Leaked payroll data open up how small one of key companies in gaming is.
Valve is most secret company with huge influence on gaming industry because it runs mega PC gaming storefront Steam,
Valve is not a mega organization on par with EA games throusanfs of employees.
Valve employed just 336 staffers.
The employee data starts with 2003 which is few years after Valve 1996 founding and same year Valve launched Steam until 2021.
The data breaks valve employees into 4 different groups Admin, Games, Steam and starting in 2011 Hardware.
The data was involved as part of heavily redacted document from Wolfire antitrust lawsuit against Valve.
The small number of staff across board seemingly explains why Vave product list is so restricted despit its mega business as de facto PC gaming platfrom its get help on software and hardware and has worked with other companies to have build steam boxes and controllers.
Valve topped with its Game Payroll spending in 2017 and 221 million dollar.Valve employed at just 79 people to Steam which is influential gaming storefronat on earth,
Hardware to my surprise has been small part of company with only 41 employees paid a gross of over $17 million in 2021.
Volve small staff is main point for wolfire. When it filed its lawsuit in 2021.Valve is private company does not have to share its headcount or financials Wolfire estimated that Valve had 360 employees. and per employee profit was $15 million per annum.
$15 million number is not right. Valve in it public employee handbook says that our profitability per employee is higher than that of Google or Amazon.