Valve Is Making Billions in Revenue with Only a Few Hundred Employees, Less than 100 of Whom Work for Steam, Leaked Data Reveals

Valve, the company best known for the Half-Life games and the world’s leading video game digital distribution service, Steam, manages to bring in billions of dollars in revenue despite only having around 336 employees on its payroll, with less than 100 of those working on Steam, according to new data that has emerged as part of Wolfire’s antitrust lawsuit against the company in what has been alleged to be anticompetitive practices. The data, which stems from 2021 and other recent years, also provides insight into Valve’s profit margins, including numbers that confirm user spending on Steam is many times higher than competitors that include the Epic Games Store.

From a report:

• “Microsoft estimated Valve’s annual revenue at $6.5 billion…Steam achieved those numbers with around 350 employees, compared to well over 13,000 people employed by EA.”
• “…surprisingly, the size of the Steam department inside Valve has shrunk in recent years, from a peak of 142 employees in 2015 down to just 79 in 2021.”
• “…having just 79 employees keeping track of more than 11,000 Steam releases in 2021 is a pretty incredible ratio.”
• “Some readers may also be surprised that Valve’s Games department has represented a majority of the company’s headcount since 2003.”

A look at Valve’s profit margins in previous years:

news sources picked up only on the employee counts, they didn't find the Steam profit margins🤷‍♂️https://t.co/fCIfaCTNy8

this reddit thread did thoughhttps://t.co/gH06wDAAAM pic.twitter.com/8ztGVtKsTl

— Pavel Djundik (@thexpaw) July 18, 2024

A promo for Steam’s latest sales event:

Valve on its latest sale:

Steam’s Fighting Games Fest is heavy on the action and light(er) on the pockets, with deals on fighting games all week long. Though there are lots of cool games about fighting, this fest is specifically celebrating games in (or inspired by) the Fighting Game Community (FGC). Fight as a superhero, or a silly animal; fight in fantastical stages and arenas or in… a parking lot. Either way, be prepared to FIGHT! Fighting Games Fest is on now through July 22nd on Steam.

Source

Join the discussion in our forums...