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."
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.