Valve’s Employment Statistics Revealed
Court documents have shed light on the employment statistics at Valve, the company responsible for the popular PC gaming platform Steam, the Steam Deck handheld device, and a dedicated game development team.
In 2021, Valve had a total of 371 employees. Among them, 79 worked on Steam, 41 were part of the hardware team, 181 were involved in game development, and 35 were in administrative roles. In comparison, EA, known for titles like FIFA, brings in a similar revenue to Valve but employs a far larger workforce of 13,700 individuals. Similarly, Microsoft, which generates three times the revenue of Valve, has a massive staff of 221,000.
So, how much did Valve pay its employees in 2021? According to court documents, the 79 employees in the Steam team were paid a total of $76.4 million, averaging $967,000 per employee. The hardware team received a combined payment of $17.7 million, averaging $431,000 per employee. The game development team earned a total of $192 million, with an average of $1 million per employee. The administrative staff was paid $157 million, averaging $4.5 million per employee.
The legal battle between Valve and Wolfire Games is centered around Steam’s 30 percent revenue cut and its alleged impact on competition in the PC gaming market. Wolfire Games argues that Steam’s dominance restricts the ability to sell games at lower prices on other platforms, affecting its business through Humble Bundle. Valve’s profitability per employee is claimed to exceed that of tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.