Wow that's pretty crazy. I love that Valve is a juggernaut of gaming yet still a private company. Any rumors as to what Valve's financials look like these days? It has to be into the billions of revenue with Steam, etc. at this point.
I couldn't find any specific rumors or estimates that are more recent than 2011. I did find a VentureBeat article from Jan 22 2014 that said that Dota 2 made $80 M and TF2 made almost double that at $139 M in 2013.[1]
Pricewaterhouse Coopers "Global entertainment and media outlook: 2013 - 2017" estimates that globally "entertainment and media" will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 5.6% over the next five years.[2]
So, even if you assume that they won't release Left4Dead 3, Half Life 3, etc over the next few years, just from Dota2 and TF2 alone their revenue for 2014 is likely to be more than $230 M. And that's a bare minimum guess. It's likely to be much more than that. But that's the lower bound of the estimate I guess.
Not bad.
[1] http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/22/doat-2-made-around-80-mill... [2] https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/global-entertainment-media-outlook...
And then the asinine fees to sell an item to another player...
And then the asinine fees they take for community map rotations...
And then the asinine fees they take for community skins and items...
It's both amazing and disgusting how much money Valve makes from their little value-add services.