Valve officially closes video storefront on Steam platform

A recent update to the Stream news page has brought the closing of Valve’s video store.

The update to services provided will prevent the purchase of new videos and remove non-gaming videos from the Steam storefront. Changes are set to be implemented over the coming weeks in what has been dubbed a “refocus” by Valve.

The company informed the public that the decision to close the video store had been made after after “reviewing what Steam users actually watch.”

Although gaming-related videos will remain on the Steam platform, they will no longer exist in a dedicated video section of the store menu. Instead, Stream users will be able to find videos when they’re related to the games they are already browsing.

Videos and movies previously purchased by Steam customers on the platform will still be available to them for download, whether they were related to gaming or not. Valve has promised that any owned content will remain in Steam users’ libraries even if that content is removed from the store and is no longer available for purchase.

Steam’s video service grew over a number of years, with the first video product on Steam being released in 2012.

Titled “Indie Game: The Movie,” the storefront’s debut documentary followed independent game developers Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes during the development process of acclaimd indie game Super Meat Boy. In 2014, the first fictional film was released on Steam, titled Motivational Growth. This was a comedy released by game developer Devolver Digital, who had published such games as Hotline Miami and Shadow Warrior.

The video store further grew in 2016 when Valve announced a partnership with entertainment company Lionsgate, which owns one of the world’s largest film studios. The deal offered 100 new films to Steam customers, including movies from the company’s blockbuster Hunger Games and Saw franchises.

Valve has not offered a detailed explanation as to why the video store is shutting down, though the implication is that few users took advantage of the feature and it generated little revenue.