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Valve severs ties with Bay Area team, ex-employees form indie start-up
Valve has cut ties with a small San Francisco development team it established last year, IGN reports. Valve hired on Popcap and Blizzard veterans Tod Semple and Jeff Gates to head up the subsidiary back in December. Though the two are no longer employed by Valve, Semple and Gates will continue working on their current project as the newly christened Temple Gates Games. "Jeff and I are working on indie games again," Semple told IGN. "We were working for Valve in a remote office in San Mateo. It turned out that there weren't many benefits for either side in that arrangement. Valve was super cool about it and is letting us continue to work on our game, and is also giving us the office." Valve chimed in with a statement: "We were big fans of their prior work. We worked with them during their startup phase, but they're independent now and still working on their game. We wish them the best of luck."
Report: Valve acquires Star Filled Studios talent [Update: Valve responds]
Update: We got a response from Valve's Doug Lombardi, who did confirm that Valve hired both Tod Semple and Jeff Gates; however, he did wish to clarify this doesn't necessarily mean Valve is opening up an office in San Francisco, despite what Semple's LinkedIn profile says. "As a point of clarification, this is probably better categorized as Valve hiring two new employees instead of an acquisition of a company or opening of a Valve SF office."Original story: Star Filled Studios is a two-man outfit, founded by ex-Popcap and Blizzard guys Tod Semple and Jeff Gates, who both worked on Plants vs. Zombies and Diablo 3. "We are opening a new Valve office on the San Francisco peninsula," Semple's LinkedIn profile reads, revealing Valve's acquisition took place in November.Semple doesn't say anything in regards to what Valve plans to do with this satellite offices in San Francisco, though current speculation is that this move mirrors Valve's acquisition of Turtle Rock Studios in 2008, buying the developer and then finishing Left 4 Dead development on its own. Star Filled has not announced any projects of its own, so it is uncertain what the studio was working on previous to acquisition.Semple's blog talks about going up to Seattle to visit Valve in September, so we can only imagine this is another Turtle Rock scenario. Again, that's only speculation at this point – we've inquired with Valve for more information and will update accordingly.[Thanks, FHorrigan; image credit]
