Valve to release Zombie movie through Steam

Valve are to release an animated short film, about Zombies, through Steam.

The film is called 'Zombie Movie', and it's created by 2Chums Moving Pictures. One of the members of 2Chums is Mike Asquith, a former WETA man who now works at Valve.

Reader Olivier Nadon sends us this info:

"We've seen in the past that Valve really like zombies. If you don't belive me, then look at your Steam splash screen today and read the first line in their news: "Here at Valve, we like zombies."

Mike Asquith is a Valve employee, and previously was a designer and sculptor for WETA Workshop. He shares the passion for zombies. 'Zombie Movie' is up for "Best Horror /Comedy Short" movie at the ScreamFest Horror Film Festival in Los Angeles this year.

I think that they have a lot of potential and if they don't win, I'm sure it'll be a good watch anyway."

WETA, of course, is the Peter Jackson special effects house that did all the special effects for Lord of the Rings and King Kong.

So, first Rag Doll Kung-Fu (a completely independent game being distributed through Steam, with no connection to the Source engine whatsoever) and now Zombie Movie. It appears that Valve are keen to open up their content delivery mechanism to anyone who's interested and has a quality product to push.

Will this be the first step in Valve's evolution into a complete content platform for the PC? With Ritual already on board to sell Sin Episodes through the system, how long before other developers get fed up of the current publisher scenario and team up with Valve? More to the point, how long before we see indie film makers try something similar or team up with Valve too?

Got some thoughts? Share them with us in the forum.