Being one of the most important companies in the world of computer games, The valve is usually quite a mystery when it comes to its inner workings. The creator of steam, run by co-founder and president Gabe Newell, doesn’t usually reveal much about its size or structure. However, for all the jokes about Half-Life 3, Left 4 Dead 3, Portal 3, and so on, as rumors swirl around its supposed new Deadlock game, court documents show that most of Valve’s staff are still focused on creating games.
This latest information comes from documents included in the 2021 antitrust lawsuit filed by indie developer Wolfire Games against Valve, which argues that the Steam creator “abuses its market power to ensure that game publishers have no choice but sell most of their games through the Steam Store.” Of course, despite the huge selection available on the platform, Valve’s own offerings usually remain among the biggest and best PC games of all time.
The Valve document in question, discovered by SteamDB creator Pavel Djundiik and detailed by The Verge, contains “Headcount and Gross Salary Data, 2003-2021.” While aspects of the document have been redacted, the columns showing these two data counts are still visible, giving us an overview of how many people work in each area of Valve.
Of these, the 2021 numbers list 181 people assigned to ‘gaming’, with 35 working in admin, 41 in hardware and 79 in Steam itself. This adds up to a total of just 336 staff members, which is surprisingly small for a company of such significant stature. By comparison, Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios employs about 470 people, while Ubisoft puts its number at 21,000.
However, it does show that more than half of Valve’s staff (at least as of 2021) are still primarily focused on making games. Perhaps this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise; the company launched Half-Life: Alyx in March 2020, Reworked Artifact: Foundry in March 2021, Aperture Desk Job in March 2022, Counter-Strike 2 in September 2023 and continues ongoing development for this along with regular updates for Dota 2 .
There is almost certainly development in new projects as well, with Valve long known as a company that encourages experimentation. Currently, signs point to Valve’s rumored upcoming Deadlock game, which is supposed to be a 6v6 competitive FPS with Dota-style lanes and hero characters reminiscent of TF2 and Overwatch. Whether that project exists as suggested — and whether it actually gets off the ground — is something we’ll just have to wait to find out.
The report also highlights some other interesting data. The specific number of Steam staff, which peaked at 142 in 2015, had dropped dramatically to just 79 staff members by 2021, almost half of its previous number. Comparatively, while the number of gaming-focused employees fell slightly, from 201 in 2019 to 181 in 2021, this feels more like a case of natural fluctuations.
Ultimately, despite the changes over the years Valve continues to offer a showcase that, for the most part, does exactly what its consumer users want in delivering games with relatively flawless consistency. As for what’s next on the gaming side, we’ll be sure to keep you updated when her next game comes out. We’ve reached out to Valve for comment on this story and will include any response when we receive it.
In the meantime, here are the best free Steam games to play in 2024, and you can keep an eye on when the next Steam sale starts for lots of other bargains.
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