In 2018 a group of Valve staff tried to figure out just how efficient they were being—and found they were making more money per head than Apple, Facebook, and nearly every tech giant out there
Profit/employees isn't a measure of efficiency, completed projects/employees is and I'm willing to bet that a company without any real organization like Valve doesn't complete as many projects/employees as companies like Apple or Microsoft.
Valve is basically a file hosting service. I will never understand the computer illiterate gamers who worship that website. Omg it lets me download my games many times! Amazing. Go sell something on the Steam Marketplace. Fucking idiot.
It's not just files. It's forums, chats, performance metrics, and game integration for gaming with your friends with a centralized account instead of 30 different friend group listing across 50 games.
The incredibly generic feature you just described isn’t worth a 30% markup on all games. But I can see you’re here to provide evidence for the computer illiteracy of gamers, who are apparently so impressed with file sharing that they will defend fucking Steam.
I don't see why you consider that bad. Yes, it lets me download them many times. And automatically updates. And provides multiplayer. And friends and chat. And a bunch of other features too. This is what they call a "value add".
Why do I consider it bad that some middlemen have parked themselves between gamers and developers to leech out all the profits while providing nothing in return?
Even ten times your imaginary ”value add” wouldn’t justify a 30% markup.