Valve runs its massive PC gaming ecosystem with only about 350 employees
Ars' leak analysis shows a large "Games" department and a very well-paid "Admin" team.
How many times has this been posted now? Genuine question: why is this such a big deal?
Genuine question: why is this such a big deal?
These are not all video game companies, but for reference:
AMD: 26,000 employees
EA: 14,000
Facebook: 84,000
Netflix: 11,000
Spotify: 9,000
Twitter: 7,500
Yep. But it also seems like people are so shocked by the data that maybe they're missing the moral of this story, too? ...sure it's impressive that Valve has done so much with such a small workforce, but I think the reason they've been able to move so quickly is because they have such a small workforce. Companies get slow because they get big...I don't care how much you tout your SAFe processes; you will always lose efficiency as you grow. It's the difference between steering a canoe vs a cruise ship...the more you grow, the more you have to fight against momentum. So, my takeaway from this is that they figured out the secret to continued success as a maturing company, and good for them.
Now, I say all of this with sincere hopes that they don't work their smaller number of employees to death and ask them to take on inappropriately burdensome workloads. Because if that's the case, they should fuck right off with the rest of their peers.
But it’s basically a store front and they contract almost everything out. Like how many people does it take to run some servers? They don’t make games, the steam deck and the VR are the few things they’ve done. And that could be done by a couple dozen engineers and contract everything else.
Like how many employees should they have?
Okay I shouldn’t have taken a shot at their game making ability, but it legit fucking sucks and they acknowledge it, people bash them for it sometimes, take it easy guys.
Slow Newsweek for gaming, I guess. They have had a public employee directory on their website for as long as I can remember; it's not really news.
Been seeing a lot of anti-valve corporate propaganda lately I think they're upset with the way they run their company because it shows that in comparison their own companies are being greedy and hoarding wealth. It also shows how vastly inefficient in comparison they are.
Weird take, in valve it implies that more money is saved for Gabe himself, while on the other hand, the companies with more employees spend more on giving other people money.
So who’s hoarding using your logic? The company with 10 bil in revenue and 200 employees, or the company with the same revenue and 20000 employees…? Because to me it seems ones doing more for citizens at large than the other lining one persons pocket far More.
Valve is an excellent example of a sustainable tech company. It's not on the growth at any cost, boom and bust cycle
I recall in a decades old Texas Univ interview, Gabe said you had to be aggressive in your firing processes.
Is the same video I recall they made him put on a horse head and try to hold up three fingers.
They just provide a service good enough for the more toxic gamers so they won't get harassed, nothing more beyond that. They have almost nonexistent moderation, and no longer are developing games.
They are developing a game at the moment, Deadlock. Lots of footage and a dev build leaked a few months ago.
Steam is successful because they're the only company in that market treating customers right.
I'd be very upset if the courts side with EA.
and because they are not publicly traded company.
Well that's why they actually do right by their customers. That said I definitely agree
They're also one of the few (possibly only) that has not gone public.
Just a coincidence, I'm sure.
Wait what's going on in the courts between valve and EA?
What are EA doing with Valve? The lawsuit this came from is between Wolfire Games and Valve; far as I can tell, Valve and EA work together on some stuff.
Steam could use better search. Ideally I'd like to be able to just use SQL, but I understand why not.
There's been a few times where I wanted to find something in Steam, but spent most of the emotion on clicks and fucks before launching something, concluding that yeah, I wanted this, and stopping it because I don't want this anymore.
I still can't figure out how their search filters work.
It always blocks games with violence whether I have all filters checked or unchecked
I think people often hate steam for their success, but fail to see it's the result of customers'choice in a free market. (I see it enough I'm not sure if people get paid to hate on them... To ruin the thing they have most of customer respect)
Steam is not publicly traded and does not act like every other publicly traded company. It invests in its customers experience and custtomer come back for that. It does not nickel in dime or use its position to hold its customer captive and enshitfify its product. It's not an ISP...
It invests in hardware and software development it believes the industry needs not to make a massive profit but to be a champion of what gaming should be (Linux, steam link, index, bug picture, steam controller, steam deck) These products are experimental and usually sold at or near cost not to make money but to prove to the market there is a need and a demand.
They are often a champion and voice of the gamer.
They could have tried to be like Bethesda and tried to monetize their workshop but they didn't.
Sometimes they're quiet and we don't hear anything about what they're working on, but that doesn't mean they aren't working on things.
I can't imagine pc gaming would have survived and resurged without steam. And I hate to think what it would be like if there were just 5 epics, origin, Uplay, whatever other launcher. I think gaming would look like mobile games..,.. which takes a 30% cut too and can only sell in apple or android markets.... No one bitches there and they offer no services.
I agree with you, but justifying anything by saying they're successful in a free market is really iffy. There are plenty of large evil companies that are incredibly successful. That said I agree with everything else you've said.
I personally think 30% cut is too much for any app/software store. But if anyone deserves it Steam does
My reference to free market is only a means of saying customers choose steam because of its offerings not that they have too.
I agree it would be nice if they charged less. However do we know their full PNL/balance sheet? People just keep taking revenue/employees as if employees are the only overhead.
They provide the servers, and do have an rde cost for development for services we discussed like cloud saves, control support etc. if people have this much energy over it attack pharmaceutical for there insane mark ups that would drive way more positive social change. But the people driving are mostly trying to make more money by cutting there publishing expenses through steam. I'm sure psn and Xbox also take 25 to 30percent cuts.
They also championed low publishing costs of only 100 dollars to list a game. I don't know enough to speak to their update charges though. Hell psn been known to charge 25k for visibility in top of their 30% cut and there are no other market options Reference
Everyone focuses here cause developers and publishers want more of this cut and to me seem to try to push steam into regulator cross hairs as a way to force the changes they have failed to negotiate.
I would also point out brick and mortar sellers also take 15 to 20% cut and then also charge for storage, disposal, fulfillment, return on and on. Amazon does the same. It's the nature of a market place. Reference
Overall it doesn't make sense to me as a community that we attack our best example of what a game market place should be.
justifying anything by saying they're successful in a free market is really iffy
The important part is why they're successful; unlike many companies which try to lock customers in and take advantage of them as much as possible, Steam/Valve try to build a good product at a reasonable price, and trust that it'll bring them customers.
And look at that, it does.
These products are experimental and usually sold at or near cost not to make money but to prove to the market there is a need and a demand.
Well, no... I think it's more akin to the concept of "loss-leaders". Get people in the door and while they're there, they'll buy a game or two. Which is where their real profits come from.
In the end, it's still just a business strategy intended to result in profits for Valve.
However, that being said, the fact that they don't have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders to maximize profits and keep that stock price up at (literally) all costs, allows them to operate the way they do.
But don't get it twisted, they are a for-profit corporation, and their ultimate goal is making money. They're just not as shitty about it.
The bar is REALLY fucking low these days.
They kind of have to be about making money. No company survives by putting the needs of the customer above all else, unfortunately.
I think people often hate steam for their success
I hate them for forcing me to use a kind of DRM which will stop working once their servers stop.
Halflife was just fine without steam. Adding steam seemed to be a way to stop players from sharing CD keys.
Luckily steamless is piss easy to use because Steams "DRM" is only meant to be preventative. As in, you're playing it on steam for the community, workshop, cloud saves, per game notes, control scheme setups, etc etc.
That's kind of why they are successful though, right? They were the ones that figured out how to supply games digitally for a profit, which required a way to prevent people from sharing the product for free. This was previously done with CD keys, but the advent of the internet rendered that mostly ineffective.
The way I see it, Steam having DRM is Valve's way of giving publishers and devs that choice, and said choice just makes Steam more likely to stick around for the future, which makes the biggest drawback of DRM (losing all your games) less likely.
And the fact that they can just decide to take your games away from you by deleting your account?
Steam was apparently already cool when I was a kid. Though the reason I knew about it was that I had 2 games with Steam support bought in stores (one of them I gifted without installing\registering, another one I installed without registering).
Others are still at that point - you buy a game and you get something like GameSpy and such as an optional thing nobody thinks about. They are trying to make those services the entry point, and I guess for AAA players they have already succeeded.
This number doesn't seem to include support staff who iirc are contract workers so might not count as "employees".
Most of the support staff is their customers and users actually.
Most of the store is curated and moderated by the developers and publishers, but you’re not wrong about stuff like server farms and development.
But I’m also curious, there’s a line, so where is it? No business is going to include the plumber and electrician they hire to do occasional or even routine work and maintenance. So do the same techs working on server equipment count or not? Where’s the line on this who’s a contracted employee instead of contracter.
Most of the support staff is their customers and users actually.
It's not users that process refund request, recover your account if e.g. you've lost your 2FA method, or any of the other innumerable things you might need to contact Steam support for. I don't think it's unreasonable to include the staff that do this as part of their workforce.
Work smart not hard.
Economists are praising it‘s efficiency but there are massive shortcomings when it comes to costumer support. A couple years ago I was told they have a whopping single person dedicated to matters in the german market for example. Anyone who has any idea about the german bureaucracy hellscape knows this is far from sufficient to deal with any issue whatsoever. And I suspect it‘s not running much smoother elsewhere.
costumer
I don't think valve owes the cosplay community squat.
in a serious reply to your point though:
I appreciate their line of thought - why dedicate resources for roles that don't add value to steam's development just to engage with every country's unique bureaucracy? until those countries fine valve for noncompliance it seems like an easy choice to make.
Anyone who has any idea about the german bureaucracy hellscape knows this is far from sufficient to deal with any issue whatsoever.
Maybe that's contractable.
Does that matter when the bottleneck is this tiny? A single employee would have to contract, stay in contact and approve whatever they outsource. And going by some quirks with the german side of the store their usual response seems to be simply blocking german IPs from accessing whatever may cause extra bureaucratic work for them.
It's interesting because I've never had to wait for too long for a reply. So I assume they have a lot of automatic tools helping them out in some way.
It has been years since I've contacted Steam customer support so maybe things have changed, or maybe my experience was not representative, but I found them to be pretty helpful and not-shit when I contacted customer support for something in the past.
Sounds like they're using computers effectively. Not sure why this is news.
THB, they could use a few more employees and it shows. Community moderation is awful and there are many nazi groups. The whole trading ecosystem is ripe with frauds and many games released are cheap shovelware, asset flips or broken. And don't get me started on the problems with abandoned Early Access games. Valve could hire a few more people and maybe try to tackle those issues.
The shitty games released on steam are the outcome of it being relatively easy to publish a game on the steam, and that should absolutely not change. Let people publish their crap that nobody will play, you don't see the vast majority of it.
No ones forcing me to use them. No issues here.
Yeah same. I don't play a ton, mostly on the deck,. And I also avoid interaction with other people on their platform. But I've never had an issue.
Not sure what valve can do about abandoned early Access games other than remove them if they're not updated in a certain amount of time. Although that causes problems too.
Not really clear how having more people would fix these issues
They could easily prevent devs that abandoned an early access title from launching another one. They could check if the devs have a reasonable business plan and are able to fulfill their promises. They could vet them and check if they did manage to release some games. And so on. It is not impossible and would help us gamers, because nobody wants abandoned games.
They could create a new flag for Abandoned Early Access games. If an Early Access game hasn't been updated in a long time, that could trigger an automatic email to the publisher saying "Hey your game hasn't been updated in a long time and could be changed from Early Access to Abandoned Early Access. Consider updating the game or store page to keep Early Access status. If you would like to switch to Abandoned Early Access, you can ignore this message and it will automatically update in two weeks or you can manually change the status on your game's Steam page." Wouldn't really need more employees to handle this unless the current employees are all too busy to implement something like it.
This take will probably be unpopular, but FWIW I agree with you. I rarely use the community feature and I don't care about the trading so personally I would like it if they just stuck with what they do well.
I assume Valve, like the vast majority of tech companies, outsources moderation. It's normally outsourced to incredibly underpaid and overworked people in the global south not given proper training for these things.
That's less than the number of employees who worked on Left4Dead 2.
the manager:
I just read that it's 80 people, which one is true now? https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/24263263
Gabe owns so many yachts.
At some point that 30% cut and not spending it on anything, you have to buy something
8500 million in revenue and 350 employees.
Gaben owns 6 yatchs and spends 70 to 100 million maintaining them.
There is absolutely nothing that differentiates valve from the other stores front to justify this. The whole store front industry should be tightly regulated. No billionaire should exist and if you find yourself defending one, it just means they have a good marketing team.
This is having a negative impact on the industry and the only ones benefiting are Gaben, Nintendo, Microsoft, Epic, etc. it's clear collusion.
Can't wait for all the downvotes and simps coming to defend him because "Gaben isn't your average billionaire".
There is absolutely nothing that differentiates valve from the other stores front to justify this.
The "justification" is that Steam is a good storefront and others kind of blows. There's nothing stopping other companies from making good software....they just haven't.
it's clear collusion.
That's not what collusion is.... Steam doesn't sell Nintendo games and is Epic/Microsoft's rival.
Can't wait for all the downvotes and simps coming to defend him
To be clear, I'm not defending billionaires. Your talking points are just kind of baseless.
I mean they have tried, but than they get in shit for doing something different to get their foot in the door(epics free games). Valves marketing and fan base is top notch and defends them voraciously with their rose coloured glasses.
They have buggy games, they don’t update them, they are currently over run with griefers making some unplayable to any fun degree.
What’s with the passes they keep getting? As you said they get “justification” lmfao, what a fucking joke. Its capitalists defending despite you claiming you aren’t what a joke. Does musk get a pass for his space ventures? No, so why does gaben? Please explain in detail, I would love a legit answer to this.
The product stays the same if we bring down their revenue to 1 billion, they aren't close to bankruptcy. If they took 0.5 %, Gaben would still be able to afford a yatch or two, just not 6.
Having a competitors product on your platform doesn't have anything to do with collusion. They are rivals but they don't actually compete or strive to give their customers any kind of competitive prices.
And yes, you are defending a billionaire.
Others barely tried to compete. GOG has its niche in DRM-free, while Epic engages in REAL monipolistic behaviour(Epic exclusives) and upset gamers with it.
Please cite a source for your claims
Did you read your own article?
In 2021, Microsoft estimated Valve's annual revenue at $6.5 billion, roughly on the same scale as EA's $7.5 billion in 2024 revenue. But Steam achieved those numbers with around 350 employees, compared to well over 13,000 people employed by EA.
The disparity highlights just how much money Valve brings in with a relatively small workforce. And a lot of that is thanks to the chunk of revenue Valve takes from every sale on Steam.
That's the indie industry getting fucked right there, but sure, drink Gabbens sweat.
The actual revenue is difficult because it's all estimation, they clearly don't want us to know and hide it. One website says 13 billion lol, and they brought it an estimated 1 billion just from Counter-strike crates. I got 8.5 from the article that was posted two days ago. Whatever it is, it's too fucking high, stop defending multi billionaires.
That’s why steam looks outdated
Counterpoint: Every other modern "flat" UI is low effort, cheap garbage. Bring back the bezels and shadows.
The fact that Steam acts like website and not an "app" is amazing. I want to be able to right click, copy and paste, and see the address bar of what I'm looking at.
It's a great example of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" - Steam updates usually make the software better
I honestly don't care how it looks, provided it's easy to navigate. Steam gets that right. Other apps and websites with constant updates just requires relearning how to do what you want.
I only need Steam to do a few things:
It does all of those well, the other stores do not. If any other store handles that, they'll get my money.
I'm reading, Steam takes 30% cut, offer practically nothing but a download system, store front and crappy forum instances per game. Largely unchanged since 2012 Basically, they're just taking the money and running, almost pure rent.
Feel free to start a competitive game store. There's a reason why gog, origin or epic hardly make a dent on Valves bottom line.
They also offer the Steam multiplayer backend, workshop, and Steam's social system which is becoming enticing again given Discord's latest behaviour.
GOG's gimmick is no DRM, Itch.io has the cheapest self-publishing costs, and Epic has... well I'm not sure really, but the other two have their place, but it's no coincidence Steam is the biggest.
Thor from Pirate Software has a great video breaking down how Steam works and the lawsuit that claims they are ripping off consumers. It's very educational.
Of course, there is no requirement to use Steam. Game makes can publish their game themselves without a platform at all, which very few do. If you say they actually need a platform, there is the value they are getting for that 30%. If they weren't getting anything of value, then they could do it themselves and benefit instead, which most do not.
