Published , by Charles Singletary Jr
Published , by Charles Singletary Jr
It looks like Valve is shuffling things around in its storefront. Announced this week, the video menu in Steam is going away and non-gaming related video content is being removed from the digital PC gaming storefront over time. The move is being done as a means to refocus efforts towards video games.
Steam is far from shutting down, but, as mentioned in our report about Razer Game Store shutting down, it takes a calculated effort to bring in a community of consumers and keep them around. Part of that effort is constantly reevaluating changes to the platform and doing what's best for the existing community and allowing for some growth that makes sense, as well. Here's the full statement from the official Steam news page:
For the past few years, we have worked on expanding Steam beyond games and software by building a video platform that supports paid and free video content. In reviewing what Steam users actually watch, it became clear we should focus our effort on offering content that is either directly related to gaming or, is accessory content for games or software sold on Steam.
As part of this refocus, we have retired the Video section of the Steam Store menu with an expectation that video content is discovered via the associated game or software store page, or through search, user tags, recommendations, etc.
Over the coming weeks a number of non-gaming videos will be retired and will no longer be available for purchase. Previously purchased content will remain available to owners.
Videos purchased on the platform can still be viewed and this doesn't mean that all video content will be disappearing. Additional video content attached to specific games will still be in the marketplace, gamers will still be able to check out original productions like the True Sight DOTA 2 documentary. Those hoping to watch Hateful Eight or Beach Volleyball Detectives on the platform will likely be out of luck, though.
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