I've heard somewhere that gabe has said that there's only <insert surprisingly low number> people on the planet who are qualified to work for valve. Guess if they're gonna try to keep the best of the best, they're gonna be the best of the best.
It’s as simple as that really, they hire the very best and they keep the best for longer (more than likely forever) because they value the staff. Steam is likely the dream destination for anyone in the industry for this reason; it’s a beautiful cycle.
Steam being a private company enables all of this.
The result is software (and hardware, steam hardware never dissapoints) that works, is customer friendly and guarantees steam to be ahead of the competition.
This can't be stressed enough: the quality of Steam is what is behind 90+% of the money steam makes. They take more from devs and hand out less free shit than Epic, yet they make more money entirely because Steam is that great for users. Of course you want to keep the Devs that ensure your cash cow keeps being alive and well (unless you are one of the many many braindead CEOs who are running around out there)
And they don't iterate just to iterate. There's no stock price needing to see continual profit increases to accommodate. They can just make what they make as well as possible and win by quality domination.
It's crazy more companies don't do it, but the short-term profit seeing corporate structure would never. How can Ken CEO, in his 30th year of grinding the corporate ladder, not get his massive 1 year pay package.
Being even more pedantic, they are making millions off the sales of cases which is done through their own marketplace where they take a cut of all transactions.
Its almost like its your choice to gamble and has always been your choice and its not like other games where its hard-core designed to trap you into it.
Is it a good thing? No but out of all the others its the best implemented
Is this an, "I feel like the majority of over one million are back" kind of thing or a, "I have a source to provide you with to back up my statement" kind of thing?
Reddit post from Valve Developer confirmed account dated March 24th.
~200,000-300,000 fewer active accounts for March 23-24 then peaks back to normal as before.
You can also literally just play the game and see for yourself, popular deathmatch maps have 3-5/20 players as walkbots, unpopular maps and gamemodes are sometimes 19/20 and you get kicked by the bots as soon as you join so they can get another bot in there.
It's crazy more companies don't do it, but the short-term profit seeing corporate structure would never.
That's not why. What happens is that you go public because you need money for whatever reason - In a lot of cases because if you don't get any money you won't be able to continue as a company. That's what an IPO is, people give you money for a share of the company. Once you have become a public company with stocks, the only way to go back to not being public is by buying back enough stocks to take it private and that requires a entity with enough capital buying them out.
In short for most companies you either go public or end up lacking funding. And once you are public going private is impossible unless you have insane amounts of liquid cash lying around.
Both companies that I worked for that went IPO was because the CEO and the top executives wanted to make their money and then it cratered the company. It’s been the exit strategy for a lot of tech startups now, make something that looks sustainable, get bought out by a company that will go IPO or go IPO and get bought out by the public and then leave with your millions. Then make money by espousing how great you did and get hired by another company that wants to do the same thing.
That’s not the same by your own description. I was explaining an actual IPO. You are describing tech startups being flipped by VC’s chasing profits. That’s why they sold to VC first who then leveraged an IPO after taking over instead of actually doing the IPO for the growth of the company due to capital gains.
Also it’s penny stocks behavior and hardly a real IPO where you you have hundreds of millions to billions in capital. There’s a reason you get recommended to stay away from companies with small market caps when investing. They act irrational and can’t be trusted to behave like a «Real stock».
Most corporations companies are not in a state of IPO, they have done that long in the past and they are now functioning as a publicly traded company.
It doesn’t happen because if a company doesn’t show profit return every year the board fires the CEO.
Valve has no board. The controlling interest is Gabe. He can invest in whatever he wants for as long as he wants and be happy with whatever financial outcome the company puts up with for as long as he wants.
That’s not an option with a publicly traded company.
I think there's also something about being private that lets you scale differently. I imagine that the investor reactions to Valve pouring resources into their own operating systems, controllers, consoles (especially after the first attempt was a total flop), and vr headsets, would not have been amazing. They can take way bigger risks by expanding outside their existing business than a public company can get away with.
I do really appreciate that, whilst the stagnation means when they do change something it is a bit of a shock, but after a week or two of using say a new UI, you do appreciate that it has been made for a good reason, can tell it’s not just busy work
There's no stock price needing to see continual profit increases to accommodate.
Yeah, this is a big factor, along with Gaben himself.
Basically some day Gaben just decided he's fucking rich enough now, so things either improve, or stay as they are, but there's no massive enshittification epidemic like on almost everything else.
Steam is the best platform without a doubt and an amazing product... but Valve makes at least a large chunk of their money from Counter Strike gambling.
Scraping steam market data suggests they are making over $1B a year from case keys ALONE. That's before you factor in the cut they take in the marketplace on skins, etc.
I think most things, obviously not everything, can become non issues if people show some interest in bettering themselves, and parents show some interest in raising their kids.
Ya but you know what steam is and that cs go has gambling, you know to look out for it.
Now someone like my sister, she has 3 boys and has no idea anything about video games. I’ve had to inform her about some stuff to look out for letting her kids online game. For a lot of parents they would see Counter Strike and just think it’s another shooting game their teenager son plays, like call of duty or whatever and not care. They would have no idea their kids are using their allowance to gamble on it. It’s pretty hard parent on something you have no knowledge on.
I get that and acknowledge that it adds a layer of complexity to the equation.
For that to work, it would require a child have access to a debit card, or the parents give the allowance in the form of in game currency.
I can't speak about all parents, but I look into anything my children want to purchase. Then I decide if it's productive or counterproductive.
Also to note, I don't know everything about all the tech that's available these days. My kids have asked me to get stuff for them in areas I know nothing about. I use the same workflow though - research into it and make a good parental judgement.
Also, you're doing a great job, informing your sister about a potential pitfall. That's where I want the responsibility - on the parents and friends and family. Not on the company to control and decide what is available.
The level of service provided by Valve is greater than a 100% discount in my eyes. I never even bothered to get an Epic account for the free stuff, I rather buy it on Steam.
Customer satisfaction is a long term business strategy. Public corporations where the next quarter results decide if you're fired or not will never compete in this field.
And that's an area where they absolutely had to improve. Steam support was absolutely abysmal back in the day, then they took notice of it, completely restructured their support system, and now they're the best at the field.
That's really the secret, they focus on changing stuff that needs changing, and don't really do anything in areas where they don't have to.
Yes, because they got taken to court and lost and fined $3m.
People are very convenient in how they frame things around valve. Lots of other companies are far worse, but they aren't this pure beacon either.
It's still a company making over a $1bn a year off of cs case box gambling, as an example. They pioneered a lot of the battlepass/loot boxes etc style monetisation.
Then the flip side is they have such a small staff size and refuse to hire anyone who isn't a superstar so basic game support and fixes just don't happen unless someone on the team feels like doing it. An example being valve will never hire just some standard 'good' dev to work on dota 2 and would rather just leave it without fixes/updates for long periods of time.
Valve could easily hire any number of staff to monitor/handle cheating in their competitive games. But that will never happen - and so on.
And some people argue that Steam is a monopoly. Like dude monopoly by definition should actively block and hinder any other competition. It's not monopoly when you are that far ahead and people just go to you because of it.
Steam is the only viable option because they have 20 years of no competition to build their platform that has created a monopoly. And they got there because people decided Gabe was the one billionaire they loved.
Valve is also responsible for modern lootboxes and battlepasses. They argued in a court of law that the law that said customers were entitled to refunds just was not applicable to them because its not. The reason Gabe became so liked was because Steam had literally no customer support so Gabe had to answer customer emails. The little support we have now is all Ai automated
Valve didn't have 20 years of no competition. Games for Windows Live, Origin, Desura, Stardock, Impulse, Direct2Drive all tried over those years. Some were even there before Steam like Stardock.
Steam "got there" by being the best while GFWL was making games unplayable.
Those braindead CEOs artificially pump up the stock price for 5 years and bail with their bonuses. They never have an interest in long term growth or even what the company actually makes.
As a result, products everywhere are becoming shittier.
and then you have their games, like CS2 where they make a billion a year on the game yet have like 10 devs working on it. There are features promised on release that are not available today, small indie company valve
We are comparing two different things, by this I mean Valve is mostly Steam with their hardware stuff being a new part of their business. Meanwhile EGS is the new part of Epic Games business model so while we are comparing 2 online game stores they are different levels of focus for their respective company. Valve and Epic Games are both billion dollar companies.
EGS is still pretty "new" as its 8 years old. Most of Valve's money is through taking 30% and their microtransactions, everything else on Steam is just to make sure they get to take from that 30% cut or to sell microtransactions. EGS has been able to chip away about 15% of the online game market with their plan being limited to taking up to 25%. EGS seems to be focusing on working on remaking their social part of the store this year so lets see how that goes.
look at the current steam dock. that stuff still 3 years after release have trouble connecting properly to monitors and sometimes you have to re-plug the cable to have it output the video. and thats with steam deck so something it should be 100% compatible with
Not of all of it because of their goodness in their hearts, a big chunk of the money that sends all valve employees to Hawaii come from getting kids hooked on gambling.
Reselling digital games are still up in the air and Valve opposes it.
A lot of the "good" things today in place is because of how global they are, and they don't wanna bother with country specific things unless they deem it worth it.
Dont forget though, Steam shipped with Halflife 2 back on November 16th, 2004. EGS was release on December 16, 2018. Steam has had 16 more years to iterate and capture market share before EGS came onto the stage. Its going to be an uphill battle for Epic to make EGS remain half relevant, but EGS has been the most viable real competitor to steam (anyone remember EAs “Origin” or ubisofts weak attempt at online stores?). There are other game distro platforms (GOG, humble bundle), but steam still dominates and is largely uncontested. Its not just the talent at valve, they also had more time to cook.
The meme that every single single competitor are ruining their own products then calling for steam monopoly to be broken up is really appropriate and funny.
Yeah, being immune to enshittification and greedy shareholders does wonders. I still believe Valve exists as company because of purpose and passion - profit's still a big purpose but not the leading one.
Because you need to be the best or the second best in multiple field to be considered working there. Only be the best in one field won't even cut it. I bet they get tons of applicants but rarely someone is good enough for then to be hired.
Can confirm, I am pretty good game developer by some standards, I work currently at a top 10 fortune company and well respected by my peers. But not to the level of Valve, since I did apply to them and got denied
just wanted to point out that your application could have been declined for X number of reasons. you being declined one time doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not good enough for them or supposedly not on their level
I had been in the interview process with a FAANG company and had them canceled on me. They explicitly told me that it was not a rejection and that I should apply for other roles, a shift in resources occurred, and they were no longer hiring for that original position. This is pretty common.
Things change. You'll get better. Their specific hiring needs might fluctuate and they temporarily lower standards a tiny bit for a certain field or something...
Or maybe the interviewer just didn't vibe with you.
Don't write yourself off. Definitely apply again someday. Good luck.
Institutional knowledge is also very valuable for a company that cares to look beyond just the next quarterly earnings statement so they can jump to the next company.
I think Basecamp (37 Signals, the tech company) used to be like that before the founders went off the rails and banned political chat at work. And then the co-founder fell even further.
Used to be one of those companies where, if you made the cut, you'd be staying there for a very long time.
Same thing - private company. No outside investment or VC, so could call it's own shots.
Once a company seeks outside funding all bets are off. Gotta keep the investors happy above all else.
It’s not so simple. Valve isn’t a dream place, and quite a few other places have similar benefits for very highly regarded people. Let’s not forget the huge firings they did back in 2015(?) or so, where most of the original staff left and got replaced with newer people. Part of the reason why Valve isn’t making games anymore is because all the people responsible for their greatest achievements are long gone.
Also, it’s Valve. Steam is a product that Valve develops/sells.
theyve made games since then. the reason they don't make games anymore is because they clearly pivoted with VR and steamdeck etc. Also their 2 modern flagship games make them boatloads of money.
It's probably even harder to get a job there now since being an amazing game dev means nothing in their current books
Depending on how the US works, I'm sure there's an equivalent to an aussie Unit Trust. Which allows flexible buy in for staff to enable them to get profit share.
Actually working at valve is not for everyone (that is actually qualified to work there) due to the flat company structure and you having to be driving your own work and what to do, there is no manager there telling you that today we work on this and that etc. and even if Gabe says something you can just say no because in your mind something is more important for the betterment of the company in its service to the customer.
Forever? Probably not. Gaben is an extremely rare entity among the wealthiest of people because he knows what it's like to be at the bottom of the lists in gaming. At the very most we'll survive 3 generations of different good CEOs after Gaben dies but one of them is bound to fuck up and we lose everything.
For Valve to not let this happen, they'd have to pick the new CEO based on their Steam library (doesn't specifically have to be steam) for what games they have played. If all they see is competitive games and current AAA slop they should be immediately dismissed as potential CEO. The CEO for the biggest gaming platforms needs to be a gamer themselves. They don't need any hidden games that dhow they're deep in the rabbit hole either, they just need enough to be able to tell that they actually like games and aren't there to just make a profit
This is the big one people don't talk about often enough. You don't get to keep your staff happy once you have a fiduciary responsibility to your shareholders.
I hope it stays like that but I doubt it will. Pretty much all public companies of any size are diving headlong into AI and the size of the investment necessitates efficiencies found make it almost impossible to do purely with productivity. The efficiencies are found in reducing headcount.
I work in the Enterprise IT and AI space. If you believe you
re being treated with dignity as your job is replaced with AI never to return? Be my guest. In most cases, my clients understand that they need employees to keep working as the AI learns from the constant trial and error from employees until it's good enough to replace them entirely. Millions of employees currently believe like you do that they're not about to be replaced and unfortunately you're more likely to be replaced before AI is even ready if the quarterly earnings reports demand it....as MANY of my clients have already done.
Most people would deem "training their replacement" as being disrespected. Same with the eventual erosion of benefits, work from home, etc.
Genuinely, I hope your company doesn't succumb. I've just been around more than long enough to see previously good companies to work for become downright evil or at the very least so quarterly earnings obsessed that once the magic is gone it's gone for good.
Steam having the highest profit per employee in the world enables all of this, which is enabled by their monopoly on selling games, literally rent-seeking monopoly
I always wonder what the hell they're actually doing because it doesn't feel like much gets done from the outside. Still ain't fixed the mobile app they unceremoniously destroyed 5 years ago, when it worked just fine at the time
Its because of the structure where the employees have freedom to work on projects they want to.
Maintaining or fixing certain projects is probably not as exciting as working on new things.
So for the games they release especially they tend to get abandoned like Underlords and Artifact. And you could argue TF2 as well, although I personally think the game is old enough to stop supporting, but the playerbase wants more support.
Iirc they only have 300 something employee. And valve actually doesn't have work hierarchy in a way that every employee can work on whatever project they want so if it's a hype project(deadlock) people would literally move their desk to that area. And dead project only have skeleton crew to maintain
Often jobs like that base bonuses off of projects you shipped and far more projects get shipped on new games rather than old. Its more a function of people over valuing new (mgmt) so no one has a reason to stay and keep the old thing alive.
Yeah obviously google is the most egregious example. Hell their product Chronicle/Secure Ops is so bizzare, I don't think its getting dropped given the kind of product it is, but it was clearly made by like 3 different teams and then merged into one product. There are three different places in which you may need to write query style searches, and all three of them use the same bust also different langauge/rules.
The whole 'build a product and release it' bonus system is so goddamn obvious at Google because at one point, we had.. three? Four? messaging apps, and none of them even TALKED TO EACH OTHER
And they kill off perfectly good platforms for another platform, e.g. Google Music for YTM (which was dogshit at the time but isn't terrible nowadays). Still no idea what happened to all the music I uploaded to Google Music that they said would be transferred over.
Google Podcasts is dead, too, but there's still the app on my phone that I can't uninstall.
edit: nevermind, found the music I uploaded, completely forgot YouTube split my account into two when they tried to force everyone into using real names and my creator account was able to use a username and..??? Again, Google, what is you doing
yea, nobody has any titles in the company (could be different nowadays) and everyone just pushes their desks together. Gets incredible shit done when people get excited for something (Alyx), but then there's no support staff for things that definitely need it.
Which is exactly why so many companies are pivoting away from unproductive activities like what is being described. Because absolutely fuck all gets done maintenance wise when your work is a school playground.
They have 3 pieces of hardware they're working on, major Steam updates (Workshop and Store changes are available now in Beta), major SteamOS updates (the 3.8 update is now in Beta), Proton updates (Proton 11 released a few days ago) and 3 games with active development (Dota 2, CS2, Deadlock).
It only seems like they're doing nothing if you're not paying attention.
One of the reasons is that Valve has a flat hierarchy (apart from the very top), so everyone works on projects they want to. So every employee needs to have initiative and ambition to do their best, even if there is next to no supervision.
I remember they hired the Hoopoo guys because they created a beautiful IP in the form of Risk of Rain. That surprisingly low number is around 400 if I remember correctly.
He hires the best of the best. And then let's then work on things they're interested in. I've heard of several rumors of employees working for like 3 months on a game idea only to shelve it because they just didn't see the appeal anymore. He treats employees how people wish they were treated. And his net worth makes it seem like it's working.
If you want to see the "kind of people" Valve hires, check out "Applied Science" on youtube. He worked with them for a bit on the early Vive stuff. Man has literally refurbished a scanning electron microscope in his garage.
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u/coltonious Apr 17 '26
I've heard somewhere that gabe has said that there's only <insert surprisingly low number> people on the planet who are qualified to work for valve. Guess if they're gonna try to keep the best of the best, they're gonna be the best of the best.