First famous by SteamDB creator Pavel Djundik and reported by The Verge, paperwork from an antitrust swimsuit in opposition to Valve present that the corporate consisted of 336 workers in 2021. That is a fraction of the scale of most large recreation publishers, at the same time as Steam continues to form PC gaming as an entire.
The paperwork originate from Wolfire Video games’ 2021 lawsuit arguing that Steam constitutes an unfair monopoly on PC digital distribution. The paperwork stay partially redacted, and have been probably meant to have all the juicy particulars absolutely blacked out—a surprisingly widespread error within the US authorized system that results in delicate information being made public.
The Verge has a full chart of the year-by 12 months variety of workers and departmental payroll adjustments at Valve. The chart confirms prior reporting that the general headcount on the firm has remained fairly steady for the final 10 years—again in 2016 we reported that the corporate had round 360 workers, whereas Wikipedia quoted the corporate as having 330 in 2013.
Here is the topline from 2021: Of these 336 workers, 79 instantly labored on Steam, whereas a whopping 181 remained within the “Video games” division—just about the reverse of what I anticipated, given Steam’s significance to firm earnings and the way not often Valve releases new video games. There have been simply 41 workers engaged on {hardware} improvement at the moment, proper on the eve of the Steam Deck’s launch, and the remaining 35 workers have been in admin.
Wolfire video games truly criticized this restricted headcount in its lawsuit, arguing that Valve “devotes a miniscule proportion of its income to sustaining and bettering the Steam Retailer.” Final 12 months, a Folks Make Video games report citing interviews with nameless former Valve workers advised that Valve’s “flat” company construction hurts its workers.
Even with these points in thoughts, it is onerous to not be impressed with the corporate’s sheer pound-for-pound effectiveness, managing one of many core pillars of PC gaming in Steam—no matter its developer-facing points, there is a motive most avid gamers favor it to different launchers—and revolutionizing handheld PC gaming with the Steam Deck. And at any time when the corporate does get round to releasing a brand new recreation (and even simply updating an present one) it is at all times an occasion.
I’ve listed a some publishers and builders of word with their respective headcounts to place Valve’s into perspective:
