We’re only a couple of weeks removed from a bit of Steam datamining revealing that it looks like Valve will be adding movie sales (among other media) to the platform. Well, the folks at GOG have beaten them to the punch. Yesterday, GOG added 21 DRM-free movies to the site’s catalog.

As one would expect of an offering from GOG, there is no DRM on the movie so when you download it, it’s yours to do as you please. Steam offers movies through its service at the moment but those have to be launched through your Steam library to watch.

For the most part, the movies available on GOG are documentaries with gaming or internet culture themes and are priced at $5.99. Two films are currently available for free so you can try out the service. The first is a documentary about The Pirate Bay and its history of legal troubles called TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard. The other is a PBS Austin feature called The Art of Gaming.

While the current offering is small, GOG has big plans for their new movie catalog. The plan is to add TV shows and classic movies from major studios in the future. While talks for those are ongoing, GOG has indicated that while the major studios are receptive, none want to be the first to join up. I’d imagine that they had the same problem with game publishers in the early days of GOG.

I don’t understand why GOG and Steam feel the need to branch out into selling movies from their traditional base of selling games. Mind you, I imagine that someone said the same about Amazon before it became the world’s largest online retailer. As with most decisions in business, the logic probably comes back to money. I guess if we want GOG to succeed and keep updating classic games for us to play today, anything that helps them make more money and stay in business is a good thing for us.

Sources: Variety, Time