- Dbrand created a Companion Cube case for the Steam Machine
- It was an homage to Portal’s Companion Cube and a popular idea.
- Unfortunately, Dbrand went ahead and made this product without any permission from Valve, so they had to remove it from sale today.
Dbrand has announced that its fancy Steam Machine case that made Valve’s gaming PC look like a Portal Companion Cube has been removed from sale.
Because? Because, rather unfathomably, as Dbrand explained on Reddit, he did not ask Valve for permission to manufacture and sell this creation.
Dbrand said: “We launched around 3 a.m. on Monday, June 22. Overnight, [the Companion Cube case] became the second best-selling product in our 15-year history, only behind the Switch 2 Killswitch.”
“Shortly after, Valve’s legal team reached out. They claimed that Companion Cube is Valve’s intellectual property, for which Dbrand has no license. They requested that we remove the product and release the movie immediately. This was entirely within their rights, and they were direct, fair and respectful throughout.”
Dbrand complied, while issuing a call to Valve to see if there was “some way to keep the project alive: with the right license, with their blessing, on their terms.”
The short answer was no, although Dbrand admits: “Given our reverse approach of building first and asking for permission later, it was a fair answer.”
And that’s the story of a $130 Steam Machine hard case ($99 for the ‘poverty’ version) that was never meant to exist. Refunds will be issued today, June 29, 2026, for anyone who ordered a Companion Cube case.
Analysis: permission denied
This entire episode is baffling considering that Dbrand apparently spent over a thousand engineering hours manufacturing the Companion Cube, making sure the Steam Machine fit perfectly into it and developing 44 sets of injection molding tooling in the process. Not to mention renting a university campus as the setting for the launch video.
Dbrand says, “In the end, we were losing money on every $99 Poverty Cube sold, but it didn’t matter. This had become a passion project for the entire organization.”
As you can imagine, there are a lot of bemused (or even amused) players on the Reddit thread calling Dbrand stupid, which the company freely admits is true. One Redditor says: “You had two jobs! Ask Valve and do it.”
Another asks: “How the hell did you think you’d be able to sell this without getting permission from Valve…???”
Well, yes. It’s a good point. Some argue that Dbrand might have wanted to generate some publicity and show all the pre-orders to persuade Valve that he was more likely to say yes, but that theory falls apart because the company forgot to ask Valve, at all.
Amid the (rightly) withering criticism there are more than a few disappointed gamers who are actually canceling their Steam Machine (they say) because they won’t be able to fit the gaming PC into Dbrand’s case.
Obviously it’s a subjective question, but I personally don’t see the appeal at all. The Companion Cube made the Steam Machine much more robust (when the idea is for it to be a low-profile, discreet living room PC) and, while very well made in every way, it raised the price even further. And, although ventilation was obviously considered in the design, I wonder what the effect will be on the Steam Machine’s cooling system on a hot day.
Still, those are all moot points now. Dbrand said this is a “hard lesson to learn publicly” and, in fact, hopefully the company will take it seriously. However, this is not the first time a Dbrand product has gone off the rails in this way. You may remember that Sony sent a cease and desist letter, which canceled Dbrand’s ‘Darkplates’ (faceplates for the PS5) due to the way they replicated a “protected product design.” A version 2.0 of Darkplates was released with changes to address this issue and remains on sale today.
When Dbrand first revealed the Darkplates, it was with the prophetic tagline “Go ahead, sue us,” so one has to wonder if this particular lesson taught by Valve will stick.
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