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Valve's Director of Business has left [GAF Rumor: TF2 Art Lead, SFM Head Gone, More]

Valygar

Member
Gabe talked about the Steam Greenlight "failure" (as in being another bottleneck), and now we get this? Weird... I hope it is unrelated.
 

DaBuddaDa

Member
I can't even process this sentence. Is it me or is this terribly written?

Here you go:

"Holtman was one of Valve's main points of contact for Developers using Steam. He played a key role in developer relations at the studio, and had worked at Valve since 2005."
 

Patryn

Member
Next headline coming:

"Origin gains new Head of Business; Jason Holtman to take place at Steam competitor"

Seriously, EA would be idiots to not make a play for this guy.
 

qko

Member
But wait! Selling licenses of $60 games for $5 is supposed to be a successful business model! How could there be layoffs?!?!

Where has all money from the hat sales gone to?
 

Thraktor

Member
Is this a reaction to the Greenlight criticisms? It seems like Gaben may have just made an over-arching decision to clean house in all the areas where things aren't going to plan.
 
Next headline coming:

"Origin gains new Head of Business; Jason Holtman to take place at Steam competitor"

Seriously, EA would be idiots to not make a play for this guy.

I doubt somebody would want to go from Valve to EA, after so many years at Valve I also doubt money is much of an issue.
 

Fugu

Member
While this is supremely unfortunate, I hope this riles up the PC user base enough to make them skeptical of putting all of their digital eggs in one basket.
 

BraXzy

Member
Seriously guys, Microsoft is on the verge of countering Sony's Feb. 20th conference with, Durango/Steam/Valve merger.



(evil laugh)

Won't happen, but it's funny what with the Halo 2/3 steam rumours and stuff :L

How would people react if that happened? :|
 

szaromir

Banned
You post your trollish bullshit in every Valve thread. If Valve went under would your account cease to exist?
Why is it OK to constantly post messages like 'fuck Origins' or "UPlay should die in fire" etc but the moment someone dislikes Steam the defense force brigade is onto him?
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
I can't even process this sentence. Is it me or is this terribly written?
Developers stayed in touch with the company through this guy who has been with Valve (But not necessarily in that position) since 2005.
 

FordGTGuy

Banned
Does anyone know if the 25 employees received any warning before being layed off, if not I could understand the layoffs causing much frustration in a company.

Who wants to work for a company that might fire you at any moment?

Director of Business is a job for people forming external partnerships.

Let's imagine two things:
1) With Greenlight taking over for conventional submissions, and Valve looking to exit the curation game altogether, they have less and less need for such a position as it relates to Steam. Insofar as this position would have directed something like Greenlight, it has failed.

2) Assume that there's trouble in the hardware front; so either they've having trouble with external partners or they're scrapping their hardware plans altogether.

Wouldn't these be a fairly logical underpinning for Valve to change or eliminate this position or rethink their direction?

But the source said he left not that his job was terminated.
 

PhantomR

Banned
Seems that Valve is losing some steam.

VSELQ.gif
 

ramine

Unconfirmed Member
I wouldn't be too surprised in Valve was in talks to be acquired and these changes were due to this.
 
That's certainly odd. Valve is enjoying so much success, I wonder where he is going.

Some one has bonked heads together and it's time to purge the employee rolls of dissenters.


Somebody at Valve thinks something up their sleeve is a terrible idea and I guess we're finding where the land was drawn in the sand.
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
There's no way to spin this as a positive.

Director of Business is a job for people forming external partnerships.

Let's imagine two things:
1) With Greenlight taking over for conventional submissions, and Valve looking to exit the curation game altogether, they have less and less need for such a position as it relates to Steam. Insofar as this position would have directed something like Greenlight, it has failed.

2) Assume that there's trouble in the hardware front; so either they've having trouble with external partners or they're scrapping their hardware plans altogether.

Wouldn't these be a fairly logical underpinning for Valve to change or eliminate this position or rethink their direction?
 

Snaku

Banned
What in the fuck is going on? I'm having 'Sega is leaving the console business' flashbacks here.

The sky is falling.
 
Very interesting. Maybe finally with some of these people leaving we'll hear some rumor about what the fuck is happening with Half Life 3 ... which happens to be the only thing I give a shit about when speaking of Valve as a developer.
 
I wonder if there was some kind of schism at Valve in terms of what direction to take the company. Sort of like what happened to Id back in the day.
 

Concept17

Member
I wouldn't be too surprised in Valve was in talks to be acquired and these changes were due to this.

This kind of speculation makes zero sense. ~25 people of over 400 is not a huge deal. Still don't know why this guy left. He may have just not been needed anymore.
 

DaBuddaDa

Member
Chief engineer is fired, reportedly 25 or more employees laid off, Director of Business leaves company, more good news at 11!

What if all of them were wasting money, working on unsuccessful projects or bad at their job due to not fitting in with the Valve culture? Would it still be a bad thing?
 
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