Valve Offering Lionsgate Feature Films Through Steam

By Kevin Carbotte
published

Valve and Lionsgate Entertainment have entered a partnership that will bring Lionsgate’s feature films to Valve’s Steam digital distribution service. There are over 100 titles available now, and more films will be added over time.

Valve’s Steam service is almost ubiquitous in the PC gaming space. Steam has been around for more than a decade, and it has a user base of well over 100 million users. It’s been the premier digital distribution service for PC games for the better part of its existence, but in recent years, Valve has been expanding Steam’s reach into other markets, such as application sales and digital film rentals. The newly announced partnership with Lionsgate should help grow the film rental side of Valve’s business.

Lionsgate released over 100 of its movie titles onto Steam, with entries from some of its biggest franchises: The Hunger Games, Twilight, Saw and Divergent are included in the initial release. The company also said that it will be adding additional content “as the partnership continues to expand worldwide.”

Valve said that movies rentals are available on all Steam-supported platforms. Steam is available for Windows, Mac, Linux and of course SteamOS. If you own a VR HMD, you can also watch movies on a virtual big screen in SteamVR -- not in VR, mind you.

Lionsgate films are available now through Steam. Rentals last 48 hours, and most of the movies are priced at $3.99. For the full list of Lionsgate’s Steam catalog, visit the company’s Steam sale page.

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Kevin Carbotte

 Kevin Carbotte is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware who primarily covers VR and AR hardware. He has been writing for us for more than four years. 

14 Comments Comment from the forums
  • elbert
    Cool but should the CSGO community boycott Valve over them killing the community servers? No skin drops and no XP but on valve servers are killing the community servers. If this is the only way valve can protect itself again hackers and exploits then maybe remove it all. The damage its doing to the faithful community isn't worth the cost.
    Reply
  • clonazepam
    Seems like desperation on Lionsgate's part. Having to stoop so low as this, selling movie rentals on a platform meant for video games? Ouch.

    I've read stories from movie theaters about how Lionsgate is about the worst to deal with, so good luck to Valve.
    Reply
  • Xenophage2112
    When is Lionsgate releasing a VR movie that runs on the Vive?
    Reply
  • James Mason
    I was just browsing the steam store today to look up a game I heard about and I see a big ad plastered on the top about watching lionsgate films.

    I said to myself "Who the f- is gonna do that? I came to steam to play games not watch movies. (Insert commentary about how games are just becoming less interactive and more movie like due to hollywood's influence on studios here)"

    Only reason I could imagine them doing this is because of SteamVR/Vive and the movie theater app thing. But i imagine that was already working with movies not already on steam so... why?
    Reply
  • clonazepam
    17873432 said:
    ... Only reason I could imagine them doing this is because of SteamVR/Vive and the movie theater app thing. But i imagine that was already working with movies not already on steam so... why?

    It has to be desperation imho. Check Lionsgate stock history over the last 3 months, or even 5 years to see they'd hit a real slump and will resort to any means to crawl back up. They've managed to erase about 3 years of steady growth in a short time. It's tough to say if they'll get back on track with this and other pursuits.
    Reply
  • thor220
    Cool but should the CSGO community boycott Valve over them killing the community servers? No skin drops and no XP but on valve servers are killing the community servers. If this is the only way valve can protect itself again hackers and exploits then maybe remove it all. The damage its doing to the faithful community isn't worth the cost.

    You're post is completely off topic. Besides the point, your comment is totally loaded. No game dev wants to kill off their community. It's obvious that steam knows this or they wouldn't have community skins or the steam workshop. You should be petitioning valve, not throwing charged words around a forum unaffiliated with the game.
    Reply
  • AndrewJacksonZA
    Wait, movie *rental*? Uh, no thanks. I usually prefer to buy so I can watch it whenever and wherever I want, on whatever platform I want and in whatever format I want.
    Reply
  • shinmalothar
    I said to myself "Who the f- is gonna do that? I came to steam to play games not watch movies. (Insert commentary about how games are just becoming less interactive and more movie like due to hollywood's influence on studios here)"

    Only reason I could imagine them doing this is because of SteamVR/Vive and the movie theater app thing. But i imagine that was already working with movies not already on steam so... why?

    I think its the natural evolution of things, If Valve think they can make more money and potentially grow their user base then they'll give it a go. Anyone remember when Amazon simply sold books?
    Reply
  • FuzzDad
    When Steam first came out a ton of gamers complained about it because they already had WoN. When Steam started selling games from other companies (rather than just update Valve games) gamers complained. When Steam started selling other things on Steam instead of just games gamers complained. When Steam added big picture mode gamers complained. When Steam added hardware sales gamers complained. The funny thing though...the only real constant here was Steam continued to grow in terms of customers, capabilities, and market reach despite all the complaints. Gamers kept complaining and Steam kept growing. The thing gamers have yet to realize is Valve has always catered to their number one fan base...it just so happens that fan base are themselves. Everything Steam is goes back to a philosophy about Valve itself...that they make and support things they like first and foremost themselves. Sure they've made mistakes...but those pale in consideration to their successes.

    If Valve can get more distributors on their platform the better. And ironies of ironies...all these gamers will complain away all the while watching Ms Everdeen do her thing...
    Reply
  • elbert
    Cool but should the CSGO community boycott Valve over them killing the community servers? No skin drops and no XP but on valve servers are killing the community servers. If this is the only way valve can protect itself again hackers and exploits then maybe remove it all. The damage its doing to the faithful community isn't worth the cost.

    You're post is completely off topic. Besides the point, your comment is totally loaded. No game dev wants to kill off their community. It's obvious that steam knows this or they wouldn't have community skins or the steam workshop. You should be petitioning valve, not throwing charged words around a forum unaffiliated with the game.
    The article is about valve, steam, advertising, and mentions games so my statement isnt totally off topic. Now about killing off the community just ask the tf2 community what valves changes has done. Better yet just do a search. Now on CSGO for the first time steam had to pick a re-release map for a map pack. This is due to community maps have lost a lot of good community servers to test on and its getting worse.
    Reply