Valve is killing off Steam’s non-gaming videos because no one is watching them

Valve has announced that it’s retiring the video section of the Steam Store menu, and it will be removing any non-gaming videos from its services. In a blog post announcing the move, the company says that it made the decision after “reviewing what Steam users actually watch.” Although gaming-related videos will remain on the service, they will no longer sit in a dedicated section of the store menu.

Valve’s video ambitions for Steam initially grew out of gaming content such as the documentary Indie Game: The Movie, which was the first feature-length film to arrive on the service back in 2012. However, over the years the focus on gaming content shifted to also include regular movies. Devolver Digital, which usually publishes games, released the first non-gaming film, Motivation Growth, back in 2014. A 2016 partnership with Lionsgate has since seen the likes of Blair Witch and Orange is the New Black made available.

Despite Steam’s dominance in the gaming market, it seems this hasn’t been enough to convince people to also use it to buy and rent films. Valve’s blog post didn’t go into any details as to why it’s making this decision now, but as its core gaming business comes under increased pressure from competitors including the Epic Games Store, it may be feeling the need to refocus on its core service to stay ahead.

Valve’s blog post promises that you’ll still be able to watch content that you’ve previously purchased, but you’ll have to act quickly if you want to buy anything new. Valve says it expects the non-gaming video content to be removed from the service “over the coming weeks.”