this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2025

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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 (www.tomshardware.com)

submitted 8 months ago by alessandro@lemmy.ca to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca

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[–] Triumph@fedia.io 166 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Revenue. Revenue is not profit.

[–] m4ylame0wecm@lemmy.zip 69 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Correct. The article is discussing revenue.

[–] Triumph@fedia.io 37 points 8 months ago (2 children)

The headline is misleading, it was worth mentioning.

[–] Zorque@lemmy.world 21 points 8 months ago (8 children)

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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[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago (2 children)

It's not misleading, you've just purposely ignored the meaning of the words to instead imply your own.

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[–] Ugurcan@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Then again, somehow I don’t expect Valve’s expenditures are that high, except download server costs.

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[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 58 points 8 months ago

The business hive mind cannot comprehend a company making so much money without shareholders demanding line go up every hour

[+] falseWhite@lemmy.world 50 points 8 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (6 children)

[deleted]

[–] Carnelian@lemmy.world 94 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Did a little digging, apparently in a 2021 lawsuit, documents were released with bad redactions (they blacked out over the data, but the underlying information was still able to be highlighted and copied/pasted. Very common error when redacting PDFs)

I haven’t checked the data myself but according one user this was the breakdown:

“Total staff as of 2021: 336 people

Administration: 35 people making an average of 4.5 million a year

Game Developers: 181 people making an average of 1 million a year

Steam Developers: 79 people making an average of 960k a year

Hardware Developers: 41 people making average of 430k a year”

Normally I would guess that “average” here probably means a few people making a ton of money while others get shafted. But I think “admin” probably accounts for that. We have no official way of knowing the true breakdown since this info is not supposed to be public

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 63 points 8 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 32 points 8 months ago

Wouldn't surprise that much, as far as I've heard from as far as I remember Valve is a great place to work and by all accounts treat their employees well.

[–] jaselle@lemmy.ca 28 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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...

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 16 points 8 months ago

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.

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[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

What does administration mean there? Like accounting, human resources and so? How could they make, in average, way more that developers??

[–] fushuan@lemmy.blahaj.zone 25 points 8 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 12 points 8 months ago

The C-suite being included there made sense of that disparity.

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[–] navi@lemmy.tespia.org 37 points 8 months ago

A highschool friends dad worked at Valve and they'd take the entire company and their families to Hawaii every year.

Seemed like a good place to work.

[–] MBech@feddit.dk 24 points 8 months ago (6 children)

Would make him the first billionaire in history to pay his workers their worth, so.... Not a fucking chance.

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[–] dukemirage@lemmy.world 14 points 8 months ago

No no Gabe just works 31.244.670 times as much as his employees.

[–] GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago

Hey that's not fair.

Gabe is also spending all that money on Aston Martins Valkyries to race around the world.

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[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 31 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Not hard, if you don't have 20k employees.

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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 13 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

To be fair, Valve only has around 350 employees. The other companies have thousands more.

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[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Do they have any kind of profit sharing program?

I'd be kind of pissed if I worked there and made like $70k or whatever, only to read this shit.

[–] Jyek@sh.itjust.works 18 points 8 months ago

Their lowest paid employees still very likely make 6 figures. Valve has historically taken very good care of their employees.

[–] nyctre@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Doubt it. But, for what it's worth, last I heard, valve was one of the most sought after employers in the business. Apparently the salaries are generous and you get to work on whatever you want, not on what a manager tells you to.

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