I just got an email from dBrand cancelling the Steam Machine companion cube shell.
They posted the rationale on reddit, /r/dBrand but for the good folks who don't do reddit anymore, here's their post:
"RIP Companion Cube
🚨 Announcement 🚨
As you’ve probably noticed, the Steam Machine Companion Cube was eviscerated from our website, YouTube, and other social media platforms last week.
The blunt version is that we made the Companion Cube without a license from Valve. Everyone who purchased a Companion Cube will have their refund issued by end-of-day. Everything else beyond this is just detail. If you want the full story, keep reading.
On November 12th 2025, the day the Steam Machine was announced, we put up a concept render and sign-up page to see if anyone would be interested in a Companion Cube enclosure. It went moderately viral, with over fifteen thousand people signing up to be notified in the first day. In the months that followed, we built the idea into something real without ever asking Valve if we could.
We’re going to regret that decision for a very long time.
Over the next seven months, we poured our souls into this project. More than a thousand hours went into engineering from our industrial design team. Forty-four sets of injection molding tools were developed, one for each of the cube's sub-components. The entire product was redesigned from scratch more than once, just to get the way it cradles the console exactly right. We literally rented out a university campus to film the launch video. 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.
Unfortunately, being proud of the thing we made did not give us the right to make it.
We launched around 3am on Monday, June 22nd. Overnight, it 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.
We took everything down and made an appeal. We asked Valve whether there was any way to keep the project alive: properly licensed, with their blessing, on their terms. They said no. Given our backwards approach of building first and asking permission later, it was a fair answer.
That’s basically the whole story. We made something a lot of people were excited about, then incinerated our shot at bringing it to market. It’s a hard lesson to learn publicly.
It goes without saying, but we’ll say it regardless: Valve didn’t do anything wrong here. They built a game franchise a lot of people love and they alone get to decide how it’s used.
To everyone who was as excited about this project as we were: thank you, and sorry. Refunds are being issued today. If it hasn’t landed in your account by the end of this week, you know how to reach us.
To Valve: thank you for Portal, and sorry for the headache. We should’ve asked first."
95 Comments
rtxn@lemmy.world · 234 pts · 35d
That's literally what happened with the black PS5 shells. They used Sony's trademark without permission, got a cease and desist, and didn't learn a fucking thing from it. I'm sure they had the best intentions, but doing it twice was monumentally stupid.
binarytobis@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 35d
If I had a nickel…
Voyajer@lemmy.world · 156 pts · 35d
Why am I not surprised they didn't get a license
woelkchen@lemmy.world · 141 pts · 35d
Why am I not surprised they went ahead without even asking to get a license?
nialv7@lemmy.world · 55 pts · 35d
This company sounds like a mess.
binarytobis@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 35d
Solid phone cases, though.
brognak@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 33d
Seriously, I had the Ghost case for my S25 and now Tank for S26 and they are hands down the best phone cases I have ever used.
Ghost is just a solid fucking case, it feels great in the hand and held up great the entire time I had it.
Tank though is spectacular. There's so many small things that look stupid but make total sense when you actually hold it. The little finger wells on the back, the ridges along the edges, the way the buttons feel, just all add up to phone case perfection (imo).
Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 33d
Nah not really. Had one for my oneplus6 and it literally fell apart after 1 year. Still have the value of it in store credit. Have not had anything from them I wanted to buy for years though. Mostly because I stopped buying mainstream devices (too expensive for the fuckall you get).
prettybunnys@piefed.social · 9 pts · 35d
Ayyyy at least they didn’t blame the would be buyers
officermike@lemmy.world · 125 pts · 35d
Did they not learn from the PS5 dark plates? Why do they keep developing things without licensing or approval from rights holders? This seems like an easy lesson to learn. I imagine the engineering time and injection molds cost them a huge chunk of cash.
jordanlund@lemmy.world · 64 pts · 35d
You would think the people in charge of production would have pressed management on it:
"Hey, did we get permission this time? Or is it the Dark Plates all over again?"
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml · 23 pts · 35d
There is no need to ask for permission, if you can simply pray. It's an old trick and sometimes it even works.
MimicJar@lemmy.world · 31 pts · 35d
Sometimes it's best to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. They made a different dark plate later on that was different enough, they'll do the same thing here. We'll see "Friendly Cube" before the year is over.
Plus huge marketing win. They probably got a bunch of new users to visit their website and saw a huge uptick in overall sales.
thisisbutaname@discuss.tchncs.de · 30 pts · 35d
Ah, yes, the Christian way
tdawg@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 35d
Aka "buisness as usual"
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 35d
tank you for spelling it rite
tdawg@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 35d
U wot mate
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 35d
Also the Python way (programming language).
captainlezbian@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 33d
Also the python way (snakes)
mrmaplebar@fedia.io · 120 pts · 35d
Well... that was pretty damn stupid, now wasn't it? Were they under the impression that they could capitalize off of one of Valve's biggest IPs without getting some kind of license or consent first? Who do they think they are, an AI company?
phonics@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 35d
They did hold peoples money. If they invested it before returning it. They could have made a fair chunk of change. Perhaps that was the plan all along. Risky play though.
PostaL@lemmy.world · 110 pts · 35d
Deconceptualist@leminal.space · 78 pts · 35d
Y'know when this was first prototyped I considered asking whether was licensed, but thought, "Nah, dbrand wouldn't be that stupid, I'm sure they worked it out with Valve". Heh. Too much faith on my part I guess.
shweddy@lemmy.world · 67 pts · 35d
Dbrand and not getting a license name a better duo
zigmus64@lemmy.world · 50 pts · 35d
Sucks… good on D-brand for handling it with class though.
boatswain@infosec.pub · 30 pts · 35d
Yeah, nice to see companies taking ownership of mistakes. Shame they didn't ask first.
WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today · 69 pts · 35d
Look at Dbrand's history before giving them any sympathy. Thanks to @woelkchen@lemmy.world for pointing it out.
gedfromgont@piefed.ca · 13 pts · 35d
Handling with class? They just tried to get away with something that clearly doesn't work that way. You don't make a product based on a known franchise without contacting the franchise owner about it.
jordanlund@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 35d
Remember that guy who tried to Kickstart a Game of Thrones card game?
https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/bm81ez/kickstarter_man_launches_a_hilariously_bad/
Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca · 42 pts · 35d
Ouch... Getting injection moulds made is really REALLY pricey. That's an expensive lesson.
MyTurtleSwimsUpsideDown@fedia.io · 37 pts · 35d
But really good marketing. They got the emails of a bunch of people interested in Steam hardware, they got their name out there to folks like me who’ve never heard of them. They put out a sincere sounding apology, gave automatic full refunds, and in 18 months I’ll probably remember them as a trustable brand but forget it was because they did a dumbass copyright infringement.
cardfire@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 35d
You forget, many of the target audience also celebrate copyright infringement as a virtue.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 33d
Yeah, I'm seriously wondering how you get to that point without making sure you're allowed to do the thing. Injection molding is a fuck ton of principal that you make up for in volume.
ohshit604@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 35d
Prefacing this by saying I know nothing about injection moulding. Couldn’t they still use the molds for when they do get a license just different designs?
Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 35d
Valve's refused to sell them a licence.
There is no 'when they do get a license'.
Beg forgiveness instead of ask for permission is a gamble. dBrand lost the dice roll.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 33d
They might be able to modify the molds to something legally distinct, but it'd be expensive and if they were already taking a loss on the desirable product it's better to not throw bad money after good. I'd guess their actual best bet is to see if valve wants to buy all this off them to reduce their losses and their disposal/storage costs
Mearcfara@lemmy.ml · 23 pts · 35d
It's cool that they copped to it as well as they did. I wouldn't have expected that.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 35d
Yeah. This is the kind of response (as far as i can tell: open, honest) that makes me want to buy something from that company in the future. Like, you legitimately can't buy this kind of public relations. It sucks for the business, but doing the right thing by your customers gets you repeat customers. You can't get brand loyalty through a commercial.
Pieisawesome@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 35d
Yeah, but this isn’t the first time they have done the exact same thing.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 35d
This is true. Above is my initial reaction and I'll leave it to show what it looks like when you get more info and reassess. Not so sure I trust the company, but I do appreciate the openness about them not getting the license.
There's a part of me that thinks they're hoping their fans lean on steam, but steam is so much bigger, and both of them behaving reasonably at this juncture isn't likely to get a witch hunt started.
Xerxos@lemmy.ml · 17 pts · 34d
Why not ask for permission before you try to create it? It's one of the few corporations where you can simply write a email to the CEO. Going ahead without permission is really shady.
jordanlund@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 34d
I know, right? Do the render, send it to Valve, get licensed...
Vince@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 35d
Lol, I half expect them to just recolor or reskin it and call it something else, maybe tack on an easily removed plastic piece to make it look very different. Then people can just buy and repaint it
mlg@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 35d
Not that I want to give dbrand any credit but this also seems like a stupid move for Valve.
Why didn't they just offer a license agreement if dbrand was willing to accept?
Seems like a missed opportunity which the steam machine desperately needs right now.
Even dumber, you'll probably be able to find this on ali express or temu in a couple of weeks after some chinese brands make knockoffs anyway.
Unless they already had some poor history with dbrand, seems kind of off character for Valve.
Westcoastdg@lemmy.ca · 22 pts · 35d
The real answer is boring. Think about the legal precedent that would be set, this would be seen as condoning anyone to go out, market and accept money for a representation of their IP without asking for permission beforehand, no legal team worth their salt is going to allow that. They don't want to reward someone for doing things the wrong way from a legal standpoint. There's also probably a potential fraud liability here, the same way trademark owners are required to legally pursue copycat brands to prevent customers from being defrauded
emeralddawn45@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 35d
It wouldn't set a legal precedent. Valve would still be well within their rights to shut down any other products that did something similar. If they signed a license agreement now everything would be fine and above board, and valve would still be able to do this exact thing to any other brands who did the same thing if they so chose.
hasnep@lemmy.ml · 10 pts · 35d
I think they just meant precedent, like it sets an example of how they treat copyright infringement.
Beetschnapps@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 35d
Shooting from the hip: The enclosure could have been a thermal nightmare that valve didn’t want their name on.
jordanlund@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 35d
Based on this video, they neglected to do something as basic as an air filter. I doubt thermals are top of mind for them:
https://youtu.be/glXA3ObwSwQ
Beetschnapps@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 34d
I mean it’s already throttled so much if anything Valve was over concerned with thermals. But yea, I could see the modding aspect making things even worse.
savvywolf@pawb.social · 10 pts · 35d
Would you want to have a business relationship with someone with a "do things first, ask for permission after" attitude?
Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 35d
If you let me put my tinfoil hat on for a moment, it may be because now they can gauge the community response and decide if they want to launch their own or "change their mind" and look like the good guys
Mister_Hangman@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 35d
Then let them play off of what Beetschnapps said and back room ask Dbrand to fire off sets for them to test for thermal issues then if it doesn’t need any modifications come out swinging. Valve gets more money and looks like real aces.
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 10 pts · 35d
Further proof that the D in Dbrand stands for "douchey."
noxypaws@pawb.social · 10 pts · 35d
Well that was dumb. But their handling of the fallout means I can point and laugh but also not feel any hesitation to buy other stuff from them if they release stuff I want.
Their whole Ghost case debacle, which I did buy into, was similarly handled well, I've been happy with the free replacement I got from them for that and it's been working great for a few years now.
Dumbasses. But refunding and owning up is commendable, at least it seems to be from how they've framed it all.
filcuk@feddit.uk · 4 pts · 35d
I wonder how much they've lost in total. So many hours, injection molds, and presumably good chunk of the production. Surprisingly careless!
jordanlund@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 35d
They mentioned they had 15,000 people sign up on day 1. With a $100 and a $130 option.
Let's say 80% picked the $130 choice and 20% the $100 choice:
15,000 * .80 * $130 = $1,560,000
15,000 * .20 * $100 = $300,000
And that's just day 1. They had 7 months of sign ups before ordering started.
Edit: According to this site they had over 100,000 orders:
https://www.engadget.com/2204117/dbrand-companion-cube-case-for-the-steam-machine-was-a-lie/
100,000 * .80 * $130 = $10,400,000
100,000 * .20 * $100 = $2,000,000
So about 12.5 million in lost revenue not counting the engineering hours, prototyping, injection molding, etc. etc.
Could be $15 million total. Dumbasses!
Romkslrqusz@lemmy.zip · 9 pts · 35d
That sucks
Wonder if they’ll release the CAD files?
ohulancutash@feddit.uk · 16 pts · 35d
The unlicenced copyright and trademark violating cad files?
Romkslrqusz@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 35d
The copyright offense was trying to sell the thing.
I don’t think that freely distributing resources for the end user to make it themselves would be treated as a copyright violation
Not a lawyer
ohulancutash@feddit.uk · 8 pts · 35d
That is wholly incorrect. Any reproduction of IP would violate copyright, money changing hands has no bearing at all.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 8 pts · 35d
What is it, just a case for it? Does it provide any functionality, or is it purely aesthetic?
Honestly if they just called it something else there wouldn't be an issue, right? Just call it some other type of cube and in the description list the compatible hardware, which is just the steam machine.
Not sure why Valve would care so much, as it's not like this would take away from their sales. I'm guessing it's mainly a representation thing. They don't want to allow a precedent where anyone can use their product's name in an unofficial capacity, where their company's reputation might be affected by consumers not realizing there's no affiliation
TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today · 17 pts · 35d
It's a case that looks exactly like the companion cube from Portal. So you're kinda stepping on their feet in more than one way.
It's an intellectual property thing. If someone can prove that you didn't defend an intellectual property in one case then they can argue that their utilization is fair use.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 5 pts · 35d
Oh, I didn't realize that Valve already had a product called a companion cube which already looks and functions the same way as this one. That's the context I was missing.
Yeah, in that light, what dbrand did seems pretty asinine.
SatyrSack@quokk.au · 12 pts · 35d
They don't. The Weighted Companion Cube is a virtual item in Valve's Portal series of games.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weighted_Companion_Cube
It is not an actual product in real life. Even in the game, it does not "function the same way as this one" at all. It arguably has no function. In game, it is a glorified paperweight.
With that said, it is trademarked (or copyrighted or whatever) all the same, so other companies are not allowed to make something that even resembles it without permission. That is just how the stupid US trademark/copyright/patent/bullshit system works.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 6 pts · 34d
Oh, I see. Yeah, it's kinda stupid that a company would try to replicate that without license.
That being said, taking an item from a game and turning it into a real object that fans can enjoy is kind of a cool thing. It sucks they didn't go through the proper channels to make it legit though.
TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 35d
Yeah.... I really don't know what they were thinking. I guess that's what happens when a company is made entirely of designers? I can't imagine anyone from a legal department would be allowing them to do straight ip theft against a billion dollar corporation.
Lemmchen@feddit.org · 7 pts · 35d
Idiots.
AeonFelis@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 35d
Did they also incinerate all the Companion Cubes they already made?
baller_w@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 35d
Release it as 3d printing templates open source 🙌
ohshit604@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 35d
I’m sure Valves legal team would enjoy that.
woelkchen@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 35d
Just make Frank face plates. Surely nothing will go wrong.
DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 35d
Except Sony wants PC gamers to eat shit and expects them to buy their $1,000 console for PC quality games now. They would definitely not agree to that
woelkchen@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 35d
dbrand wouldn't ask them – as usual
DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 35d
😅 oh shit of course they wouldn't
Juviz@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 35d
That is one of the best and probably Most sincere apologies I’ve ever heard from a company. Sucks for the product, but those guys seem to be all right
WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today · 56 pts · 35d
This is a pattern for this company. The "apology" is marketing bullshit. This company is run by pure assholes - which I'll admit is hardly unusual, but don't let them manipulate you with reality distortion techniques. They've done it before, they did it here, and they'll do it again. "Fool me once," and all that.
Juviz@lemmy.zip · 10 pts · 35d
What happened before? I only know them from the LTT memes
Edit: nvm, read the other comments
skozzii@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 33d
dBrand is a garbage company.
Shatur@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 35d
Strange that they did this after the price reveal. Could they have decided that it's not very profitable and maybe the case required further adjustments (like it doesn't fit or melts since they developed it before they could get a prototype), and this is why they canceled it entirely? LTT had a companion cube, but they never put it on the Steam Machine.
paraphrand@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 35d
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world · -20 pts · 35d
While Valve didn't do anything wrong from a legal standpoint here, I still think that's not very sporting of them.
MrQuallzin@pie.eyeofthestorm.place · 39 pts · 35d
Good graces only go so far. Dbrand has unfortunately done this before and didn't learn their lesson, no reason to play ball with them.
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world · -9 pts · 35d
On the other hand, it was a cool product that many people would have enjoyed. And now it's gone.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 35d
And I bet it could have gone quite smoothly if Dbrand had bothered to contact Valve before making it.
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 35d
I'm not in any way saying that they shouldn't have done that.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 35d
OK. It's still entirely their fault.
WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today · 29 pts · 35d
Look at Dbrand's history before condemning Valve. Thanks to @woelkchen@lemmy.world for pointing it out.
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 35d
I said "not very sporting". That's hardly a condemnation.
paraphrand@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 35d
Well, the sport you are talking about is seeing how much you can steal and get away with. So…
Tippy@sh.itjust.works · 26 pts · 35d
They caught a company stealing their intellectual property and lying to consumers that they had permission to create a product and fulfill orders as a result of that theft, and promptly shut their bullshit down. While I'm not a big fan of some IP laws and how they can be abused, I'm struggling to see how you think Valve deserves any reproach for this. This isn't even the first time this company has tried this shit and been slapped for it. At this point its a pattern of behavior that implies they are intentionally trying to steal and scam.
jordanlund@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 35d
The biggest mistake Valve made was not shutting it down when it was announced.
Rubanski@discuss.tchncs.de · 9 pts · 35d
Maybe it was on purpose to stick it to dbrand and their questionable history of licensing
djdarren@piefed.social · 7 pts · 35d
Fair play though, it is pretty funny that they let DBrand spend all that money first.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 35d
i won't fault valve's IP infringement team for missing one infringing product in a sea of [i'm not bothering to estimate] infringing products
it's the fact that it's a companion cube [valveâ„¢] for a valve [valveâ„¢] video game [valveâ„¢] console [valveâ„¢] being made by notvalveâ„¢. if it was just a t-shirt on redbubble they could probably fly under the radar, but this is too close to confusing the consumer. like, how many people here automatically assumed they had valve's permission? which would imply some sort of partnership with valve, just by making the faceplates?
ideally that's the kind of confusion IP law is supposed to prevent. how it's used vs how it was intended is another can of worms (and idealism versus pragmatism is a fun argument don't get me wrong) but we can pretend for a little bit.
like, there's Coke trademarked to Coca Cola. no other soda or drink gets it. But in smelting and ironworks? There are a ton of coke companies. Because coke isn't soda in smelting. There's no confusion.
jordanlund@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 35d
I definitely assumed some kind of partnership, especially after watching the launch video where they claimed Aperture Science had been bought by dBrand.
Why yes, yes it has already been re-uploaded to YouTube:
https://youtu.be/DfITSn5pcrQ