Valve makes almost $50 million per employee, raking in more cash per person than Google, Amazon, or Microsoft — gaming giant's 350 employees on track to generate $17 billion this year
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Didn’t catch that, thanks. What is their actual profit before personal cost?
They are a private company, so they don’t have to disclose that.
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Correct. The article is discussing revenue.
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Correct. The article is discussing revenue.
The headline is misleading, it was worth mentioning.
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Interesting that first part… Respectfully, no one is entitled to sales on any platform. As a consumer, I’ve tried other launchers and stores. I hate them all. I choose to only use Steam (for the time being). It’s simply choosing the superior option, but it is an option. I can’t say the same for my internet, energy, or cable companies…
Respectfully, no one is entitled to sales on any platform.
I’ve never said that. Of course if I‘m publishing a game I want it to be successful. If I was a book publisher, I‘d have to sell via Amazon, too, simply because a lot of people never buy anywhere else. It is a requirement to sell on Steam for a successful campaign, and OP implied otherwise.
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It would really help if the would-be competitors focused on consumer-facing features rather than… whatever it is they’re doing. GoG is doing a great job of this, but EGS is still missing even the most basic features years later, because they keep trying to get market share through buying exclusives and giving away free games and that’s sadly never going to work out. They just don’t understand what the consumers in the industry they’re trying to operate in want.
Yeah sure, but acting like I don’t need Steam for my game to sell is untrue.
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Would make him the first billionaire in history to pay his workers their worth, so… Not a fucking chance.
Unfortunately that isn’t true, by accident this has been tested by tech companies like Netflix they were paid in stocks when the company was worth nothing but as it grew they got paid more and more until it became apparent that they didn’t actually have to work anymore entire companies became filled with zombie employees people who don’t work like at all beyond what they are contractually obligated to do, it created huge discontent between the teirs of worker the one’s actually doing the work and the ones getting paid, you almost can’t pay people beyond a certain amount because they don’t work for you then they don’t need to they can live a perfectly fine life without working and nothing gets done so you just have to higher a new staff who once again you can’t in pay too much or they won’t need to work and you’ll just have more zombie employees.
It is actually very well established:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11211-008-0063-2
When Do Financial Incentives Reduce Intrinsic Motivation? Comparing Behaviors Studied in Psychological and Economic Literatures
Objective: To review existing evidence on the potential of incentives to undermine or “crowd out” intrinsic motivation, in order to establish whether and when it predicts financial incentives to crowd out motivation for health-related behaviors. ...
PubMed Central (PMC) (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
https://www.bsfrey.ch/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/crowding-effects-on-intrinsic-motivation.pdf
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Valve still makes a ton of money from kids gambling. They don’t care about anything else than money and yet gamers keeps kissing their ass.
Call me a shill, but Valve’s actions indicate that they care about the money that comes from improving a product or service. That differentiates them from many publicly traded companies that care about money at the expense of the quality of their own products and services.
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Unfortunately that isn’t true, by accident this has been tested by tech companies like Netflix they were paid in stocks when the company was worth nothing but as it grew they got paid more and more until it became apparent that they didn’t actually have to work anymore entire companies became filled with zombie employees people who don’t work like at all beyond what they are contractually obligated to do, it created huge discontent between the teirs of worker the one’s actually doing the work and the ones getting paid, you almost can’t pay people beyond a certain amount because they don’t work for you then they don’t need to they can live a perfectly fine life without working and nothing gets done so you just have to higher a new staff who once again you can’t in pay too much or they won’t need to work and you’ll just have more zombie employees.
It is actually very well established:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11211-008-0063-2
When Do Financial Incentives Reduce Intrinsic Motivation? Comparing Behaviors Studied in Psychological and Economic Literatures
Objective: To review existing evidence on the potential of incentives to undermine or “crowd out” intrinsic motivation, in order to establish whether and when it predicts financial incentives to crowd out motivation for health-related behaviors. ...
PubMed Central (PMC) (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
https://www.bsfrey.ch/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/crowding-effects-on-intrinsic-motivation.pdf
That sounds a lot like the violence inherent in the system
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Mono=one poly=seller… and last I checked Steam is not the only seller of video games. They aren’t even the only seller of digital video games. They aren’t even the only seller of digital video games for SteamOS.
They are the largest because they do what’s right by their customers and employees. As a ‘for instance’, I bought Portal 2 for the PS3 many years ago. I no longer have my PS3 but I can still play Portal 2 (as well as Portal which was just thrown in for me) on any PC.
Ah OK, so the classic monopolies in American History (Standard Oil - controlled 90% of its market; American Tobacco - controlled 80% of its market) were not monopolies.
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I’d think it’s marketing teams, HR, managers, the C-suite.
Those who manage people usually make more than those who dos tuff because they take on more responsibilities.
Yeah I know that’s bullshit and that they shift responsibilities all the time, but good managers do shoulder bullshit so workers can work.
I mean yeah and no. I manage a team, I make 10%-12% more than the team even though technically we do the same tasks. The difference is I need to know their job, but also manage a schedule, and allocate resources, while planning sales for the future stream so they don’t run out of work. It’s a different skillset on top of the team skill requirement.
Not justifying a C suite at 20 million over dudes making 60k though
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You’re not contradicting anything they said, and you’re not contradicting that Steam is a monopoly.
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Unfortunately that isn’t true, by accident this has been tested by tech companies like Netflix they were paid in stocks when the company was worth nothing but as it grew they got paid more and more until it became apparent that they didn’t actually have to work anymore entire companies became filled with zombie employees people who don’t work like at all beyond what they are contractually obligated to do, it created huge discontent between the teirs of worker the one’s actually doing the work and the ones getting paid, you almost can’t pay people beyond a certain amount because they don’t work for you then they don’t need to they can live a perfectly fine life without working and nothing gets done so you just have to higher a new staff who once again you can’t in pay too much or they won’t need to work and you’ll just have more zombie employees.
It is actually very well established:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11211-008-0063-2
When Do Financial Incentives Reduce Intrinsic Motivation? Comparing Behaviors Studied in Psychological and Economic Literatures
Objective: To review existing evidence on the potential of incentives to undermine or “crowd out” intrinsic motivation, in order to establish whether and when it predicts financial incentives to crowd out motivation for health-related behaviors. ...
PubMed Central (PMC) (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
https://www.bsfrey.ch/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/crowding-effects-on-intrinsic-motivation.pdf
I don’t get it. Are there any sources for this?
Are you saying the more people get paid the less work they do? This doesn’t make sense to me. This sounds like a management and hiring issue. If someone doesn’t want to work, you replace them with someone who does. Don’t hire lazy fucks, hire competent people.
If I had a job that pays say 1 million a year, and I know I won’t be able to get paid nowhere near as much at another company, I would make sure I work hard enough not lose that amazingly paid job, because otherwise I will have to work for half that and give up my rich lifestyle.
Again, a management issue for letting employees become zombies and a hiring issue for hiring lazy bums.
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Yeah sure, but acting like I don’t need Steam for my game to sell is untrue.
Sure, but the point I’m making is, it’s not Steam’s fault; they’re simply doing a better job than their competitors of making their storefront attractive to consumers. Rather than blaming Steam, you should be blaming the other storefronts for not being able to capture market share.
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Unfortunately that isn’t true, by accident this has been tested by tech companies like Netflix they were paid in stocks when the company was worth nothing but as it grew they got paid more and more until it became apparent that they didn’t actually have to work anymore entire companies became filled with zombie employees people who don’t work like at all beyond what they are contractually obligated to do, it created huge discontent between the teirs of worker the one’s actually doing the work and the ones getting paid, you almost can’t pay people beyond a certain amount because they don’t work for you then they don’t need to they can live a perfectly fine life without working and nothing gets done so you just have to higher a new staff who once again you can’t in pay too much or they won’t need to work and you’ll just have more zombie employees.
It is actually very well established:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11211-008-0063-2
When Do Financial Incentives Reduce Intrinsic Motivation? Comparing Behaviors Studied in Psychological and Economic Literatures
Objective: To review existing evidence on the potential of incentives to undermine or “crowd out” intrinsic motivation, in order to establish whether and when it predicts financial incentives to crowd out motivation for health-related behaviors. ...
PubMed Central (PMC) (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
https://www.bsfrey.ch/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/crowding-effects-on-intrinsic-motivation.pdf
people who don’t work like at all beyond what they are contractually obligated to do
I see absolutely nothing wrong with this. Why do you frame the workers doing the work they’re paid to do as bad?
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Sure, but the point I’m making is, it’s not Steam’s fault; they’re simply doing a better job than their competitors of making their storefront attractive to consumers. Rather than blaming Steam, you should be blaming the other storefronts for not being able to capture market share.
I‘m not blaming anyone.
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This actually seems like not a terrible spread. The average for the top earners is a little more than 10x the average for the lowest earners… Obviously outliers could be skewing that data (there could be one hardware developer making 30 million while the others work for poverty wages) but from the data we have, this isn’t nearly as wide a gap as I would have expected.
Valve moved into hardware long after its other ventures, so it’s not surprising the hardware devs make less – they’re newer. Still, $430k/yr is an enviable salary…
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I don’t think it’s misleading, “generating” implies gross profit, not net. It’s not explicit, but it’s also not misleading.
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Mono=one poly=seller… and last I checked Steam is not the only seller of video games. They aren’t even the only seller of digital video games. They aren’t even the only seller of digital video games for SteamOS.
They are the largest because they do what’s right by their customers and employees. As a ‘for instance’, I bought Portal 2 for the PS3 many years ago. I no longer have my PS3 but I can still play Portal 2 (as well as Portal which was just thrown in for me) on any PC.
Technically Steam is not a monopoly, but the way people commonly use the term these days is as simple as “majority market share”.
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I don’t think it’s misleading, “generating” implies gross profit, not net. It’s not explicit, but it’s also not misleading.
“Makes”.
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Valve moved into hardware long after its other ventures, so it’s not surprising the hardware devs make less – they’re newer. Still, $430k/yr is an enviable salary…
This was from 2021, so prior to the Steam Deck… that was really their break-out moment, I think, with regards to hardware. The Steam Link and Steam Controller were neat but didn’t really capture their respective markets, and the Index was widely considered one of the best VR headsets on the market but that’s a relatively small market, and it priced out all but the enthusiast tier consumers. The Steam Deck on the other hand had mass appeal and basically ushered in a golden age of handheld PC gaming… not to mention the immense hype around their recent hardware announcements. Could be that their hardware team is making more now.
