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submitted 10 months ago by simple@lemm.ee to c/games@lemmy.world
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[-] yeather@lemmy.ca 257 points 10 months ago

Reliable, low maitenance, with good infastructure. 80 sounds like a solid number when not including game devs and support staff.

[-] fartsparkles@sh.itjust.works 173 points 10 months ago

80 world-class engineers sounds like more than enough people. It’s not like Valve struggle to acquire talent and are thus forced to have teams and teams of juniors who are masters at building tech debt.

Valve will likely be hiring and retaining the kinds of engineers who love a good refactor and appreciate the time and space to do that rather than some product manager pressuring for the next shiny shit they wanted yesterday.

And Steam is their money printing machine that keeps them free to do whatever they want. It’s no surprise their team have stayed invested in continuing to build out the best gaming platform of all time.

80 talented, passionate, and healthily paid engineers > 800 junior, sleep deprived, and struggling to buy groceries “coders”.

[-] Balinares@pawb.social 48 points 10 months ago

For serious. I wish they hired remote.

[-] sunzu@kbin.run 44 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

This likely management 101 in action

Amazing what happens if you treat people right and let them do their job

Instead we got too much management constantly causing churn

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[-] Corigan@lemm.ee 129 points 10 months ago

Who the fuck cares what's with this constant desire to try and shit on steam

[-] HawlSera@lemm.ee 101 points 10 months ago

Because they tried competing and it didn't work because they kept offering an inferior product, so they're trying to weasel Steam out of the market

[-] homicidalrobot@lemm.ee 46 points 10 months ago

As for as storefronts go, which is what's being talked about here, they are competing and winning. With a fraction of the employees other companies employ for storefront work. Origin (Rest Unpeacefully) and Uplay never stood a chance and epic has had plenty of time to market saturate. The company not being publicly traded doesn't prevent competition, it prevents investor interests like quashing competition.

[-] rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 42 points 10 months ago

They meant the other companies tried competing and failed so they're pushing these anti-valve lawsuits and articles.

[-] lanolinoil@lemmy.world 44 points 10 months ago

Shit on? This is some baller ass shit -- What is the rev per employee a billion dollars?!?!?!

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 35 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

They've touted before that they may be the most profitable company per employee on earth. They make a few billion in profit per year with a payroll of a few hundred employees.

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[-] synae@lemmy.sdf.org 36 points 10 months ago

How is this even shitting on them? It's impressive af

[-] Corigan@lemm.ee 19 points 10 months ago

Just more seems to be a lot of posts on this topic and they are filled with anti steam crap

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[-] ripcord@lemmy.world 35 points 10 months ago

I definitely didn't interpret this as shitting on Steam. In fact, the opposite.

[-] Rayspekt@lemmy.world 122 points 10 months ago

These numbers keep getting smaller with every headline. Tomorrow it says that Steam runs off of Gabens private NAS.

[-] RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 47 points 10 months ago

Because other articles cite about 350 (heh, inb4 three-fiddy) for the whole of Valve. This is just Steam.

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[-] Wilzax@lemmy.world 97 points 10 months ago

Failure of larger companies to make a competitive alternative to steam is not anticompetitive behavior on the part of Valve

[-] 6gybf@sh.itjust.works 51 points 10 months ago

Seems like a good example of how running a company for the shareholders doesn’t produce a a better product after all.

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[-] HauntedCupcake@lemmy.world 21 points 10 months ago

The case seems like such a reach. At worst it's an effective monopoly for devs, not consumers. Devs have a really hard time selling elsewhere.

That said, I love Steam and think it's genuinely one of the best companies out there. And whilst it's not great that they're so big, they aren't that big due to anti-competitive behaviour. It's quite the opposite. You can add non-Steam games to your library and use Steam features. The fucking Steam deck isn't locked down, and you can install non-Steam games. Just because Uplay wants to log me out every time I reboot doesn't mean Steam should be sued.

There are so many other companies more deserving of the lawsuit

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[-] PhAzE@lemmy.ca 89 points 10 months ago

80 people who are doing a bang-up job, i might add.

[-] Katana314@lemmy.world 88 points 10 months ago

But Infinite growth!! How do you affirm the ability for a new CEO to make tough decisions without going on insane hiring sprees to show growth, and then firing those same people to cut corners and also show growth!? The economy needs blood!

Oh wait, they’re not publically traded? I thought only corner shops were allowed to stay off the market.

Okay, end savage stock market mockery.

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[-] the_post_of_tom_joad@sh.itjust.works 74 points 10 months ago

This is the second time they've pointed out the size of valve. First total size, now steam specific. Is it some kinna dogwhistle to other companies that the size is a weakness to exploit? Cuz what layman cares about how many people work at a given company?

[-] fishos@lemmy.world 63 points 10 months ago

A lot of companies have been trying to sue them and are trying to tarnish their name in any way possible because their case is already shaky at best. The whole "monopoly" thing despite competition existing and Valve only being on top because they're the best feature wise stuff.

[-] Zirconium@lemmy.world 32 points 10 months ago

And a lot of publishers already have their own launchers that dont need steam or use steam. Theyre just dogshit

[-] fishos@lemmy.world 19 points 10 months ago

Exactly. It's hard to argue that Steam has a monopoly when the other launchers exist and suck. Steam, despite its flaws, is still the best storefront we have. Gabe is the person who taught us that piracy is largely a service problem, not a price problem. People will pay when the paid option is quality.

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[-] lengau@midwest.social 66 points 10 months ago

Pretty amazing that years of effort from massive competitors like Epic and Microsoft haven't managed to crack this. I wonder what they're doing wrong?

(Ok I lied. I know exactly what they're doing wrong and there's zero chance of them changing.)

[-] ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 26 points 10 months ago

The Microsoft Store and how to redeem games is so mind-numbly stupid. GamePass wowed me with their library and the subscription service. But how they do everything, from DRMing their games in a absolute mindfuckery app folder, to locking it into your Microsoft account and ecosystem, was so frustrating. Modding? Eat a Microdick. Hell, save files don't even transfer between Steam and Microsoft GamePass games because FUCK YOU PLAYERS.

I'm glad Steam was extremely proactive at moving off of Windows.

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[-] Vespair@lemm.ee 52 points 10 months ago

I genuinely can't fathom why this number should be bigger. What am I supposed to take away from this knowledge? Far as I'm concerned, Valve is still a rare comparative good guy in the dense-packed field of bad guys in industry

[-] exanime@lemmy.world 23 points 10 months ago

Because we have been led to believe that the "titans" of industry are these super above average smart people. In reality it's a bunch of nepo babies with no unique skills (other than, perhaps, a good education) which only copy each other.

After covid, all big IT companies started hiring like mad men... Then they all started firing people like crazy. They are driven more by speculation on their stock price and FOMO than any actual business strategy

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[-] count_dongulus@lemmy.world 51 points 10 months ago

All i read is "Damn, they're a super capable team."

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[-] Phegan@lemmy.world 40 points 10 months ago

That's an insanely efficient machine.

[-] GBU_28@lemm.ee 40 points 10 months ago

Why is this getting posted so often?

[-] ysjet@lemmy.world 39 points 10 months ago

Because Epic Games is really hoping to turn people against steam any way they can other than actually improving their service or morals.

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[-] TurboHarbinger@feddit.cl 37 points 10 months ago

This is a "they are hoarding all the profits" "they're not open to stock exchange" "why I can't have a piece if this cake, it's unfair" kind of news.

Pure pressure politics.

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[-] ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 32 points 10 months ago

I honestly think it's a badge of honor.

I worked in a company where we had 1000+ engineers on a SAAS platform for three years. And it barely has the same relevance or reach as Steam.

[-] Kedly@lemm.ee 33 points 10 months ago

These "B-B-BUT STEAMS MONOPOLY CROWD" really do think we have stockholm/boot licker syndrome as if a good 60%+ of steam users didnt know how to Pirate games if we truly didnt like the service

[-] Kaeru@slrpnk.net 28 points 10 months ago

Wasn't there just a report from a few days ago that it was closer to 300?

[-] simple@lemm.ee 59 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

The report says that Valve has ~350 employees total, and of those employees only 80 actually work on Steam as a storefront. The rest are working on their games and hardware.

[-] whyalone@lemm.ee 26 points 10 months ago

So they have people working on their games? HL-3 confirmed!

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[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 28 points 10 months ago

That's total employees at Valve. This is a subset of those that work on Steam.

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this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2024
468 points (94.7% liked)

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