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Valve Suspends Jess Cliffe, Counter-Strike Co-Creator, After Child Sexual Exploitation Arrest

KIRO 7 News in Seattle is reporting that the Valve game designer has been arrested.

Asif Khan

February 1, 2018 8:45 PM

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Jess Cliffe, Co-creator of Counter-Strike and current Valve employee, was arrested by Seattle police early on the morning of February 1. KIRO 7 News reports that Seattle police say no charges have been filed, and Cliffe will have a bail hearing on Friday.

Valve has suspended Cliffe, telling Kotaku: “We are still learning details of what actually happened. Reports suggest he has been arrested for a felony offense. As such we have suspended his employment until we know more.”

Cliffe created the original Counter-Strike with Minh Le while they were students at Virginia Tech. He's known as the voice of Counter-Strike, voicing the phrase “Counter-Terrorists Win!” and countless other VO in the game.
 
Cliffe's experience at Valve spans a ton of games. He has done level design for Team Fortress 2, Portal 2, Half-Life 2, and Left 4 Dead 2.

We will update this story as it develops.

Asif Khan

CEO/EIC/EIEIO

Asif Khan is the CEO, EIC, and majority shareholder of Shacknews. He began his career in video game journalism as a freelancer in 2001 for Tendobox.com. Asif is a CPA and was formerly an investment adviser representative. After much success in his own personal investments, he retired from his day job in financial services and is currently focused on new private investments. His favorite PC game of all time is Duke Nukem 3D, and he is an unapologetic fan of most things Nintendo. Asif first frequented the Shack when it was sCary's Shugashack to find all things Quake. When he is not immersed in investments or gaming he is a purveyor of fine electronic music. Asif also has an irrational love of Cleveland sports.