- Dbrand made a Companion Cube case for the steam engine
- It was a homage to Portal’s Companion Cube and a popular idea
- Unfortunately, Dbrand manufactured this product without any authorization from Valve and therefore had to remove it from sale today.
Dbrand has announced that its fancy Steam Engine case that made Valve’s gaming PC look like a Portal Companion Cube has been pulled from sale.
For what? Because, quite unfathomably, as Dbrand explained on Reddit, he did not ask permission from Valve to manufacture and sell this creation.
Dbrand said: “We launched on Monday June 22 around 3am. [the Companion Cube case] has become the second best-selling product in our 15-year history, behind the Switch 2 Killswitch.”
“Shortly after, Valve’s legal team contacted us. They stated that the Companion Cube was Valve’s intellectual property, which Dbrand did not have a license for. They asked us to remove the product and release the film immediately. This was well within their rights, and they were direct, fair and respectful throughout.”
Dbrand complied, while also appealing to Valve to see if there was “a way to keep the project alive: properly licensed, with their blessing, on their terms.”
The short answer was no, although Dbrand concedes: “Given our retrospective approach of building first and asking permission later, it was a fair answer.”
And that’s the story of a $130 ($99 for the “poverty” version) Steam Machine hard case that was never supposed to exist. Refunds are being issued today, June 29, 2026, to anyone who ordered a Companion Cube case.
Analysis: authorization refused
This whole episode is quite confusing given that Dbrand apparently put over a thousand hours of engineering into making the Companion Cube, making sure the Steam Engine fit perfectly into it and developing 44 sets of injection molding tools 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 Poverty Cube that sold for $99, but that didn’t matter. This had become a passion project for the entire organization. »
As you can imagine, there are a lot of perplexed (and even amused) players on the Reddit thread calling Dbrand stupid, which the company freely admits is true. One Reddit user says: “You had two jobs! Ask Valve and make the thing.”
Another asks: “How the hell did you think you could sell this thing without getting permission from Valve…??? »
Well, yes. That’s a good point. Some argue that Dbrand might have wanted to create 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.
Amid the (deservedly) harsh criticism, there are more than a few disappointed punters who are actually canceling their Steam Machine (they say) because they won’t be able to get the gaming PC into Dbrand’s compound.
This is obviously a subjective question, but I don’t see the appeal at all personally. The Companion Cube made the Steam Engine much bulkier (while the idea is that it’s a low-profile, unobtrusive living room PC), and while very well designed by all accounts, it drove the price up even further. And, while ventilation is obviously considered in the design, I wonder about the effect on the Steam Machine’s cooling system on a hot day.
Still, these are all moot points now. Dbrand said it was a “hard lesson to learn publicly” and, indeed, I hope the company takes it to heart. This isn’t the first time a Dbrand product has gone off the rails like this, however. You may recall that Sony sent out a cease and desist letter, which canceled Dbrand’s “Darkplates” (faceplates for the PS5) due to how they reproduced a “protected product design.” A version 2.0 of Darkplates was released with changes to address this issue, and it remains on sale today.
When Darkplates were first revealed by Dbrand, it was with the prescient slogan “Go ahead, sue us.” So you have to wonder if this particular lesson taught by Valve is going to stick.
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