- Dbrand made a Companion Cube case for the Steam Machine
- It was a tribute to the Companion Cube from Portal, and a popular idea
- Unfortunately, Dbrand went ahead and made this product without any permission from Valve, and so had to withdraw it from sale today
Dbrand has announced that its fancy case for the Steam Machine that made Valve’s gaming PC look like a Companion Cube from Portal has been pulled from sale.
Why? Because, rather unfathomably, as Dbrand explained on Reddit, it didn’t ask permission from Valve to make and sell this creation.
Dbrand said: “We launched around 3am on Monday, June 22nd. Overnight, it [the Companion Cube case] became the second-fastest selling product in our 15-year history, behind only the Switch 2 Killswitch.”
“Shortly after, Valve’s legal team reached out. They stated that the Companion Cube is Valve intellectual property, for which Dbrand does not have a license. They requested we take down the product and launch film immediately. This was entirely within their rights, and they were direct, fair, and respectful throughout.”
Dbrand complied, while launching an appeal to Valve to see if there was “any way to keep the project alive: properly licensed, with their blessing, on their terms”.
The short response was no, although Dbrand concedes: “Given our backwards approach of building first and asking permission later, it was a fair answer.”
And that is the story of a $130 hard-shell Steam Machine case ($99 for the ‘poverty’ version) that was never meant to be. Refunds are being issued today, June 29, 2026, for anyone who ordered a Companion Cube case.
Analysis: permission denied
This whole episode is suitably baffling considering that Dbrand apparently put over a thousand hours of engineering into making the Companion Cube, ensuring the Steam Machine fit into it perfectly, and developing 44 sets of injection-molding tools in the process. Not to mention hiring out a university campus as the set for the launch video.
Dbrand says: “By the end, we were losing money on every $99 Poverty Cube sold, but it didn’t matter. This had turned into a passion project for the entire organization.”
As you can imagine, there are a lot of bemused (or indeed amused) gamers on the Reddit thread calling Dbrand stupid, which the company freely admits is true. One Redditor says: “You had two jobs! Ask Valve, and make the thing.”
Another asks: “How on Earth did you think you would be able to sell this thing without getting permission from Valve…???”
Well, yes. It’s a good point. Some argue that Dbrand might have wanted to build up some publicity and show off all the pre-orders to persuade Valve to be more likely to say yes, but that theory falls apart because the company forgot to ask Valve – at all.
Amidst the (rightfully) withering criticisms are more than a few disappointed punters who are actually canceling their Steam Machine (they say) because they won’t be able to put the gaming PC in Dbrand’s enclosure.
Obviously that’s a subjective matter, but I’m not seeing the appeal at all personally. The Companion Cube made the Steam Machine a good deal chunkier (when the idea is that it’s a low-profile, unobtrusive living room PC), and while very nicely made by all accounts, it pushed the price up even further. And, despite ventilation obviously being considered in the design, I do wonder about the effect on the Steam Machine’s cooling system on a hot day.
Still, those are all moot points now. Dbrand said this one is a “hard lesson to learn publicly,” and, indeed, hopefully the company will take it to heart. It’s not the first time that a Dbrand product has come off the rails like this, though. You might recall Sony sending a cease-and-desist letter, which canceled Dbrand’s ‘Darkplates’ (faceplates for the PS5) because of the way they replicated a “protected product design”. A Darkplates version 2.0 was launched with changes to address this, and it remains on sale today.
When the Darkplates were first revealed by Dbrand, it was with the prescient slogan ‘Go ahead, sue us’, so you’ve got to wonder whether this particular lesson taught by Valve is going to stick.
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