Valve, owner of Steam and producer ofč Steam Deck, according to new estimates by Alinea Analytics, could generate around 17 billion dollars in revenue in 2025, while Steam itself this year will generate more. it now brings in about $16.2 billion. Since the company reportedly employs about 350 people, it turns out that Valve earns nearly $50 million in revenue per employee, which is a record in the gaming industry and far above most tech giants.
For comparison, according to publicly available data, Apple earns about 2.4 million dollars per employee, and Meta about 1.9 million. Even the pharmaceutical giant McKesson, which is often at the top of such rankings, earns “only” about 8.2 million per employee – several times less than Valve. Već in its manual for new employees in 2012, Valve boasted that their profitability per employee is higher than that of Google, Amazon or Microsoft, with the message that “as much money as possible should be put back into the pockets of employees”.
However, it should be emphasized that these are estimates, because Valve is a private company and does not publish official financial statements. The number of employees is based on documents from Wolfire’s antitrust lawsuit against Valve and older reports that speak of an average of about 350 people in the period 2012-2021. However, various analyzes and leaks agree on one thing: Steam, with a 30 percent commission on most sales and 100 percent of earnings on its own hits like CS2 and Dota 2, brings Valve an incredibly large amount of money for a relatively small team.
Some of the gamers on Reddit are delighted with the fact that a “small” company with only a few hundred people can earn more per head than Google and Amazon, while others warn that this shows how much market power it is. Steam is concentrated and how much value is extracted from the work of the developers of the games that fill the platform. Any way you look at it, the numbers clearly show that Valve is one of the most efficient money-making machines in the entire tech world – and that’s in the midst of a time when PC gaming has never been stronger.