Report: Are Valve and Steam Worth Billions?

[Guest]

Forbes is running a story that attempts to put a value on Gabe Newell's game empire, Valve. According to the publication, Valve and Steam could fetch somewhere between $2 and $4 billion.

Report: Are Valve and Steam Worth Billions? : Read more

 

[Yuka]

Hard to measure in an "actives vs passives" approach... But I'd say, their business market is HUGE; as in bigger than Consoles+Smartphones. If they can cover all that, then yeah; pretty much billions (as in thousands of millions, not millions of millions).

Cheers!

 

[tsnorquist]

If anyone deserves to own Valve, it's the public. If they are worth as much as they say they are, I'd hope they'd never sell out to any of those companies mentioned, regardless of how much money is thrown at them.

 

[bayouboy]

The day Valve sells is the day Valve dies. I can simply look at all the other game developers that have been purchased over the years for the result. I have seen far to many successful developers who get bought out simply loose their driven and eventually have to close up shop.

It seems that publishers have the unerring ability to destroy their investments, but as long as it makes them money, they are okay with that.

 

[gogogadgetliver]

I would like to see them *partner* with Microsoft.

Get the steam client to replace "games" in Windows 7/8 and integrate the steam cloud with XBoxlive. Integrate friends list and chat with Windows Live Messenger (which is already integrated with Yahoo, Facebook IM, Xbox, Kinect Video)

Win for Valve, MS, and gamers.

 

[jhansonxi]

[citation][nom]gogogadgetliver[/nom]I would like to see them *partner* with Microsoft.Get the steam client to replace "games" in Windows 7/8 and integrate the steam cloud with XBoxlive. Integrate friends list and chat with Windows Live Messenger (which is already integrated with Yahoo, Facebook IM, Xbox, Kinect Video)Win for Valve, MS, and gamers.[/citation]After 13 years with Microsoft I doubt that Gabe Newell wants to get that cozy with them again, especially with Ballmer in charge.

 

[hellwig]

I hope they remain private. Just imagine what would happen to Steam if Microsoft bought them, or wait, I don't have to, we already have GFWL (barf). I had to create an XBox Live! account just to play Batman: Arkham Asylum, and I don't even own a damn Xbox. Oh, and I had to manually install an updated GFWL client just to get Kane and Lynch to start, cause the GFWL client that came with the game didn't work. No, Steam works just fine as-is.

As for Valve and their game development, they aren't releasing games any slower than Blizzard, and Blizzzard had Vivendi/Universal, then Activision "backing them up". I think smaller companies get better work done, cause some corporate suit isn't breathing down their neck all the time with crap about why their productivity metric is down and how they are not capitalizing on the growth rate expenditures of their target market, thinking outside the box, brainstorm, SAP, visualization, Web 2.0, meaningless catch word, blah blah blah. You know, the same crap upper management always spews out.

Until Valve says: "HL3 isn't coming out because we're out of money", I don't know why they'd even consider selling.

 

[eklipz330]

u know, im glad to hear they are worth billions, even with all the amazing deals they dole out

kudos for defeating the system valve. u earned that cash

 

[porksmuggler]

[citation][nom]jhansonxi[/nom]After 13 years with Microsoft I doubt that Gabe Newell wants to get that cozy with them again, especially with Ballmer in charge.[/citation]

this.

i love the *mix the chocolate with the peanut butter = win* comments, as if there wasn't history to suggest that would never actually work.

 

[borisof007]

Gabe shouldn't sell, ever. Valve has established itself as a POWERHOUSE. Valve, if anything, should stay private. It has enough money, development talent, an awesome platform, great relationships with other developers and publishers, and a huge revenue stream. What it doesn't need is Wall Street telling it what it thinks is best. Gabe has turned the company into what it is today, he should keep doing that.

 

[Kryan]

That, however, may be a matter of the right amount.

I disagree. If there is one person in the PC industry whom i would believe...it'd be Mr. Newell. /applauds Gabe

 

[restatement3dofted]

[citation][nom]tsnorquist[/nom]If anyone deserves to own Valve, it's the public. If they are worth as much as they say they are, I'd hope they'd never sell out to any of those companies mentioned, regardless of how much money is thrown at them.[/citation]

Err... what? Why does the public "deserve" to own Valve? Why would anyone other than the current owners "deserve" to own it?

 

[Guest]

I hope Valve never goes public, doing so would be the death of the one bright spot in the PC gaming universe. Valve\Steam would become slave to its shareholders at the expense of innovation and creativity. As an aside, I was originally sold on the digital distribution platform by the claim that games would be cheaper. The case was made that prices would be lower since there are no physical materials and shipping costs involved; we all know how that turned out.

 

[bluekoala]

[citation][nom]MitchB84[/nom]I hope Valve never goes public, doing so would be the death of the one bright spot in the PC gaming universe. Valve\Steam would become slave to its shareholders at the expense of innovation and creativity. As an aside, I was originally sold on the digital distribution platform by the claim that games would be cheaper. The case was made that prices would be lower since there are no physical materials and shipping costs involved; we all know how that turned out.[/citation]

What he means is that as long as Valve is private, it will act on benefitting the WHOLE gaming indusrty. No just act on behalf of profit for shareholders. Publicly owned companies are as heartless as all of us combined can be.

 

[Guest]

probably retail store would buy them instead of computer company. such as gamestop, bestbuy, amazon.

 

[nevertell]

If Gabe were to sell Valve, it would never be what it was supposed to be.

 

[Leopardos]

Oh my god , Not even a close number related to Mohamad Husni Mubarak wealth !!!

Now i can see how huge money he did steal from his own people , Bigger amount than HUGE companies worldwide...

Well done egyptians...

 

[Travis Beane]

As much as I love you Steam, you're still not perfect.
-The Steam client is pissing about offline mode (fine if you logon first, then disconnect, but not if you start disconnected).
-DRM.
-If I lose my account, I lose all 110 games I have purchased through Steam.
-Support. It'd be a hell of a lot easier if I had 1 page for support for all of my games, not 50.
-If all games had settings/saves in the cloud, not just the dozen there currently is.
-Selling broken games (or multiplayer games with no servers).

If Valve can fix those issues they have, I see a great future for them. For the time being, I only buy from Steam because it's usually cheaper than Impulse.

 

[elbert]

[citation][nom]Travis Beane[/nom]As much as I love you Steam, you're still not perfect. -The Steam client is pissing about offline mode (fine if you logon first, then disconnect, but not if you start disconnected).-DRM.-If I lose my account, I lose all 110 games I have purchased through Steam.-Support. It'd be a hell of a lot easier if I had 1 page for support for all of my games, not 50.-If all games had settings/saves in the cloud, not just the dozen there currently is.-Selling broken games (or multiplayer games with no servers).If Valve can fix those issues they have, I see a great future for them. For the time being, I only buy from Steam because it's usually cheaper than Impulse.[/citation]
You cant loss your account or games. If you ever get your account hijacked you only need supply support with proof of purchase. My account was hijacked and I sent them a scan of the cd keys. They returned my account within 2 days. The link below is were you start to recover your account.
https/support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=2347-qdfn-4366

 

[dark_lord69]

"Newell repeatedly said that he intends to keep Valve private and he has no intentions to sell. That, however, may be a matter of the right amount."
I hope not. I really like Valve just the way they are. I'm not surprised they make so much money. The Half-Life series is legendary in the gaming world. Steam is a cash cow that allows them to make a profit from the sales of everyone elses games. I think they diserve the money they've made for thier excellent quality games and smart idea of forcing it to be delivered via steam and selling other games on steam at agressive prices. When I first got steam I thought it was an annoying hassel to have to install a program just to have the new half life games. But today I think of it in a different light as I have used it to buy multiple game packs. I have all of the half-life games, all of the Unreal games and all of the games from id software. Each one sold in packs at dirt cheap prices.