3d ago

Valve's reported profit-per-head from Steam commissions is out there, and at $3.5 million per employee it makes Apple and Facebook look like a lemonade stand

www.pcgamer.com Valve's reported profit-per-head from Steam commissions is out there, and at $3.5 million per employee it makes Apple and Facebook look like a lemonade stand

No wonder Gabe Newell can afford all those boats.

Apple @lemmy.zip

www.pcgamer.com /gaming-industry/valves-reported-profit-per-head-from-steam-commissions-is-out-there-and-at-usd3-5-million-per-employee-it-makes-apple-and-facebook-look-like-a-lemonade-stand/

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Steam @programming.dev

Valve's reported profit-per-head from Steam commissions is out there, and at $3.5 million per employee it makes Apple and Facebook look like a lemonade stand

www.pcgamer.com /gaming-industry/valves-reported-profit-per-head-from-steam-commissions-is-out-there-and-at-usd3-5-million-per-employee-it-makes-apple-and-facebook-look-like-a-lemonade-stand/

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They really figured out the infinite money glitch.
They've been nothing but fair to me as a customer but the cynic in me thinks they've got an excessive amount of good will to squander since they dominate the PC gaming scene.
Please don't become shitty. And please release new non competitive games.
- Unfortunately a lot of their money comes from profiting off of CSGO loot box skins from children. A billion dollar industry. So in a way, they are shitty already, in a sense.
- When Gabe dies, steam falls
  
  Not necessarily. That man has proven he cares about his legacy. I'd severely doubt he hasn't come up with provisions to try to prevent that from happening.
  
  That ia what I am afraid of :(
- Gaben said it best when he said "piracy is a service issue, not a price issue." There is no other company that even comes close to matching Steam's services, both to consumers and developers. The industry could become a different place when he dies. I don't see any other CEO continuing to spend money to innovate and expand services rather than offer less and charge more to extract record profits.
  
  I mean this is obvious af
  When Netflix had 90% of the shows that you wanted to watch and they weren’t annoying little fucks with account sharing and geo location, everyone was happy to support them
  But once paying users feel like they are being taken advantage of, instead of catered to, they leave.
  There’s so many cases where pirating is not only cheaper (duh) it’s actually a better product/experience. And when you charge to provide a worse product/experience than what people can get for free, then you can’t be surprised at the outcome
  
  This is absolutely mad cope, but I want to believe that, as forward thinking as Gabe is, he either will find a worthy successor, or already has one lined up to ensure the company isn't saced for all it's worth when he's gone.
  
  There's no reason he couldn't have it go co-op. But what could happen vs what will, we just won't know.
  
  Developers really trying to kill that by having buggy /launchers that run off steam launcher on top
  
  I feel the same, I know that things will likely go downhill if he goes. That's why I also buy GoG games, I want to be able to download them if things go sour with Steam.
  
  You can downlowad some of the steam games. DRM is possible, but not mandatory
  
  CDPR came to the rescue even outside of GOG. My son bought Cyberpunk 2077 the other day on Steam and luckily for me it comes without DRM so I can even play it while he is playing.
  
  Price has become a big issue lately too.
  
  I can only hope he has made some form of training program to have someone like him in place to follow behind him. I do worry about it as well, though. It's been such a fun ride along the way.
  
  When you said "training program" it made me think Portal style. Like the new exec gets hired or promoted and wakes up in an Aperture facility voiced by Gabe.
  
  You know, I could see that, though for some reason it feels like Gabe would be more wholesome and much less completely unhinged when he rants.
  
  Now I want Portal 3 with a segment voiced by him.
- That's what you can do if you're not publicly traded. The supposedly "wise" market whenever anything goes wrong always seems to insist on burning down decades of good-will to extract a few bucks.
  
  If they were publicly traded they could have started to do the smart things that investors like to see, like spending billions to integrate AI in steam. Why is there no AI in steam yet ? Clearly a failure, Gabe should be replaced by a CEO that would not lose time and money in frivolous things like Linux (what is Linux BTW ?) and start improving the company values by adding AI and firing employees.
  
  the average person really needs to realize that most businesses are just hilariously incompetent, the only reason things stay together is because of shittily paid workers doing their jobs despite management's best efforts.
  
  I laugh whenever some one thinks the government is "inefficient" and that the company will be more efficient. I've watched publicly traded companies waste a tonne of money on various boondoggles.
  Usually the company survives despite the incompetence for other reasons.
- They really figured out the infinite money glitch.
  Provide a decent service then sit back and watch your would-be competition develop increasingly effective footguns?
  
  Yep that the one
- I also use Steam, but they were one of the OGs at taking a 30% cut from digital software sales. Apple always gets shit for this, but not Valve.
  
  Because they got monopoly for controlling the OS too. No one will give a crap about the 30% if the app store and iOS are made by different entities.
  
  Steam offers a lot more to developers than a storefront to sell your games. The App Store is an extremely minimal offering to developers for the amount of money they demand in exchange.
  
  What do you mean? It’s not like the App Store is all that devs get from Apple. Apple has an app dev kit and loads of APIs into the phone that they maintain.
  
  Sure, I’m aware. But nothing on the level of what Valve offers.
  
  What do they offer?
  
  Steamworks
  
  Before steam, digital sales of games wasn't really a thing outside of a few niche examples. The 30% cut was the same percentage that retail stores were taking.
  
  The difference is physical retail had a lot of overhead. Steam just creates a new key and adds it to your account. Yeah, they also have to store the game data and distribution up to the ISP, but that's really cheap compared to storing physical games at physical locations that only have access to their local buyers. Valve's profit margins are significantly higher. They could probably take 5% and this would still be true.
  
  Storage and bandwidth definitely weren't cheap in 2003. Additionally Steam provides features that a brick and mortar store could never even think of providing, including updates, DRM, instant access to global consumers, community features, in-depth data analytics, and the ability to adjust pricing in real time.
  While a lot of the work Valve has put in Steam seems both obvious and ubiquitous today, these were features they pioneered for both developers and consumers.
  I'd also like to point out that the only digital marketplace I'm aware of that charges less than 30% by default (Epic) is famous for losing billions of dollars in the endeavor.
  
  Storage and bandwidth definitely weren't cheap in 2003.
  To access the same number of people, all around the world, compared to physical stores it's essentially a rounding error. Rent alone for all the stores would be far more than Valve had to spend, then you need employees to operate the stores and all the other ongoing costs. Storage was not as cheap, and from a consumer point of view it wasn't cheap, it it's far cheaper than physical stores around the world.
  Additionally Steam provides features that a brick and mortar store could never even think of providing, including updates, DRM, instant access to global consumers, community features, in-depth data analytics, and the ability to adjust pricing in real time.
  Not sure how that's relevant, but yes. I didn't say they didn't.
  While a lot of the work Valve has put in Steam seems both obvious and ubiquitous today, these were features they pioneered for both developers and consumers.
  Again, sure. It doesn't contradict anything I said so I don't know why you said it.
  I'd also like to point out that the only digital marketplace I'm aware of that charges less than 30% by default (Epic) is famous for losing billions of dollars in the endeavor.
  Once again, sure. It doesn't change anything in my comment.
  I don't know why if anyone says anything that is not just gobbling Valve's cock with enthusiasm they get people showing up talking about how great they are. Sure, I like them too. It doesn't mean there aren't reasons to complain. That's how you end up with companies enshitifying.
  It almost feels like bots how frequent it is, but I just think you people have a compulsion to defend them from what isn't even criticism, like they're going to praise you for it. Well guess what? They don't even know you exist.
  
  30% was undercutting the market when Steam did it. Y'all always forget that too

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