EECS 441 company analysis

1. Valve Corporation
Jiaxin Li (lijiaxin)

2. • Manage PC video games • Games are too many and expensive
Problems

3. Product: Steam

4. Product: Steam

5. Product: Steam

6. Financials
• Estimated 730 million dollars of revenue in 2014 (about 250 employees)
• Gabe Newell is estimated to worth 1.5 billion dollars according to 2012 Forbes,
and he was estimated to be 4.1 billion dollars in 2017.
• Over 67 million monthly and 33 million daily active users on Steam

7. Business Model
Simple: Selling digital games for PC
• Develop games and get all the revenues
• Distribute games developed by other companies and get 30%

8. History
Gabe left
Microsoft and
started Valve
Launched game Half-life
and it’s a success
1996
1998
Developed steam to
help users better
update games
2002
2004
Released Half-life 2,
which requires steam
to play
2005
Rag Doll Kung Fu was the first
third-party game available on steam
2007
Since 2007, continues to expand
functionalities and services
for users and developers

9. Secret sauce
• Wide distribution channel
• Cheap/free exclusive games to attract new users
• Relatively cheap games, especially for some countries…

10. Competition
By Electronic Arts
By Massive Entertainment
By GOG Sp. z o.o.
Support games by
other companies
Frequent salesExclusive games Lower price for some countries

11. Predictions
• Will continue to success and dominate the PC game distribution.
• Harvest more in developing countries.

12. References
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Corporation
• https://www.gamesradar.com/history-of-valve/
• https://www.gamespot.com/articles/heres-how-much-valve-boss-gabe-newell-is-
reportedl/1100-6446990/
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/oliverchiang/2011/02/15/valve-and-steam-worth-
billions/#1260616633f4
• http://store.steampowered.com/
• https://www.statista.com/statistics/549647/valve-corporation-revenue/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOG.com
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_(digital_distribution_software)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uplay
• http://steamspy.com/country/