Valve boss Gabe Newell has chimed in on the seemingly abrupt round of layoffs at the company, assuring that there hasn’t been any shift in priorities or game cancellations. In a statement released to Engadget, Newell further stated that the redundancies have nothing to do with Steambox or recent Steam for Linux developments.

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.

Jeri Ellsworth, a computer chip designer working on input devices for Valve projects first broke word of being let go from the company yesterday. News of several other departures hit the wire today, including HL2 character designer and TF2 art lead Moby Francke, as well as Steam business director Jason Holtman. The full list of impacted positions is below. While Ellsworth specifically mentioned being fired, it is not clear if all of those named were laid off or if some left on their own accord.

Moby Francke, Half-Life 2 character designer and Team Fortress 2 art lead
Jason Holtman, director of business development for Steam and Steamworks
Keith Huggins, character animator and animator for Team Fortress 2 “Meet the” video series
Tom Leonard, software engineer for Half-Life 2 and Left 4 Dead
Realm Lovejoy, artist for Half-Life 2, Portal, and Left 4 Dead. She was also part of the original DigiPen-turned-Valve team that created Narbacular Drop, the inspiration for Portal
Marc Nagel, test lead for Half-Life, Counter-Strike, and patch updates
Bay Raitt, animator for Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal
Elan Ruskin, engine programmer for Left 4 Dead, Portal 2, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Matthew Russell, animator for Team Fortress 2 “Meet the” video series

 

Thanks, Engadget.

Follow this author on Twitter.