Valve fires Jeri Ellsworth, who was developing Steam Box game controllers

When Valve first started publicly hiring hardware engineers for secret R&D projects, Jeri Ellsworth was already there: the talented maker and Commodore 64 aficionado had been snapped up to help jumpstart Valve’s hardware division. There, she helped carve out a prototype lab with 3-D printers, laser cutters, and other prototyping tools, and began work on a series of original game controller prototypes to accompany Valve’s Steam Box efforts — ways to use a PC game console effectively from the couch. Now, though, it seems she’s out of a job: Jeri Ellsworth tweeted that she got fired today, and is already thinking about her next projects.

In a second tweet, Ellsworth says that today was her last day on the job. An attached picture of pinball machines and her words “All the pinball players will be sad” reference her many pinball cabinets which she installed at the company; it sounds like she’s packing them up now that she’s leaving. We’ve reached out to Ellsworth for comment on why she got fired, and we’ll let you know what we hear.