Godt nok bruger Valve en masse ressourcer og mandskab på at vedligeholde Steam-platformen, og de udvikler og lancerer desuden hardware såsom Index og senest Deck, men i forhold til at udvikle store spil, noget de som regel ellers har haft utrolig meget held med, så er de ikke synderligt produktive.
Faktisk kan der går mange, mange, mange år imellem deres udgivelser, og der lader ikke rigtig til at være et mønster, eller et ønske, om at udvikle mere software. Så hvordan kan det være? Det forklarer Erik Wolpaw, der har siddet som manuskriptforfatter på både Portal, Portal 2 og Half-Life. I den seneste udgave af My Perfect Console-podcastet siger Wolpaw, at der faktisk ikke er nær så mange ansatte hos Valve, som man måske tror:
The real reason is that in a flat structure like Valve's, there is an opportunity cost to doing anything. Whatever is going on at Valve right now requires the dedication and participation of the people working on it, and it is voluntary. I would like to make a Portal 3, but I understand.
Faktisk skubber han tilbage imod det argument at Valve ikke laver noget.
"I don't think so. I mean, to whatever extent you appreciated Half-Life: Alyx, we released that. I think long tail games affected that in a way that is maybe more impactful than Steam. Keeping CS: Go and Dota 2 going, for a small company...The thing is, Valve is not a giant company. I think people sometimes think it is because of the outside influence of Steam, but it's not really that many people. It takes manpower to keep CS: GO going; it takes manpower to keep Dota 2 going. And the freeform nature of Valve means there are a lot of experiments that simply fail. So, things are happening. If you were inside, you'd think stuff was always going on, because it is. It's a manpower problem. You have to pick what you're working on and time is limited."