Valve runs its massive PC gaming ecosystem with only about 350 employees

How many times has this been posted now? Genuine question: why is this such a big deal?

Valve is an excellent example of a sustainable tech company. It's not on the growth at any cost, boom and bust cycle

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.

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.

Quick! Let's add about 800 useless Managers!

This number doesn't seem to include support staff who iirc are contract workers so might not count as "employees".

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.

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.

Is this why they suck with CS2?

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.

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".

That’s why steam looks outdated

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.