Valve co-founder Gabe Newell publically addresses layoffs

Yesterday brought rumors that Valve may be preparing extensive staff cuts after the company fired Jeri Ellsworth the day before. One site said they confirmed that several employees had been let go – as many as 25 – in what...

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It's never a bad thing to lay people off and get fresh talent in the company. It increases innovation. I just wish other companies did this... *coughEAcough*.
If the reason wasn't publicly released, something really bad must have happened such as the group was caught collecting screenshots for Half Life 3 (which will never be released)

^^ if want fresh talent by laying off current workforce then gabe need to fire himself first.

I like the way these gaming big knob's pander to the gaming public by always saying "gamers come first". Yeah, right... Money comes first, the rest is just lip service.

If It was gamers first then the pc would have exceptional ports and support linux and utilize computers to their full extent

You have it backwards. When a company takes good care of it's customers, they don't have to worry about money. It will come.

Sounds like politics related. usually when you see this kind of so called "great cleansing" is either because a group of employees broke company policy, or regime change. since the regime hasn't changed, it only leaves one guess, that those guys collaboratively broke the company policy. but by doing what is anyone's guess.

I work in the HR.

You're missing the obvious sarcasm in his post.

On a serious note, the roles of released people LOOKS like the traditional exodus of staffers wanting to start a competing business. Of course Valve says differently, but it does make me wonder...

Sarcasm notwithstanding I really have no gripes with Steam probably because I've had very little dealing with them. I've only registered my Steam games & downloaded patches.

Sorry but having a job at a company isn't a right. Stop treating it like it is.

Im trying to figure out how gabe newell has hindered the PC gaming industry in any way as the above people have implied.

Or, Valve could stop pissing away money on a guaranteed to be horrendous, straight to DVD, straight to bargain bin movie and use the staff they're planning to get rid of to make a new Half Life or Portal game which will soak up money like a sponge.

It was probably a bunch of devs etc who were working together to steal and sell insider knowledge?

I doubt whether it's quite so clandestine. The reasons are only known to themselves and they're not talking at the moment.