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Leaked payroll data show how much Valve pays staff and how few people it employs

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Re: Leaked payroll data show how much Valve pays staff and how few people it employs

#91

Post by poikroequ »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #55
poikroequ wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft could certainly compete, if they invested more into improving the experience on Windows, and released their own handheld device.

Microsoft "competed" with Games For Windows Live (Dead). Though I guess that's now probably what Battle.net is ?

Microsoft now has several games available to download for Windows, a far cry from the size of Steam's library, but it exists. If you have a Game Pass subscription, many of those games are available to install on Windows as well.

Microsoft also supports streaming, both cloud streaming and locally from an Xbox.

Yeah, I agree that Games for Windows Live was a joke. But Microsoft today is certainly capable of bringing competition, with the right leadership.

Re: Leaked payroll data show how much Valve pays staff and how few people it employs

#92

Post by ilrwbwrkhv »

c-hendricks wrote: post #80
lionkor wrote: post #36

> Valve employed just 79 people for Steam, which is one of the most influential gaming storefronts on the planet. It might just be me, but that actually seems pretty reasonable. What I've seen a lot is companies, during growth, accepting less-than-ideal candidates, maybe without a good onboarding, which then end up as deadweight in the worst case, and underperformers in the best case. This, combined with a tendency t…

> steam is big, but it's not a product so complex you'd need over 100 people to maintain it I dunno, I think Steam is pretty complex: - The steam store (credit card processing, optimizing search, review bombs, gift buying, features around various ways to hide games you've purchased, marketplace) - Workshop (Uploading, managing people's subscriptions, SDKs) - Cloud Saves - Remote Play, works remotely without any port…

I think the real trick is to not hire twitter engineers.

Re: Leaked payroll data show how much Valve pays staff and how few people it employs

#93

Post by wiseowise »

stryan wrote: post #73
wiseowise wrote: post #30

At this point Valve should open source all of their games if they’re not planning to develop new ones.

They've released five games in the past 4 years[0] and have another one in active closed testing[1], along with keeping DOTA2 running with major game changes and mini-games[2]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Valve_games [1] Random article about it: https://gamerant.com/deadlock-gameplay-footage-valve-leak-6v... . [2] DOTA's had massive patches recently, including adding a new attribute, expanding the map,…

Dota 2 is a prime example of enshifitication of modern games where content is added for the sake of content and regards for original style are completely ignored.

Ironically, Dota 2 would benefit as a game if they STOPPED developing it and focused just on stability of the game, but alas.

Re: Leaked payroll data show how much Valve pays staff and how few people it employs

#94

Post by rasz »

bathtub365 wrote: post #90
rasz wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple screwing you over twice will do that to your products targeting Apple users.

How did Apple screw them over twice?

https://blog.greggant.com/posts/2024/06/25/half-life-for-the...

Re: Leaked payroll data show how much Valve pays staff and how few people it employs

#95

Post by raxxorraxor »

lionkor wrote: post #36

> Valve employed just 79 people for Steam, which is one of the most influential gaming storefronts on the planet. It might just be me, but that actually seems pretty reasonable. What I've seen a lot is companies, during growth, accepting less-than-ideal candidates, maybe without a good onboarding, which then end up as deadweight in the worst case, and underperformers in the best case. This, combined with a tendency t…

Compare it to Uber, which employs 30k people and they "just" mediate transport contracts and still thousands of those are engineers. Or Airbnb which is 5k+ employees I believe.

Steam is another data point that convinces me that public ownership of companies leads to quick and ruthless enshitification and that growth is only a good metric in specific contexts.

Re: Leaked payroll data show how much Valve pays staff and how few people it employs

#96

Post by red-iron-pine »

bobthepanda wrote: post #62
Aerroon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also Nutaku that's supposedly as big as Steam (they are focused on NSFW games). Imo Epic is the only competitor to Steam that tries to offer a similar service to Steam. It's just popular to hate on it among pc gamers. Many people cite a lack of features on Epic's store as the reason, eg no forum feature, but then turn around and decry Steam forums as the worst place on the internet. I don't think the problem…

I think that a lot of features on Steam don’t need to be copied, but I think Steam does have a giant moat in terms of actually useful features. Steam for example, allows user submitted ratings with explainer text. This is huge for online shopping decisions. Steam Workshop is easy to integrate mod distribution for games. Etc.

> Steam for example, allows user submitted ratings with explainer text. This is huge for online shopping decisions.

Arguably, it requires an account, and has things like "number of hours played" included in the review.

Far, far more useful than the easily-gamed spam reviews on places like Amazon. Doesn't mean spammy things can't happen, and the aggregate reviews on Steam usually mean what the 14-24 year old demo think

Re: Leaked payroll data show how much Valve pays staff and how few people it employs

#97

Post by lionkor »

raxxorraxor wrote: post #95
lionkor wrote: post #36

> Valve employed just 79 people for Steam, which is one of the most influential gaming storefronts on the planet. It might just be me, but that actually seems pretty reasonable. What I've seen a lot is companies, during growth, accepting less-than-ideal candidates, maybe without a good onboarding, which then end up as deadweight in the worst case, and underperformers in the best case. This, combined with a tendency t…

Compare it to Uber, which employs 30k people and they "just" mediate transport contracts and still thousands of those are engineers. Or Airbnb which is 5k+ employees I believe. Steam is another data point that convinces me that public ownership of companies leads to quick and ruthless enshitification and that growth is only a good metric in specific contexts.

30k is insane.

Re: Leaked payroll data show how much Valve pays staff and how few people it employs

#98

Post by tokai »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #70
tokai wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all games can be run without steam.

This varies wildly depending on their level of DRM : https://www.gog.com/forum/general/how_to_run_steam_games_off...

Yeah exactly. Its up to the individual game and not a steam thing.
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