Filmmaker. In a leaving message on Facebook, Bay says:
UPDATE 2:
Gabe himself has released a statement to Engadget discussing the layoffs. While he refused to give any specifics or personal details regarding Ellsworth or Raitt, he did mention that there has been no change in priorities or cancellations of projects.
Only a few days ago at DICE 2013 we heard Gabe reiterating Valve's desire to innovate in this space. He sees the PC as being cutting edge in most facets with exception to hardware input where it lags behind consoles. The hardware team at Valve have been assembled to drive innovation for the industry, but not necessarily to ship a product of their own.
As such, Jeri's departure comes as a surprise, especially given her talents in the field of electrical engineering. We don't know the reason behind her leaving however we've also learned a colleague of hers, Ed Owen has also left Valve. Potentially this could mean Valve's hardware focus is taking more of a backseat going forward or progress has been slow and a couple of new faces are needed to give the project a shot in the arm.
We wish the best of luck to Jeri in her future projects.
UPDATE:
We've also learned today that Bay Raitt, a long term modeler & animator at Valve has also left the company. His most recent major contribution being the Source Filmmaker. In a leaving message on Facebook, Bay says:
UPDATE 2:
Gabe himself has released a statement to Engadget discussing the layoffs. While he refused to give any specifics or personal details regarding Ellsworth or Raitt, he did mention that there has been no change in priorities or cancellations of projects.
UPDATE 3:
We can so far confirm that 19 24 individuals have left Valve in the past week, all of which are listed below.
- Babi Velho - Portuguese Representative
- Bay Raitt - Artist, SFM Developer
- Brian Decker - Customer Support
- Ed Owen - Hardware Product Developer
- Elan Ruskin - Programmer
- Greg Towner - Animator
- Frank Crockett - Technical Writer
- Jeri Ellsworth - Electrical Engineer
- Joe Han - Animator
- Joel Shoop - UI, UX Designer
- Keith Huggins - Animator
- Leslie Redd - Director of Educational Programs
- Marc Nagel - Test Lead, IT Developer
- Matthew Russell - Animation, Designer
- Micah Gregorio - Technical Support
- Michael Caldwell - Designer
- Mike Durand - Software Engineer
- Moby Francke - Artist, Art Director
- Noel McGinn - Animator
- Olivier Nallet - Software Developer
- Realm Lovejoy - Artist
- Roger Lundeen - Architect, Environment Artist
- Tanio Klyce - Engineer
- Tom Leonard - Senior Game Designer
