So I woke up yesterday morning to read the news that Steam is now or going to be very soon renting movies.
At first I was excited, I know that I don’t use Steam to its full potential and this could be useful for me, but then I saw the price.
Now, this might be “industry standard” but that doesn’t mean I am going to suddenly start renting movies at that price.
Personally, I think it is too high but maybe it’s because I hate spending money.
I think there is little doubt we all knew that this was coming and I am also sure it is just the beginning, but when I pay a couple of dollars for a game that I can play for many many hours, it’s still hard for me to accept that movies are 3 times the price.
What do you think?
I have had a report that some of the previous polls have not been visible for users. I am trying a plugin this time. If you can’t see the poll below, please contact me – thanks.
Will you watch/rent movies via Steam
- Yes, please. (8%, 6 Votes)
- Maybe, but only if it is very cheap. (38%, 27 Votes)
- No, thank you. (54%, 39 Votes)
Total Voters: 72
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I personally wouldn’t use it but its cool how much of a multi-use platform steam becomes.
Is it cool? An argument could be made that it’s just losing focus. I’d argue that Valve losing focus from being game developers to expand to Steam was a big reason why we stopped getting new Valve games in the first place. Maybe defocusing Steam from games to entertainment in general will bring similar problems? Food for thought.
(To be fair, I think it’s a clever idea by Valve, but I still argue that it’s a valid point)
Good point. Im still hopeful that by the time source 2 is officially released we might see more games by valve again.
I really don’t watch many movies anymore. But as far as Steam goes, I don’t trust Valve to stick with anything for very long or to not break stuff. If I’m going to spend that much on a movie, I’ll do it through Amazon or some other platform where I know customer service has my back if something goes wrong.
I’ll stick to local movie rent stores. Those few that still exist.
There is 0 reason to use steam for this. There are better services for cheaper just as easily accessible.
Not likely, no. I think it’s not a bad idea for Steam’s expansion, since its business model translates fairly well from games to movies, but Steam is far too unwieldy to make it any interesting for me – I already resent playing games on it sometimes, let alone watch movies. I’d much rather just own the movies on Blu-ray or watch them on Netflix, a service I already pay for.
That said, obviously I’ll make an exception when J.J. Abrams’ Half-Life: The Movie premieres exclusively on Steam.
“That said, obviously I’ll make an exception when J.J. Abrams’ Half-Life: The Movie premieres exclusively on Steam. ”
May The Freeman protect us from such horrible thing.
I rent movies via iTunes and whenever I have had a problem, their customer support has always been helpful. If I cannot find a movie on iTunes, only then will I check other services like Amazon or Google Play. Steam on the other hand, getting a response from support can take weeks, months or sometimes even never.
Even though I have had a good experience on iTunes, I am not a fan of their rental periods, along with the other services available throughout the industry. $4.99 to rent a movie should last a lot longer than 3 days. 7 – 14 days would be a more reasonable rental period.
I remember when I could rent films right from a local video store and watch them without some kind of count down timer activating when I start a movie.
You would think that being digital, you could pay for it and watch it whenever you want, even if that is weeks or months after paying for it. Once it’s been played it automatically gets removed from your system.
So, normally I either just catch movies on TV or watch them on, um, y’know, free streaming websites, unless they are very recent in which case I’ll try to see them at the cinema.
However, pirate/free streaming is often ad-infested, poorly managed and more often than not the video takes so long to buffer that I have to make frequent pauses, at which point I may as well watch in on TV with traditional ads. If there was a clean, simple alternative to watch/rent movies I’d probably use it, and since I already use Steam I’d probably end up using that. This is the logic that Netflix operates on and it seems to be working out really well for them.
BTW, I don’t like Netflix. Don’t get me wrong, it’s really cool, but I don’t think I’m in the target audience – I just don’t watch things often enough for the 10€/month fee to be convenient.
That said, I do agree with the person saying that movies on Steam would probably be losing focus. However, if Valve was to make a separate service just for on-demand TV with buying/renting and advertise it through steam I’d probably buy into it. What could it be called? Diesel? Kerosene?
Highly unlikely as I don’t bother watching movies or tv online. I don’t really watch TV at all unless it’s binging and at that rate, we have both Amazon Prime AND Netflix so… no real need. I think they’re a bit late on the uptake for something like this, and honestly I do wish they’d stick to games.
Now, if they would have a user-supplied video system – since you CAN use steam to record videos and stream those – that would be great. I wouldn’t PAY to watch it, but if they’d make more use of that maybe that would be ‘their’ youtube. Still, very little interest in that from me anyway.
What with having a free Netflix account, courtesy of one of my gaming friends (The perks of Scotch&Coffee) and getting Amazon Prime in the coming months, I really would have no need for movies on steam. Like a lot of other people here, I’m not really that big into movies or TV shows. There are a few exceptions of course, but the Netflix and Amazon accounts are mainly for my wife’s benefit, so she can watch movies and shows on demand, in comfort, on the sofa. Not sat in my study in an office chair on a much smaller screen…
There’s no shortage of more accessible and well established online services offering to rent out media to viewers.
I think the reason Valve is venturing into the market is they are about to push the s*it out of VR and 3D Headsets – so they are front runners to offer movies catered for headset use.
I think what they are offering at the moment is more of a set up period where they are building up the media streaming service and infrastructure via the Steam platform in preperation for 3D HeadsetVille coming within the next year.
Remember that the VIVE etc need a beefy graphics cards etc run, so it’s more of a gamer market than mainstainstream market.. and the gamer market already use Steam so it makes sense to sell 3D/Headset required media via Steam.
Finally, it makes sense with the ‘Steam Machine’ Console. I would bet money there’s a new one coming that more catered to being a multimedia hub rather than soley a games console.
The VR angle is something I never considered, but it would make perfect sense.
Would you want to watch a movie in VR though? I’ve never tried it but for something static like a film it sounds strange,
Basically, in VR you could watch a movie in an insanely big movie theater screen. You lose definition but get a sense of scale you can’t otherwise achieve at home.
Steam VR already has this mode available to play your games (and so did Virtual Desktop before it), so what Bolloxed says sounds about right.
Also, since VR sends a different image to each eye, standard 3D movies can also be played. And better than they do outside VR, I might add (no extra glasses that darken the image).
I think it be cool…it be another source of movie watching for those who dont have Netflix/Hulu/Amazon Prime…as long as the prices aren’t so horribly expensive id try it out…
That’s the question though, what IS horribly expensive. For me, anything over 4 Euros means I wouldn’t even think about it. That’s about the price they charge in my local cinema.
what 4€ for watching a movie in cinema? In Germany we pay AT LEAST 9€ (with 1€ off because I’m a student, so 8€), but if a movie is 3D and over 2 hours long, like Batman v Superman for example, you have to pay at least 14€.
Renting a movie when it’s out on Blu-Ray usually costs 1€-1,5€ per day in most rent stores.
The sad thing is most are free online so while the newbie might rent a movie from steam or purchase they can do the same from the TV or phone or tablet. I enjoy the idea of movies on Steam. I just wish I could stream the movie to my friends who own the movie so we could do a stream and chat party!
Y’know, the Xbox 360 Netflix app used to be able to do that! It was a lot of fun to watch movies with friends, especially the numerous B-movies, and riff on them MST3K style. They removed that functionality without any warning one day. Really sucked.
It would be kinda cool if you could enter a code in Steam that you got from buying the DVD of a film and have that available via Steam, just like games.
Nope.
Steam = games.
End of discussion.
See the problem with movie reviews from gamers either you didn’t say enough or said to much or they will never pay to watch the movie
http://steamcommunity.com/id/BlueWolf72/recommended/416940
My issue is with the quality of streaming. I know it’s a new service, but right now, it has sub-standard speeds and quality, which is what keeps me from utilizing it.
Hell no! no way! that’s why NETFLIX is for.
As for me, I usually watch and rent movies via iTunes. However, there are limitation of iTunes like the right protection. Luckily, I got a program that can rip the protection with ease. It is DRmare M4V Converter, which can remove the protection from iTunes and get them as local files. Then you can use the iTunes videos on other devices with ease.