VALVE prints more money per head than Apple and Facebook
Back in 2021, indie developer Wolfire filed an antitrust lawsuit against Valve that accused the gaming giant of anti-competitive business practices – including its habit of taking unfair cuts from developers on its store. Valve’s 30% fees have come under criticism before – and they are high when compared to some other online platforms.
Valve offers cuts, but only if your company’s earning millions on millions – no alms for the little guy.
The suit was dismissed without prejudice later that year. However, that dismissal gave Wolfire 30 days to bring the suit up-to-par, which it did, reigniting the legal battle in 2022.
Now, details have emerged from the suit’s discovery phase – both sides’ legal teams were able to exchange documents to help build out their cases. One particular email chain between Valve employees stood out, though. Turns out, Valve was making more money per head than just about anybody.
DETAILS HAVE EMERGED FROM THE SUIT’S DISCOVERY PHASE
VALVE-TIME IS MONEY
The heavily redacted emails confirm that in 2018, Valve was perhaps the most efficient big tech company. “Since I like to fiddle with numbers, I brought net income into this comparison,” writes Valve’s Kristan Miller, “…breaking these numbers down as net income/hour/employee shows some interesting comparisons.” Miller proceeded to compare the company’s net income (post-expenses cash) per hour, divided by its number of employees (then 350). “This ratio gives a good idea of how much revenue ‘survives to the end’ for each of these businesses.” Comparisons are made between companies like Apple, Microsoft and Facebook. While redaction
