Ellsworth and her team had built a unique area of the office, filled with all sorts of strange equipment and unique lighting - including a chandelier - and some of it her own hardware. She started effectively shutting down the AR studio literally. "It took at 26 foot truck to get my stuff out - place looked like a ghost town after I left."

When the time came to confront Gabe Newell, she said that "you should fund this externally or give it to us".

"There was a lawyer in the room and Gabe just turned to him and said 'Give it to 'em'."

Ellsworth later adds that there were protracted lawyer discussions, and it wasn't this simple. But to all intents and purposes Ellsworth and Johnson were effectively working continuously the next day at his house. Four weeks after leaving Valve, their project came to fruition with prototypes for augmented reality glasses that use head mounted projectors with a special reflective mat and sub-millimeter head tracking - likened to the holographic 3D chess in Star Wars - demoed in May at the 'maker' event Maker Faire.