Please cite a source for your claims
Comment on Valve runs its massive PC gaming ecosystem with only about 350 employees
Grimy@lemmy.world 2 months ago
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 store 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, etc. it’s clear collusion.
Beaver@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Grimy@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Did you read your own article?
In 2021, Microsoft estimated Valve’s annual revenue at $6.5 billion, roughly on the same scale as EA’s $7.5 billion in 2024 revenue. But Steam achieved those numbers with around 350 employees, compared to well over 13,000 people employed by EA.
The disparity highlights just how much money Valve brings in with a relatively small workforce. And a lot of that is thanks to the chunk of revenue Valve takes from every sale on Steam.
That’s the indie industry getting fucked right there, but sure, drink Gabbens sweat.
The actual revenue is difficult because it’s all estimation, they clearly don’t want us to know and hide it. One website says 13 billion lol, and they brought it an estimated 1 billion just from Counter-strike crates. I got 8.5 from the article that was posted two days ago. Whatever it is, it’s too fucking high, stop defending multi billionaires.
ashok36@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Go ask any indie developer if they think the 30% cut valve takes from sales through steam means they’re “getting fucked”. I can assure you, the vast majority do not.
Serving files, absorbing the costs of credit card payments and charge backs, and maintaining community forums is worth the 30% alone. Hell, just being able to list your product on the most popular store is worth it for some people.
In my industry, physical stores won’t even consider stocking your product for less than 40pts of margin and the big guys expect you to absorb the freight costs as well.
30% on storefront sales and you can sell your own keys for 100% profit on your own site is more than fair.
Grimy@lemmy.world 2 months ago
wired.com/…/death-occurs-in-the-dark-indie-video-…
The indie industry is seriously struggling. I’m pretty sure they would rather survive than donate to Gabens coke and prostitute fund.
There’s also a huge difference between a physical store and a digital soft monopoly.
Stop defending billionaires.
Beaver@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
I mean about the yachts.
Grimy@lemmy.world 2 months ago
luxurylaunches.com/…/gabe-newell-luxury-yachts.ph…
Here you go. Sorry if I’m being a dick, my hate for billionaires spills out whenever I approach the subject.
uis@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Others barely tried to compete. GOG has its niche in DRM-free, while Epic engages in REAL monipolistic behaviour(Epic exclusives) and upset gamers with it.
glimse@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The “justification” is that Steam is a good storefront and others kind of blows. There’s nothing stopping other companies from making good software…they just haven’t.
That’s not what collusion is… Steam doesn’t sell Nintendo games and is Epic/Microsoft’s rival.
To be clear, I’m not defending billionaires. Your talking points are just kind of baseless.
SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I mean they have tried, but than they get in shit for doing something different (epics free games). Valves marketing and fan base is top notch and defends them voraciously with their rose coloured glasses.
They have buggy games, they don’t update them, they are currently over run with griefers.
What’s with the passes they keep getting? As you said they get “justification” lmfao, what a fucking joke. Its capitalists defending, does musk get a pass for his space ventures? No, so why does gaben? Please explain in detail, I would love a legit answer to this.
Deceptichum@quokk.au 2 months ago
Because people dont want free games, they want a useful service with features. EGS is a piece of shit that leaks users data often.
SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You seem to think they can just create a copycat store of steam at release. That’s pretty foolish, they are constantly updating their store with new features, it takes time to develop stuff.
And I’ve not heard of a data leak, let alone multiple, sources please, because not even Google is bringing up any meaningful results. Maybe you’re thinking of developers and not them themselves…?
JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 2 months ago
L O L
Epic tried to pull an Amazon.
Get VC money and chinese money and subsidize and undercut competition using anticompetitive practices to gain market share before the rug pull where they jack up their margins to the industry standard.
The difference is Amazon actually made a good software experience in the beginning few years and Epic spent literal years with very few feature updates and whining and burning money suing about “unfair market practices” when they were the only ones actually engaging in anti-consumer passes like paying off developers to be Epic-exclusive and buying developers and removing their games from steam.
They never got to the rug pull part because their actual software sucked balls and they refused to improve it so much so that someone else actually made a better launcher than them for their own products…
SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Humble’s is 12% and all the others charge 30% because that’s what steam set as an arbitrary standard.
They can all operate with lower, but go off on this conspiracy theory.
ashok36@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Nobody shit on epic for giving away free games. You can’t just make a completely false statement like that.
Please don’t like epic because they bought games and made them exclusive to their store.
SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Uhh go check the internet maybe? Epics gets bashed for everything, including the free games dude lol.
glimse@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Nowhere did I say Gaben gets a pass, I’m saying Steam is a great service.
SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 2 months ago
But is it? It’s maintained by its users and customers.
Gabe reaps all the benefits and who else gains? You’re justification is what?
Grimy@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The product stays the same if we bring down their revenue to 1 billion, they aren’t close to bankruptcy. If they took 0.5 %, Gaben would still be able to afford a yatch or two, just not 6.
Having a competitors product on your platform doesn’t have anything to do with collusion. They are rivals but they don’t actually compete or strive to give their customers any kind of competitive prices.
And yes, you are defending a billionaire.
glimse@lemmy.world 2 months ago
So? I don’t care if they’re forced to lower his salary. You said nothing differentiates Steam enough and I’m saying it does so by being good.
The majority of customers on all storefronts are fine with the pricing as-is. Steam’s competitive advantage comes from being the best storefront with an amazing library and . That’s why it’s the top dog
I’m clearly not. I’m defending the service itself
SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Pricing has biting to do with Steam, that’s publisher/developer controlled. And they have a quite a lot of stink to say about the cut they take for nothing. They need to curate and moderate all their own store page, Steam does what and takes 30%?
It’s no wonder some take epics deals, the cut they take is 12%, that’s significant. And if epic can operate by taking that much with their employee count, clearly valve could be doing a far better job of what they do, but they do what again…?
rdri@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Took from what? Is this about the revenue share again? Stop listening to that idiot Timmy.
We know that many others take the same %% so I could say even if they took 50% they wouldn’t deliver a product as good as Steam.
SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Epics 12% and they operate with how many more employees?
Grimy@lemmy.world 2 months ago
To be clear, I’m not listening to anyone. I think the government should step in and force a maximum of 5% on all stores, or something similar.
The fact that they all take the same percentage is exactly the reason why I’m saying there’s collusion going on.
Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
With a 30% cut they make enough surplus that the owner is a billionaire that can afford 6 yacht, there’s no reason why you or anyone should defend Valve’s decision to be so profitable instead of making games cheaper and that applies to any company where the owner is rich.