Valve boss Gabe Newell has responded to reports of significant layoffs at the company by attempting to assure fans that any personnel changes haven’t affected its current projects.
Reports claim the Steam owner and Half-Life maker has laid off as many as 25 employees, including hardware engineer Jeri Ellsworth and director of business Jason Holtman.
While Newell wasn’t directly willing to discuss the company’s employee situation, he responded to the reports by offering Engadget the following statement:
"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. No, we aren't canceling any projects. No, we aren't changing any priorities or projects we've been discussing. 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."
Among other unannounced projects, Valve is currently working on its own gaming hardware for the living room, while the company recently announced plans to collaborate with filmmaker J.J. Abrams.
Valve also plans to deliver two talks at next month’s Game Developers Conference, one about porting Team Fortress 2 to VR goggles and the other about development challenges for head-mounted displays and tracking systems.
