Fired Up

Valve tracks down source of leak, fires everyone.

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By Nathan Davis on 19 May, 2009

Okay, so maybe Valve didn’t really sack everyone, but it did according to an amusing tale by one of its developers. With the ‘Meet the Spy’ video supposedly leaked early over the weekend by an employee, Valve’s Robin Walker went on a faux-rampage, earlier today, and journalled the hilarious non-events in the official Team Fortress 2 blog. Not entirely game related, but it’s a pretty entertaining series of posts.

First up, Walker begin with the post titled ‘Getting to the bottom of things’:

As many of you know, the Meet the Spy video was leaked this weekend. Some of you on the forum have wondered if Valve leaked it on purpose. And until we find the clown who did leak it, the answer to that is yes.

Others of you have started a petition to stop Valve from firing anyone over the leak. Once again, this just goes to show you how valuable customer feedback is to us—we hadn’t even thought of doing that, but once you see it there in print, it’s a fantastic idea. I’ve been asking people all morning who was responsible and come up empty. But now that I’ve started firing people, they can’t name names fast enough. So far I’ve got sixty-seven names in the “suspicious” category, fifteen in “very suspicious”, and another forty-three I’d been wanting to fire anyway.

I’ll keep you posted as I track down the culprit. Rest assured, though: Until I find the person responsible, I vow that Valve will stop work on all projects.

In the next post, he runs into the head of human resources while he was “lining up employees in a row against the wall so I could run past and fire them faster.” See the full, chronological list, below.

1. Getting to the bottom of things
   “Until I find the person responsible, I vow that Valve will stop work on all projects.”
2. Getting warmer
   “You’re fired you’re fired you’re fired you’re fired oh hi, Kathy. What’s up?”
3. Overheard: Robin Walker gets results
   “Laidlaw, it says here you’re a writer. Well, let me tell YOU a story.”
4. At the W’s
   “Valve’s staff is now down to two employees…”
5. Cased closed
   “Sir, you’ve fired everyone.” “Already? But it’s not even eight o’clock.”

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