Valve lays-off 25 employees, Newell responds

Reports have come in saying that Valve has layed-off 25 employees from the company, and Valve boss Gabe Newell has responded by saying that it won’t affect the company’s plans.

“We don’t usually talk about personnel matters for a number of reasons. There seems to be an unusual amount of speculation about some recent changes here, so I thought I’d take the unusual step of addressing them,” Newell said.

Newell assured gamers that the staff-cut won’t hamper any of the planned games or projects the Counter-Strike and Half-Life developer is working on.

“No, we aren’t cancelling any projects. No, we aren’t changing any priorities or projects we’ve been discussing,” he added. “No, this isn’t about Steam or Linux or hardware or [insert game name here]. We’re not going to discuss why anyone in particular is or isn’t working here.”

While explaining what the lay-offs won’t affect, what Newell’s statement lacks is an explanation for why the staff were let go.

Jeri Ellsworth, one of the company’s well-known hardware developers, was among the staff that were let go.