You all know his name: Gabe Newell. He owns more than half of Valve, the company behind PC service Steam, and creator of great IPs such as Half Life, Counter-Strike and Portal. Let’s not forget Left 4 Dead. Well, according to Forbes, Mr. Newell is the 854th richest billionaire in the world, as he’s worth an estimated $1.5 billion.
Newell made his way onto the list after a hugely successful 2011, and the over 40 million users on Steam, plus a stellar year for the Portal Franchise.
Since Valve is a privately held company, however, company revenues are not shared with the public, so in order to obtain the information, Forbes consulted with video game industry insiders, equity analysts, investment bankers, and technology analysts. The most conservative estimates put Valve’s value at more than $3 billion, and since Newell owns more than half of the cake, it puts him nicely above the $1.5 billion mark.
Not bad.
I see the headline now; Ernice Gilbert is worth 1.2 billion, after the unfounded success he had in 2012 with his gaming website, now getting 20 million hits a day.
@Smoge: Why thank you! I’ve got some big news to share with the entire site soon! Stay tuned, guys.
is that all?
considering almost every PC game goes through steam, the users they have, the popularity of team fortress half life and L4D, i was expecting more.
1.2B is nothing!
Yeah. $1.2 billion is nothing. Nothing at all. In fact, it’s rubbish, isn’t it, bro?
no, not really but considering the WHOLE PC industry goes through steam it is!
its not like PSN where you can get every game from retail, allot of PC games you cant play without steam activation.
steam gets royalties for that.