Report: Valve made 17B~ in revenue this year. With 336 employees. “One of the most efficient businesses of all time.”
- Thread starter BennyBlanco
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EverydayBeast
ChatShitGPT Alpha 0.001
Valve is trying to be competitive
yogaflame
Member
They really made sure that steambox was properly designed, engineered and well optimize which means they also want this to be bid and get piece of that pie and maybe they want to be ahead in cornering the market on the new segment, the pchybrid category in market which MSxbox hybrid plans to get. Pc hybrid like steambox will be a big task compared to steam deck. For me I think they cannot rely to much on AI for support with this new task.
Crunchbox
Member
This is not the flex you think it is. I prefer companies that break even with hundred of thousands of employees. Makes for a better society instead of the few people getting all the money. Also when is the last time they made a real game and not live service loot box slop? Its all cool you guys like that steam makes tik tok brainrot style games popular but you guys spread propaganda for them as if you had stock in the company but its private so basically you get absolutely nothing lol.
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Crunchbox
Member
With who and why? They have 17 billion dollars the title says lol.
Last Hearth
Member
How many jobs did Gabe create when he spent 500 million on a yacht? Making one's company less efficient for the sake of creating jobs is really dumb. He's better off spending the extra profits on other efficient businesses.
Crunchbox
Member
Its called a cult. People probably laundering money through sales of cosmetics.
yurinka
Member
These are made out numbers from a random Twitter user
MayauMiao
Member
Thousands of what job? Hire more DEI activist to create more problem and friction from within that only drags a company down to bankruptcy?
Crunchbox
Member
Zero. Probably a waiting list. Probably made it on the side of making military and other boats aka no shortages of work ever so one guys yacht aint moving any needles. Money only going to the same insulated exclusive club of rich people and their 10th generation of alfreds
PlayStaytion
Member
People can't get comfortable about Gabe passing away(God Forbid) while using Steams launcher. Well, let me tell you a secret about life longevity, it's your job, not your weight, so relax and play like everyone else.
Topher
Identifies as young
This is based off an article from 2024. It is old news.
But yeah, he's making up the $17 billion. How he is using a 2024 source for 2025, I have no idea
Here’s how much Valve pays its staff — and how few people it employs
Small company, huge influence.
www.theverge.com
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ClanOfNone
Member
I figured Steam would have a small employee base, but holy shit 336 people is insane.
Steam IS pc gaming, that level of efficiency is also insane. Steam run by GabenAI bots confirmed, Half-Life 3 first game fully developed by AI.
Steam IS pc gaming, that level of efficiency is also insane. Steam run by GabenAI bots confirmed, Half-Life 3 first game fully developed by AI.
IntentionalPun
Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
That yacht comment is a pretty silly comparison. Just 1/10th of Valve's revenue could employ 17,000 people with 100k a year jobs. Gabe could still make many billions a year with that size of a company.
I don't really expect many on GAF to agree with me, but it's my opinion that that sort of wealth hoarding is not really healthy in any way for capitalism and society.
Literally taking most of the revenue of a massive industry and barely employing anyone. (Well more like a bit over 1/3rd of that industry... just insane)
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Don't understand how there can be so few employees for a company making multiple hardware, distributing hardware, marketing hardware, creating multiple games, maintaining multiple games, operating a digital marketplace, marketing the digital marketplace, and all the huge support functions that must entail.
I call bullshit on this 330 employees figure
I call bullshit on this 330 employees figure
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Topher
Identifies as young
Massive corporations make for a better society than privately owned companies? lol....ok
jshackles
Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Valve has 300ish employees and can do all that, the same way that Sandfall Interactive can make a game like Expedition 33 with "only 30 people". It's called outsourcing and contractors.
Boss Mog
Member
My 9 year old PC is probably more powerful.
Hudo
Gold Member
I wouldn't be surprised if they also use freelancers and outsource stuff to companies on a per-project basis.
Hawk The Slayer
Member
Those Steam Sales are OP.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
#VictimMentality
MayauMiao
Member
No shit, Sherlock.
archangelmorph
Gold Member
Fuck me that's crazy revenue.
To put it into perspective;
With this kind of annual revenue, even with a very conservative estimate of a 50% gross operating margin (bollocks because there's no way they're spending $8.5B annually), they could set up a subsidiary games publisher that could afford fund ~40 $200m projects every year.
And yes that's 40x $200m budget (total ~5-7 year lifetime production cost) games every year.
Or that's the equivalent of the annual cost of 255x games ($200m ave. lifetime production cost with an ave. Of 6 year dev cycle) funded concurrently every year.
To put it into perspective;
With this kind of annual revenue, even with a very conservative estimate of a 50% gross operating margin (bollocks because there's no way they're spending $8.5B annually), they could set up a subsidiary games publisher that could afford fund ~40 $200m projects every year.
And yes that's 40x $200m budget (total ~5-7 year lifetime production cost) games every year.
Or that's the equivalent of the annual cost of 255x games ($200m ave. lifetime production cost with an ave. Of 6 year dev cycle) funded concurrently every year.
yurinka
Member
Nah, you're the delusional one.
Consoles and PC aren't direct competitiors. In the same way that console and mobile games aren't direct competitors either. Even high end home consoles and portable consoles aren't direct competitors.
The reason is that they have different usage context and (due to different reasons) pretty different user demographics and user behavior. These things make certain type of games being more successful in one or another platform.
PlayStation (or more specifically, PSN) will be a direct competitor of Steam once Sony releases their own PC PSN store featuring both 1st and 3rd party games.
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wipeout364
Member
I like Valve and am a fan, but I often think for some reason they get a pass on the fact they are just as bad as Activision when it comes to innovation and greed.
They have this huge war chest that could go to making lots of games (including half life) and also provide lots of good jobs to people but they just sit there and keep collecting their 30% doing nothing.
To me it's kind of gross. At a certain point it's time to give something back to people and provide other programmers with some opportunities. Times seem tough in the US why aren't they hiring and expanding.
They have this huge war chest that could go to making lots of games (including half life) and also provide lots of good jobs to people but they just sit there and keep collecting their 30% doing nothing.
To me it's kind of gross. At a certain point it's time to give something back to people and provide other programmers with some opportunities. Times seem tough in the US why aren't they hiring and expanding.
GoldenEye98
posts news as their odd job
I mean let's face it it's digital storefront/DRM software that largely piggybacks off much more labor intensive stuff.
This is why I am somewhat skeptical of Steam OS taking off to any serious degree. Ain't no way Valve is supplanting Windows when you consider the sheer scope and support involved with that.
This is why I am somewhat skeptical of Steam OS taking off to any serious degree. Ain't no way Valve is supplanting Windows when you consider the sheer scope and support involved with that.
PSN is not going to be a competitor for the monopoly Steam it is. Also, a PC can be a console, it's simply software.
asdasdasdbb
Member
Course they are. And it's really not that much different in behavior. PC is just further along on the GAAS train than Sony is.
Grildon Tundy
Member
Got any details you can share?
Those Campos Santos guys had a podcast I used to listen to, and the got bought up/integrated into Valve, but they didn't go into detail on what that process looked like.
Grildon Tundy
Member
Mooreberg, is that you?
Oh wait I'm a dumb construction worker who can barely work his Smart TV.
Trogdor1123
Member
Yeah, they should just be donating them… what jerks.
asdasdasdbb
Member
That's why I don't believe the HL3 rumors. It's either a GAAS game or a small scale Alyx Sequel.
Grildon Tundy
Member
They get a pass from me because I prefer Steam's platform to Epic Games Store, Amazon Prime Gaming, EA Play, Ubisoft Connect, etc for everything from prices to the shopping process to reviews to refunds to achievements to library management to forums...They set up an efficient engine that nobody else has surpassed and have let it run for a couple decades now. Is that really doing nothing?
The reality is you can't tell people how to spend their money. I hope you don't think it's gross that I save ~50% of my paycheck for investing and retirement instead of spending it.
Also, I don't mean to be adversarial. You've actually got me thinking about why I'm okay with Valve and not other companies hoarding, and I think it comes down to the fact they're not public. Once a company goes public, their customers are the stockholders. At least with Valve, I still feel like I (the actual customer) am their customer, and they don't try to nickel-and-dime or lock me into their walled garden.
Naz93
Neo Member
Even if we ignore the DEI rant completely, Valve has had more than enough revenue from Steam to expand its development side. They chose to stay small and not build more studios or ship games consistently, despite having the money and infrastructure to do so.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Bitter critters will never not be funnyNow the Critters mad at Valve
Sorcerer
Member
Watching that video, it seems Gabe set up Valve as a boss, who did not the responsibilities of being a boss. Let the millionaire peasants' employees of Valve sort it out themselves, LOL!!!
Maybe staying small was always intended and if you pay employees like that they have to step up to unpleasant tasks.
Notice Gabe has done Zero promotion for the new hardware (as far as I can tell). I wonder if there are saving him for the supposed Half-Life 3 reveal.
Durin
Member
I mean it's been openly said Gabe is pretty much retired from Valve day to day, but he owns the majority of the company.
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Last Hearth
Member
Do you have any idea how the economy works, how finance works?
Do you think the profits are actual money sitting in a vault somewhere collecting dust? No, they are most likely in the form of an investment portfolio, which means that money that is given to other companies (in exchange for stock) so they can invest and hire and create jobs. Or, even in the worst case scenario, they are sitting in a bank account, it means the bank is using that deposit to make loans to to other businesses who are borrowing from the bank to either start a new business, or expand their business, both of which creates more jobs.
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Mengy
wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
That's an odd take. Sounds like you are jealous of those who do work for Valve and upset because Valve doesn't grow and hire more people?
Its wise on their part to stay private and small, and their revenue is a testament to the value they DO provide to society.
Sounds like some people in this thread simply hate others who are successful?
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jshackles
Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Granted, it's been quite some time since I put myself out there in an attempt - but the process was very... I dunno, fluid(?). Very strange.
The way the company is set up, nobody is really in charge of anything - unless they want to be. Everything is very territorial and clique-ish. Where in a typical company you'd be brought on to a particular department (for example, I wanted to work on Steam's back-end systems / IT infrastructure as well as UX and UI) but at Valve each one of those things was overseen by either a single person or small group of people who considered that "their thing". So you automatically come in as "the outsider" or "that guy who thinks he can do my job, but better" - and these are the people who have a say in whether someone gets hired. Sometimes these people or departments wouldn't exactly work together, but they'd come together to try and decide if I was someone that should be hired.
There was also an HR-esque department that had a say in all the hiring decisions, and these were (in my experience) very non-technical people - so again you're swimming upstream. In my experience, the technical teams didn't exactly get along with the HR team either, and it made things really awkward. They called me in for "meetings" that were part job interview, part hang session, and part "we're just looking to see if you'd be a good fit around here". They let me know on several occasions that even if I was great at doing the stuff I wanted to do, since there were no bosses and no rules they have people all the time that come in to do a certain task but then end up spinning off their own department or project or thing - so everyone they hired had to have that kind of "Valve DNA". I met a lot of people who worked there for less than two years, and outside a handful of "rock stars" it turned out they had quite a bit of turnover. Stability in the job seemed pretty rare.
It felt kind of like getting picked for teams in sports in high school. Except the teams are already full, they already have their own way of winning every game, and they don't really want new players. You show up to the line-up, and sometimes they pick one person and then tell everyone else to scram. Sometimes they just tell everyone to scram. Sometimes they pick the weirdo in the corner that nobody likes, and you'll never know why.
Valve is "always hiring" in the sense that if you really do have what it takes to fit into their weird work culture (while having top-notch skills in your area of expertise) then you can join their club. For me, the more I interacted with the people there, the more I realized that I'm too much of a straight shooter and that I'm not made for kissing ass to people who were obviously wrong about things. That was my real rub with Valve, it's like they had success despite themselves - and it gave them the wrong ideas about what people wanted out of their platform. It kind of stung at the time, but it turns out in hindsight that they were absolutely right about me not being a good fit for the place. Guess we can't all be millionaires.
That being said, they've continued to improve their platform and have brought a lot of good ideas to life in the last almost decade since my experiences with them. And, they do genuinely seem to care about things that other platforms (cough cough Epic) seem to ignore or think aren't important. Obviously at lot has taken place there, and they've finally got good people or put together a good team that took them in the direction I was hoping to steer them way back when.
Grildon Tundy
Member
Great read. Fascinating. Thanks for sharing.
This part: "they had success despite themselves - and it gave them the wrong ideas about what people wanted out of their platform." Certainly seems like something that could happen when their business engine is running and has run smoothly for years, and doesn't apply pressure to change or innovate.
Does that work for EA, Activision, all the publishers who are successful and get trashed all the time ?That's an odd take. Sounds like you are jealous of those who do work for Valve and upset because Valve doesn't grow and hire more people?
Its wise on their part to stay private and small, and their revenue is a testament to the value they DO provide to society.
Sounds like some people in this thread simply hate others who are successful?
Or perhaps you mean we should criticize only companies who don't have a good net income ?
Thought it was a video game forum and i personally got no stakes in any of those companies but whatever.
Humdinger
Gold Member
I'm surprised to hear they only have 336 employees. Compare to MS's Xbox division, which has 20,000 employees, or Sony's Playstation, which has 12,000.
Not that those are equivalent, I understand. Valve doesn't develop games (much). They just do whatever they do behind the scenes to make Steam run.
Not that those are equivalent, I understand. Valve doesn't develop games (much). They just do whatever they do behind the scenes to make Steam run.