Valve Beats Google, Apple For Profits Per Employee

AndrewGOO9 writes "It should come with little surprise that Gabe Newell is well on his way to being one of the wealthiest men in gaming. In an age when console gamers would have many believe that the PC was on its way out the door, Newell and Valve's Steam stand as sentinels of the platform, offering a ridiculous amount of content to the 30 million users. With the lion's share of the downloadable market on the PC, it's no wonder that Steam has become the go-to for many and an incredible financial opportunity for Newell and Valve. According to Forbes, 'Newell says that, per employee, Valve is more profitable than Google and Apple. A potential buyer was rumored to have made an acquisition offer a few years back for the Steam piece only, but Newell supposedly refused to split the online storefront from Valve's game-publishing arm.'"

Comments

Apples to well...Apples

[antifoidulus]

One thing on the profitability per employee thing, at least with Apple the figure most likely includes retail employees as well. With the latest figures I could find and from my back of the envelope calculations Apple made 14 billion with about 50k employees, for a profit of roughly $280k/employee. Meanwhile valve made, according to the article $55 million on 250 employees, for a profit/employee of $220k. Right off the bat, unless Forbes is using different numbers than I am, you see a discrepancy. Furthermore, if we limit the discussion to non-retail employees(of which Apple has about 35k), then the profit/employee jumps to over $400k/employee, much higher than Valves. Still an amazing company, but there are some "interesting" numbers in the article....

Re:If they're so profitable

[Ben4jammin]

From Games Radar:

Steam raked in nearly one billion dollars in 2010 (http://www.gamesradar.com/pc/call-of-duty-black-ops/news/steam-raked-in-nearly-one-billion-dollars-in-2010/a-2011020485712484007/g-20100430155446363032)

What are the sales figures for the whopping 2 games you linked?

Re:That's all well and good

[Rutefoot]

Now compare Steam with other similar services. Games for Windows Live for example. I shouldn't have to outline how inferior it is to Steam to anyone who has used both. Any program whose poor programming requires me to turn off my firewall to play any games tied to it can go screw itself.

Re:If they're so profitable

[Schnapple]

Then you are a poor soul. Lower my Karma, but I am never touching Windows again, unless I'm forced to do so in my job. It disgusts me to support and see other people support the tirany of Microsoft.

I don't know what's worse, that you believe Microsoft is tyrannous, or that you expect anyone to take your intelligence seriously when you can't spell tyranny.