Home Court papers expose how much Valve pays its employees, and how many it has

Court papers expose how much Valve pays its employees, and how many it has

tl;dr

  • Valve's payroll data was exposed in court documents from the 2021 antitrust suit by Wolfire Games.
  • The data reveals Valve's average staff headcount of 360 since 2003, categorized by departments like Admin, Games, Steam, and Hardware.
  • Despite criticisms about minimal investment in the Steam Store, Valve's popular games like Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 continue to dominate player statistics.

Valve, a PC gaming goliath for more than 20 years and the owner of Steam, has had some of its confidential payroll data exposed.

The information was unearthed by SteamDB creator Pavel Djundik, who meticulously combed through the court documents from Wolfire Game’s 2021 antitrust suit against Valve. As reported by The Verge, payroll over the past 7 years has hovered around $200 million, with Valve’s total headcount about 360.

Djundik compiled some of the data, with the court’s staff redacting the more sensitive aspects, making the rest undecipherable. The information shows how much the studio pays staff and the headcount at Steam since the early 2000s.

Valve staff information comes to light

The creator of Half-Life, Team Fortress, and Portal has been secretive about staff pay, the number of staff employed, and the significant projects in the works. A running joke for years in gaming has been founder Gabe Newell’s glacial pace at creating or developing games despite the zealous following of titles like Half-Life.

The Verge followed up on Djundik’s deep dive into the semi-redacted court documents, showing the staff data of the company founded in 1996. The data goes back to 2003 and details the individual resources in separate headings, such as Admin, Games, Steam, and Hardware.

One of Steam’s most significant assets is the simplicity of the online storefront, but Wolfire, as part of the 2001 antitrust suit, criticized Valve for its lack of investment. Wolfire said at the time “devotes a minuscule percentage of its revenue to maintaining and improving the Steam Store.”

We don’t think this would ever shake founder Gabe Newell or Valve’s resolve. Nor do we think this would force any major cosmetic or background work, as they are content with the earnings raked in from the simple interface.

As we reported, $19 billion has been spent on Steam games that have never been played, which is more than the gross national product of some countries.

Valve-developed titles such as Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 are the most played on Steam. Both games have 1,077,167 and 627,802 concurrent players, respectively. Counter-Strike 2 launched in 2023, but it’s the sequel to a franchise that has been topping the Steam charts since those statistics have been kept. Dota 2 launched in 2013 and has been similarly dominant on its home turf.

Image: Steam

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Brian-Damien Morgan
Tech Journalist

Brian-Damien Morgan is an award-winning journalist and features writer. He was lucky enough to work in the print sector for many UK newspapers before embarking on a successful career as a digital broadcaster and specialist. His work has spanned the public and private media sectors of the United Kingdom for almost two decades. Since 2007, Brian has continued to add to a long list of publications and institutions, most notably as Editor of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, winning multiple awards for his writing and digital broadcasting efforts. Brian would then go on to be integral to the Legacy 2014,…

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