Former Valve business head now at Microsoft to lead PC gaming division

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Microsoft may be ready to try again to make a big mark in the PC gaming industry. The company has recently hired Jason Holtman, who previously worked at Valve for eight years as its director of business development, to be Microsoft's new leader of its PC gaming and entertainment division.

 

 

Holtman departed Valve in February, around the time that Valve was rumored to have laid off about 25 of its employees (Valve never confirmed or denied these reports). This week, Holtman's LinkedIn page was updated to show his new gig at Microsoft.

 

Gamesindustry International got a quick statement from Holtman, who said:

Yes, I have joined Microsoft where I will be focusing on making Windows a great platform for gaming and interactive entertainment. I think there is a lot of opportunity for Microsoft to deliver the games and entertainment customers want and to work with developers to make that happen, so I'm excited to be here.

 

Holtman is credited with being one of the biggest forces behind the growth of Valve's Steam service as it slowly became the biggest single source for downloadable PC games, including bringing many third-party game publishers to the platform. It will be interesting to see how much of his experience at Valve, his advancement of the Steam platform in particular, will be used in his new Microsoft job.

 

By the same token, the fact that Microsoft has hired a person such as Holtman to take over its PC game division may show that the company will be developing a new strategy for the PC game industry in general.