Valve San Francisco office shut down, staff to go indie

A group of Valve employees in a San Francisco office have been let go, but will stay together as a new independent team.

Tod Semple, one of the affected employees, told IGN that he and colleague Jeff Gates would go back to working as indies.

"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," he said.

"Valve was super cool about it and is letting us continue to work on our game and is also giving us the office. So Jeff and I are starting up a new company called Temple Gates Games."

Semple and Gates previously worked at PopCap and Blizzard, and Valve said it was a 'big fan' or their earlier work, so worked with them during their startup phase.

"They’re independent now and still working on their game. We wish them the best of luck," Valve said.

Team stays together, project continues, and everyone sounds happy: best break up story ever?

Thanks, Joystiq.