Some would consider a job at Valve right up there in the “dream” category… unless you’ve been there for a very long time and well, just want to do something different. Or take a break. Or any other perfectly valid or invalid reason. For Portal 2 and Half-Life 2 penman Erik Wolpaw, he wants to get into the juice business.
A tweet from the Valve News Network showed a Facebook update where Wolpaw allegedly announces his departure (you may need to click the image to see the full post).
Writers @Wolpaw & @jaypinkerton have left their jobs at Valve. pic.twitter.com/Ron26fOklp
— Tyler McVicker (@ValveNewsNetwor) February 17, 2017
VNN assumed the “with Jay Pinkerton” part meant Pinkerton, also a writer at Valve, was leaving too, but some follow-up tweets from the man himself and Wolpaw cleared that up.
Pinkerton’s still at Valve! Stop sending him concerned emails!
— Erik Wolpaw (@Wolpaw) February 17, 2017
@ValveNewsNetwor @Wolpaw lol I didn’t quit! I still work at Valve.
— Jay Pinkerton (@jaypinkerton) February 17, 2017
If tweets don’t do it for you, Polygon’s Michael McWhertor got in touch with Wolpaw, who confirmed the news:
Reached via email, Wolpaw said of his departure from Valve, “I’m gonna move back to Cleveland and work at my niece’s juice shop.”
Juice? That’s not Half-Life 3! Seriously though, it sounds like a great way to unwind.
@ValveNewsNetwor [Twitter, via Polygon]
Comments
11 responses to “Half-Life 2 Writer Erik Wolpaw Departs Valve For… Juice?”
Even juice labels have more story than what Valve is interested in making now.
Valve barely make games anymore, let alone games with interesting narratives. God only knows what a writer would have been doing there the last few years anyway. Fetching coffee for people?
did you not see the box of goods he was carting out?
Apparently they the have 3 full games on the boil.
What was their last game that was available at retail, Portal 2? Which came out in 2011. Six fucking years ago.. I guess there’s CS:GO which came out in 2012, but that wasn’t available retail only digitally. So yeah.
And let’s be honest – CS:GO wouldn’t exactly be the meatiest project for a writer to get his teeth into. Portal 2 was absolute comedy gold, a masterpiece. But since then, nothing Valve has released would have needed much more than a solid afternoon’s work from a writer.
Yep. It’s a fucking joke. I know it’s been almost that long since Rockstar released a game. But at least they keep GTA V alive with online stuff.
Time to start that Old Man Murray Patreon
I can see why he would be bored and want a change of career. Valve doesn’t make games anymore, valve makes money.
3 full VR games… & the only reason they’re even making them is to support their VR headgear so it doesn’t become another commercial failure like the Steam Machine…
Probably sick of working for a company that doesn’t fucking do anything other than provide a platform for dickheads to vomit digital shovelware onto the net…