this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2024
1266 points (97.1% liked)
Steam
10308 readers
60 users here now
Steam is a video game digital distribution service by Valve.
Steam News | Steam Beta Client news
Useful tools:
SteamDB
SteamCharts
Issue tracker for Linux version of Steam
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I think this post massively overestimates the power a CEO has. The CEO is beholden to the shareholders. Valve is private, ~~so~~ and its shareholders are its workers. It would be useful to know how many shares Gaben has of valve, but I still don't think the next CEO would suddenly also be the majority owner.
Also, I know things have changed a lot in the last 12 years, but 12 years ago regarding the total dissolution of Valve, Gaben said:
Also, forcing users onto windows is THE way to kill valve's profits. The whole point of the Linux push was a direct response to the windows store, and msft's threat of forcing valve to give them a cut of purchase through steam. Msft will still do that the first chance it gets. So even the most profit-minded new leader wouldn't make that choice, as it's plainly shortsighted.
Shareholders is the owners and since they are private we don't know who they are. Right now it could be all Gaben or it could be a mix but Gaben is majority resulting in the culture is what he wants. Private companies don't have to be maximizing profits focused but will die if they don't make money. When people die it is whoever inherits or has majority share that pushes what happens.
I had briefly searched to see if it was known how much ownership Gaben had. Did you find it somewhere, or are you just assuming he's majority?
I do know the employees are compensated in shares of the company, but you're right that I don't know what proportion is owned by employees.
Below is what I can find it isn't well sourced but ownership isn't the same as shares. You can have profits shares without having any ownership stake.
Valve Corporation, the American video game developer and digital distributor company, is a private company with a secretive ownership structure. Gabe Newell, the company's co-founder and CEO, is the majority shareholder, and his ownership stake is estimated to be over 50%. Other investors include Valve executives and employees, as well as major shareholders such as The Custody Bank of Japan, Ltd. and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. Wikipedia Valve Corporation - Wikipedia Founders. Gabe Newell. Mike Harrington. Headquarters. Bellevue, Washington. , US. Key people. Gabe Newell (president) Scott Lynch (COO) Products. show. Video games. show. Hardware. show. Software. Total equity. US$10 billion (2019) Owner. Gabe Newell (>50%) Number of employees. ~360 (2016) Subsidiaries. Valve S.a.r.l. Valve GmbH. Campo Santo. ASN. 32590. Website. valvesoftware.com. Valve was founded in 1996 by the former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington. Their debut game, the first-person shooter (FPS) Half-Life (1998), was a critical and commercial success and had a lasting influence on the FPS genre. Harrington left in 2000. namria.gov.ph Which company owns Valve May 28, 2024 — Valve is a private company with a secretive ownership structure. Its investors include cofounder Gabe Newell and Valve executives and employees.. In 2003, Valve moved to Bellevue, Washington, and reincorporated as Valve Corporation. namria.gov.ph How much of valve does Gabe own - NAMRIA May 24, 2024 — Valve is owned (mostly) owned by it's CEO, Gabe Newell, one of the founders of the company. The only real connection with Tencent is their . Newell's ownership stake isn't disclosed and he's attributed 50.1% of Valve in this analysis to reflect his control of the company and status as co-founder.. NAMRIA Who is the majority shareholder of Valve - NAMRIA May 25, 2024 — Gabe Newell has led Valve Corp., which develops video games, since he cofounded it in 1998 with former Microsoft colleague Mike Harrington.. Over the years, the ownership of Valve Corporation and Steam has remained primarily with the founders and major investors. Gabe Newell . Major Shareholders (Top 10) ; The Custody Bank of Japan, Ltd. 2,596, 2.88 ; Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, 2,553, 2.83 ; KITZ Corporation Employee Stock .” Valve ostentatiously makes little use of direct authority. majority shareholder, Gabe Newell) is used At the same time, contextual .
Valve Corporation is an American video game developer and digital distributor company in Bellevue, Washington. It was started in 1996 by Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington, two Microsoft employees in the past. steam.fandom.com Gabe Newell | SteamWiki | Fandom Gabe Newell, known online as Gaben, is the co-founder and majority shareholder of Valve Corporation. He attended Harvard University, but dropped out and worked at Microsoft until 1996, where he and co-worker Mike Harrington left to found Valve. Newell and former Microsoft colleague Mike Harrington founded Valve in 1996. Their first game, Half-Life, was released in 1998 and was a critical and commercial success. Harrington left the company in 2000, and Valve moved to Bellevue, Washington and reincorporated as Valve Corporation in 2003.
Highly recommend putting that in a quote and giving a source rather than copy pasting a wall in plain text. For all I know you just asked ChatGPT and this is what it spat out.
And in this context, just the part about Gabe being majority shareholder would have sufficed.
"Valve is private, so its shareholders are its workers."
I don't know who keeps telling you libs this, but they're lying.
I don't think that misunderstanding is limited to the libs.
It is because of a limited understanding of companies in the startup phase. At some point, there is enough cash flow to buy labour outright rather than giving up capital on each hire. This allows shareholders to captute all future capital created by future wagies.
Sorry, I forgot about the useful idiot breed of fascist, compared to the "lies as a strategy" breed.
Oh whoops, I thought you were trying to be taken seriously. My bad.
They were so close...
Your boos mean nothing, you don't even know what a lib is either.
You are most definitely right that the major shareholders aren't the workers. The major shareholders are Gabe Newell, and some bankers in Japan.
Still, it is known that Valve employees are partially compensated with stock for working in the company, so most of the employees are still shareholders. They just aren't the major ones.
Sure, but that's not what makes it a private company.
Ahh I get your point now, sorry I missed it. Yea, if people think that private company = employee shareholders, they are very wrong.
Sorry, the way i phrased that does sound causal. It should say "and".
Any real lib knows, public or private, there's no way out of our capitalist downfall.
Employees are stakeholder, not necessarily shareholder. Management, likely. The grunts, I think not so much.
How are you differentiating stakeholder and shareholder? The employees are certainly shareholders.
Valve doesn't really hire "grunts". The people who are actually considered employees of valve are very few and highly skilled. The number of Wikipedia from 2016 is very out of date and estimates 360. But valve's LinkedIn still says "over 300".
there are common definitions for both terms. the employees aren't shareholders as long as they don't own a part of the company, but they are stakeholders since they have something to do with the company. their partners, publishers, etc. are stakeholders too
Yes, I was making sure that was the distinction you were making, because I'm trying to disambiguate for you: the employees of valve are both shareholders and stakeholders.
Also Valve isn't the charity they believe it is. It's a de-facto monopoly, and it has serious moderation issues (basically if you bought enough games, they will less likely ban you for hatespeech and such).
Valve isn't pulling any anticompetitive moves though. They just try to secure profits by being the best instead of destroying everyone else that dares to compete with them.
Beeing not assholes against their own users are basically anticompetitive these days. ;)
Well, they are allegedly forcing price parity on publishers, so they can't sell cheaper on their own website or some other storefront that takes smaller cuts. That's anticompetitive as shit, and they are being sued over it.
That parity thing was debunked 2 years ago when a similar lawsuit against Valve was dismissed, their parity thing is for resold Steam keys, which Valve issues with no profit margin. Milberg London are trolls that tried to do the same lawsuit against Sony and PlayStation last year. Also got nowhere.
They're not a defacto monopoly? There's many different ways to buy games online and valve does not have anti-consumer practices like exclusivity deals. I have not heard anything about them not banning for hate speech? Every time I've ever reported something its been taken down within 48hrs