Valve lays off 13 full-time staff, some of which worked on SteamVR

Valve lays off 13 full-time staff, some of which worked on SteamVR

Valve lays off 13 full-time staff, some of which worked on SteamVR

Valve has confirmed that they laid off 13 full-time employees, and have terminated a number of agreements with contractors. At least four of these employees are known to be involved with  Valve’s hardware engineering teams, with many working on the company’s VR initiatives, that said, Valve has confirmed that they remain committed to VR and do not plan to exit the VR ecosystem anytime soon. 

In a statement to Variety, a Valve spokesperson said the following, confirming that these layoffs are not an indication that Valve is abandoning VR.   

    Last month, 13 full-time employees were let go and a portion of our contractor agreements were terminated. It’s an unfortunate part of business, but does not represent any major changes at the company. We thank those affected for their contribution and wish them well in future endeavors  

While Valve is best known for games like DOTA 2, Portal, the Half-Life series and Counter-Strike, the company has been relatively quiet on the gaming front, with the focus being mostly on areas like VR, Linux gaming and generating further profits from the Steam platform. 
 

Valve lays off 13 full-time staff, some of which worked on SteamVR  

At this time the future of Valve’s SteamVR headsets is unknown, as many headset makers appear to be moving towards inside-out tracking systems, rather than Steam VR’s accurate, but difficult to set up, lighthouse system. Steam VR powered headsets like the HTC Vive and Vive PRO also command higher price points than their competitors, making them a hard sell for the PC gaming market. 

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