Valve May Add Film and TV Series To Steam

[Fanghawk]

Valve May Add Film and TV Series To Steam

[tweet t=https://twitter.com/SteamDB/status/498487122647846912]Steam's latest beta update includes tags for film, TV series, video, and music, suggesting that broader multimedia types will be supported soon.

Steam has been practically synonymous with PC gaming since its inception, but recent months have shown signs that Valve intends to branch out. Beyond its current living room gaming plans, Valve other digital multimedia products. Now a recent update to Steam Beta suggests that these services could become far more common with the addition of application IDs for Film, TV Series, Plugin, and Music.

While most of these content types are already included on Steam (albeit in a limited way), emphasizing them would be a wise move on Valve's part. Multimedia features are pretty well established in living room consoles at this point, so having SteamOS equivalents will help Valve compete in the market. Being able to switch from Team Fortress 2 to Game of Thrones with a few button presses is an incredibly appealing prospect, and could instantly turn Steam Machines into the one-stop multimedia platform <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/136566-Report-PS4-Outselling-Xbox-One-3-to-1>the Xbox One hoped to be.

Assuming this is a reality, the next question is how large would Steam's multimedia library become. If it's anything at all like Steam's PC gaming collection, this would absolutely be worth keeping an eye on.

Source: <a href=https://twitter.com/SteamDB/status/498487122647846912>Twitter, via <a href=http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/08/11/film-tv-series-and-more-coming-to-steam>IGN

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[happy_turtle]

Coming Soon to Steam, early access movies. For only $34.99 you can watch the first 3 minutes of a film and deliver feedback to the director and actors.

 

[webkilla]

Ok, this is interesting

...does this mean that we'll get Steam sales on Tv series and movies?

 

[LaochEire]

Dangerously close to being the new Microsoft now. Think back to MicroSoft's E3 conference. Replace the word "MicroSoft" with Valve and "Xbox One" with Steambox. Well, at least MicroSoft removed the DRM.

 

[shirkbot]

Assuming this is a reality, the next question is how large would Steam's multimedia library become. If it's anything at all like Steam's PC gaming collection, this would absolutely be worth keeping an eye on.

I am going to hope against all hope that this is just a rumor. We already have to wade through the sea of Early Access and outright broken games just to find things that MIGHT be worthwhile, and now they might be throwing regular Video/Music content on top of it? No thank you.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to be setting myself up with some Enhanced Steam and making all possible future purchases over at GOG so that I don't have to put up with this anymore. Sorry Valve, you're just not who you used to be.

 

[Karadalis]

Why does Steam want to go up against the likes of netflix? They can only loose...

Even worse yet... if they keep muddying the water (wich they have been agressively doing so with all the shovelware they keep cramming into steam every day) people just might throw their hands into the air and go to other places.


I heard origin is shaping up more and more... *shudders* not yet EA... not yet.

 

[Grape_Nuts]

Overreactions much? Steam is still going to be the best platform for PC games.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I don't know why people are freaking out over this. It's not like it takes a huge amount of effort for Valve to do this, and it doesn't affect the overall Steam experience ONE.SINGLE.FUCKING.BIT!

Think about it for a second before you start freaking out how it's going to kill Steam or whatever. The infrastructure is there. The software is there. It's all there. All they have to do is manage the licensing and libraries for digital content other than video games. They just have to hire a couple of people who would focus on that. It's not fuckin' rocket science. It doesn't take away from the gaming aspect of Steam. Don't like it - don't use it. And if it turns out to be a bad idea, it's even easier to get rid of it.

And how can people seriously cry about corporations that don't understand that piracy is caused mainly by distribution problems, and at the same time be against something like this? This is exactly what needs to happen.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

Between the whining about early access, the whining about unpopular games being available and now this? I hope the people bitching about Steam will finally just overload. Christ, people, if you don't want to deal with that stuff absolutely no one is going to force you. If you got burned by early access the only person to blame is you, and if you bought shovelware, the same.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Dangerously close to being the new Microsoft now. Think back to MicroSoft's E3 conference. Replace the word "MicroSoft" with Valve and "Xbox One" with Steambox. Well, at least MicroSoft removed the DRM.

MS never removed their DRM. Not yet anyways. Individual companies took it upon themselves to remove it. Fallout 3 still has it (Bethesda being morons as usual when it comes to PC.)

 

[gigastar]

I am actually expecting this to happen anyway. At this point the only way forward for Steam is to be a full-on multimedia distributor.

 

[LaochEire]

Dangerously close to being the new Microsoft now. Think back to MicroSoft's E3 conference. Replace the word "MicroSoft" with Valve and "Xbox One" with Steambox. Well, at least MicroSoft removed the DRM.

MS never removed their DRM. Not yet anyways. Individual companies took it upon themselves to remove it. Fallout 3 still has it (Bethesda being morons as usual when it comes to PC.)

I meant with regards to the Xbox One 24 hour check in and the ability to share games. I'm fairly sure it was removed. My Xbox One doesn't ask for it anyway, but it is always connected to the internet anyway.

My original post is in jest though so wouldn't read too much into it.

 

[Zacharious-khan]

I feel like this is going to lead to them having Indiana jones: raiders of the lost arc and temple of doom, but not last crusade for some inexplicable reason

 

[Azmael Silverlance]

Awesome. Been waiting for this to happen for long time
having a nice movie library i can access from anywhere in the world on any pc is pretty cool.

 

[vdrandom]

It is going to be regionally restricted, no doubt.

 

[gittonsxv]

i sort of like this idea if only for the sales...
the steam summer gaming sales and the winter film sales?

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

I could see this working outside the US as Netflix is generally shit unless you use an American account and bypass geolocking.

I hope they use seperrate store pages though.

 

[Frostnatt]

Sounds great. I doubt everything will be in the same storefront, or if it is then they will have to overhaul the search engine. However they do need to either provide extra features like commentary tracks or much faster releases than on netflix. And prices need to be quite low even without a sale. Otherwise why use it over netflix?

With the push for the steam machines this move is only logical. And the steamclient already have some different types of programs that have separate tabs (Games and software) both in your library and in the store, to add Movies and Music and whatnot would be a very minor change.

 

[GAunderrated]

I don't know why people are freaking out over this. It's not like it takes a huge amount of effort for Valve to do this, and it doesn't affect the overall Steam experience ONE.SINGLE.FUCKING.BIT!

Think about it for a second before you start freaking out how it's going to kill Steam or whatever. The infrastructure is there. The software is there. It's all there. All they have to do is manage the licensing and libraries for digital content other than video games. They just have to hire a couple of people who would focus on that. It's not fuckin' rocket science. It doesn't take away from the gaming aspect of Steam. Don't like it - don't use it. And if it turns out to be a bad idea, it's even easier to get rid of it.

And how can people seriously cry about corporations that don't understand that piracy is caused mainly by distribution problems, and at the same time be against something like this? This is exactly what needs to happen.

I respectfully disagree. Adding TV shows and movies WILL compete with games on the existing storefront page and make browsing steam even more unbearable than it has currently become. Of course before you start to flame me for that comment I would note that I do enjoy steam as a service and have hundreds of games on my library.

However, these past 6 months the sales and new releases section has become an utter mess in comparison to a year or two ago. Old games from 10 years ago showing up on the new releases, shovelware by the truckload pouring through making it harder to find legitimate new games, and overall just a less convenient experience.

I didn't see anyone saying this will kill steam, it just sounds like you are trying to overstate people's concerns to make them less valid. The logical fallacy of "Don't like it, don't use it" is not a way to improve experiences. Even if people don't use it they will still have to put up with the changes and inconvenience it will provide.

Piracy is a service problem not a distribution. Even if Valve were to dip there feet in the TV and movie digital distribution there would be very little to no force it would have amongst the draconian policies of movie and TV companies.

I can understand you disagreeing with other people's points but it isn't necessary to invalidate them. If this is a service that you want and will enjoy then more power too you. However, pretending that it won't change anything and that people are overreacting isn't necessary to validate your choice.