Documents from a recent lawsuit disclose that Valve has a workforce of approximately 350 employees, with fewer than 100 of them assigned to work on Steam

Valve's Internal Structure and Employment Figures Revealed Amid Antitrust Lawsuit

Insights into Valve's internal operations, staff remuneration, and workforce numbers have come to light through an antitrust lawsuit targeting Steam.

Wolfire's legal action against Valve has brought forth these revelations, as observed by SteamDB's Pavel Djundik, who noted that some information remained visible despite redactions. This included details about Valve's headcount, compensation, and financial performance over the period from 2009 to 2021.

In 2015, the company had 142 employees involved in managing Steam, but this number dropped to 79 by 2021, even as Steam saw nearly 10,000 new game releases that year.

Combining all staff across various divisions—hardware, Steam, game development, and administration—Valve's total workforce in 2021 was 336.

The highest employee count was recorded in 2016, with 371 individuals on the company's payroll.

A significant portion of Valve's staffing budget has consistently been allocated to game development roles.

Despite generating approximately $6.5 billion annually, comparable to EA's $7.5 billion, Ars Technica highlighted that EA employs over 13,000 individuals.

Valve's total payroll expenditure has remained relatively stable since 2017, with inflation-adjusted estimates indicating an annual spend of about $425 million to $450 million on employee compensation.