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

We researched ourselves and found out that we are the best

What's the efficiency in taking 30% of almost all game sales on a platform? I know we all love valve, but the efficiency here is having a store that everyone has to use if they want to make sales at all.

Revenue per head is no doubt a sexy metric, especially for private companies. If it was a public company then investors would call for the company to try and grow its overall profits by spending more on growth related initiatives... Perhaps by releasing half-life 3 for example, lol.

The great thing about keeping your company private is that you can get it just where you like and keep it there no matter what outside parties want. I could totally see Gaben is perfectly satisfied making bank at this level while also having a chill lifestyle.

When your employees are so efficient they start using their spare time to audit each other's efficiency on an industry-wide metric.

“So we’re getting pay rises, right?” Annakin.gif “Right?”

Back in 2021, indie developer Wolfire filed an antitrust lawsuit against Valve that accused the gaming giant of anti-competitive business practices—including a long-standing habit of taking unfair cuts from game developers on its store. Valve's 30% fees have come under criticism before—and they are notably high when compared to some other online platforms.

Ouch. I didn't realize they took such a big cut. On the other hand, authors trying to publish to Amazon's kindle get hit with commissions from 30%-65% before any other fees, so Steam seems downright reasonable for that particular comparison.

From where I'm sitting, though, I've plenty of complicated feelings. Steam might be the best option out there, but monopolies aren't great for anybody—at the same time, business is business.

Steam's absurd efficiency could be a product of merciless penny-pinching from indie devs, but it's just as likely we're watching a well-oiled machine continue to belch out cash in an expected fashion.

Is it really a monopoly with everyone from EA to GoG delivering games? I guess it is dominant enough to count. I have a hard time complaining when employees are getting good pay and I've continued to get good service from them. It might get scarey if/when Gabe steps down, but this all feels pretty fair for now.

And that for being a non-public company.

It's because Valve is a private corporation, Gabe Newell has managed it well, they don't hire idiots, and they pay their employees well.

A whacking great cut of somebody else's money will do that.

Praise GabeN.

Tried to? Revenue per head and profit per head are very easy metrics. Not sure I would count that as efficient though.

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.

I've despised steam ever since they forced it on me to play HL2.

I hate the store page that pops up whenever I want to play a game.

I hate the friends list.

I miss when I would just install a game and it was just an icon on my desktop. Now they think they should own my gaming experience and they're so powerful I can't say no.

Apple charges 15-30% fee to sell games built on their platform: 🤮greedy bastards 🤮

Stream charges 30% to sell games on their platform: 😍🥰😍🥰😍🥰😍

Edit: Downvotes without rebuttal prove my point.

They are a monopoly you must give 30% to for a massive industry. Yeah duh.

The only one that seems surprising is Apple. All the others don't really make products that are sold. They make revenue via advertising on things they give away free. Valve not only used to make games they still sell, but made a store platform not a social media network.