Valve San Francisco was formed in December 2012 by ex-Popcap staff Tod Semple and Jeff Gates, with Semple credited as the programmer for the original Plants vs. Zombies. The pair will now launch their own studio, Temple Gates Games.

"Jeff [Gates] and I are working on indie games again," . "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.

"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."

Between them, the duo has worked on projects at LucasArts, Maxis, Blizzard, and PopCap.

"We were big fans of their prior work," said a Valve representative. "We worked with them during their startup phase, but they#146;re independent now and still working on their game. We wish them the best of luck."

Earlier this week, during an office tour for the Dota 2 subreddit community.