Lionsgate is making its films available on Steam

It looks like Steam is making an attempt to expand the content it offers if a recent deal with movie studio Lionsgate is anything to go by. Though Valve’s PC gaming platform has always supported video and has had films for sale in the past, it’s mostly stuck to gaming related titles rather than offering blockbuster franchises from the biggest studios. Now that’s changing.

Lionsgate, the movie studio responsible for major franchises such as The Hunger Games and Divergent, recently announced plans to add over 100 feature films to Steam with more to come in the future. It seems like a pretty odd time to make this move but according to Lionsgate’s President of Worldwide Television & Digital Distribution, Jim Packer, it’s just part of the company’s “commitment to remain at the cutting edge of innovation in delivering content to online audiences around the world.”

For many people, myself included, Steam isn’t exactly the first place I would think to go to watch a film or associate with the cutting edge of online content delivery, as reliable as it is. That said, the films will be viewable on any platform that Steam operates on, meaning you could watch the latest Hunger Games instalment on PC, Linux, Mac, SteamOS and even via a headset on Steam VR.

Unfortunately, though Lionsgate have launched 100 titles to American Steam users, UK users aren’t quite so lucky. In fact, we get a grand total of 11 titles which, incredibly, includes not one but four Leprechaun films. If you’re a fan of films about sadistic killer Leprechauns that you’re less likely to find at the end of a rainbow and more likely to find under the light of a Blood Moon then you can rent the films for £3.49 each for a period of 48 hours. For the moment titles are only available to stream as rentals rather than to purchase as downloads to keep.

So, as yet, none of Lionsgate’s major franchises are available to UK customers on Steam which is unsurprising considering Netflix’s recent crackdown on VPN use to stop users accessing geolocked content. We’re like the District 12 of online content. We have no doubt, however, that the library of films will eventually expand, it just might take some time. In the meantime we don’t doubt you’ll turn to one of the many other streaming services available.

Via Lionsgate