[URL="http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidewalt/2012/03/07/valve-gabe-newell-billionaire/"]Valve's Gabe Newell Is The Newest Video Game Billionaire - Forbes[/URL]
[QUOTE]Gabe Newell, co-founder and managing director of Valve Corporation, is one of the richest people on the planet. With an estimated net worth of $1.5 billion dollars, he ranks 854th out of 1,226 global billionaires.
One of the most respected figures in the video game business, Newell makes his debut on Forbes’ list of the world’s billionaires after Valve posted a stellar 2011. The Bellevue, Wash. software firm scored hits both as game developer (Portal 2 was a monster hit) and game distributor (digital distribution platform Steam doubled sales for the seventh straight year, and has over 40 million users).
Newell, 49, owns more than 50% of privately-held Valve, which he co-founded in 1996 after cashing in stock options earned over a decade producing software for Microsoft.
Privately-held Valve Corporation is tight-lipped about revenues, and Newell doesn’t comment on his personal finances. So in order to estimate his net worth, Forbes consulted with video game industry insiders, equity analysts, investment bankers, and technology analysts to figure out what the company is worth. Even the most conservative estimates put Valve’s enterprise value at more than $3 billion, and since Newell owns more than 50% of the company, that means he’s worth at least $1.5 billion.
Valve is unlike any company in the video game business. More than half of their revenues come from selling downloadable games over Steam, which has dominated the digital sales channel since 2003, when it started as a platform for the company’s own games. In the years since, lack of competition allowed it to seize as much as 70% of the market: Today, Steam features in excess of 1,800 games from more than 50 different publishers.
It’s far and away the industry’s most important digital sales channel, and no other game company has a comparable service. Last summer, video game giant Electronic Arts launched a counter-offensive, and its Origin service expanded quickly thanks to EA’s industry connections, and platform exclusives like Star Wars: The Old Republic. But Steam still has over 40 million users, compared to 9.3 million on Origin.
The rest of Valve’s revenues come from publishing original games. Valve only launches a few games a year, but they tend to be hits: 2011′s Portal 2 is widely regarded as one of the best games of the year.
This is the 25th annual edition of Forbes list of The World’s Billionaires. Our first cut yielded 140 names. This year we’ve counted an all-time high 1,226 billionaires worth a record $4.6 trillion. It includes 128 new billionaires, from 32 countries.[/QUOTE]
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/QYvHj.jpg[/IMG]
Uh.....damn.
He was a billionare last year
[url]http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0228/technology-gabe-newell-videogames-valve-online-mayhem.html[/url]
Gabe is rich?!
showing that you can get rich without fucking over all your customers
He deserves it and I'm happy for him.
Gabe is bro.
He serves every dollar.
He disserves it, VALVe made Ricochet
Good on him.
I hope he doesnt eat the money.
Gabe is the one percent, in that he takes up one percent of the country.
He doesn't really act like he's rich.
Or he's just good at hiding that.
[QUOTE=Reds;35039651]Gabe is the one percent, in that he takes up one percent of the country.[/QUOTE]
that was really unneeded
it's also awful
I bet Gabe's sitting in his office right now, working on Episode 3 so it'll come out some day, while trying to choose what charities to give money to.
Or he's raiding the snack bar.
I like when deserving people are successful.
So THAT'S how much money all the people in the world pool over to Valve for TF2 hats.
But really, though. Gabe Newell deserves every penny. He's such a great guy for his company and his fans.
[QUOTE=tehMuffinMan;35039670]that was really unneeded
it's also awful[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=UberMunchkin;35039677]Gabe is not fat, it's the size of his heart with all the money he donates to charities like Child's Play[/QUOTE]
I know, I was just making the obvious joke. He deserves the money.
[QUOTE=Itachi_Crow;35039621]showing that you can get rich without fucking over all your customers[/QUOTE]
Essentially, the primary source of his wealth is taking a percentage of every sale on steam, and the secondary source is the ~100% profit from MANN CO. store items.
Take that EA
[QUOTE=ProffesorAssHat;35039743]So THAT'S how much money all the people in the world pool over to Valve for TF2 hats.
Keys net them far more than hats, and as a sidenote, they made far more money from portal 2 than nearly every game they produced.
But really, though. Gabe Newell deserves every penny. He's such a great guy for his company and his fans.[/QUOTE]
-snip-
[QUOTE=Auth;35039816]I can't say I support this billionere, he doesn't give to charity.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=UberMunchkin;35039677]Gabe is not fat, it's the size of his heart with all the money he donates to charities like Child's Play[/QUOTE]
Gabe Newell is one of, if not the only rich person that I like.
-snip-
I need to learn that being critical of Valve will just piss fanboys off.
[QUOTE=Itachi_Crow;35039621]showing that you can get rich without fucking over all your customers[/QUOTE]
Yeah, he's kept quite a bit of his soul despite having so much money. Sure Steam has the occassional issue, and it's been a while since Episode 2, but apart from that he's pretty much a good guy, even though good is a subjective thing and isn't a corporeal aspect of nature.
Deserves all my money!
Watch out, money can corrupt people:
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/ryfxD.jpg[/IMG]
[QUOTE=Lomme;35039906]Watch out, money can corrupt people:
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/ryfxD.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]
Gabe looks funny without his glasses
Gaben for president?
[QUOTE=Auth;35039872]Well it clearly says something about their structure compared to Valve, their CEO has about $10m while Gabe seems to be one of those greedy as shit CEO's that take bonuses during economic downturn.[/QUOTE]CEO of a public company is a bit different to owner of a private company. It's not like Gabe is demanding 50% of the company operating profits as his salary, he's valued as being worth that much merely by owning more than 50% of the company. It's anyone's guess how much his actual salary is, or how much of the company's revenue he could conceivably access on a whim.
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