dbrand’s Steam Machine Companion Cube Cancelled After Valve Refuses Permission

Valve has shut down a Portal-themed Companion Cube accessory for its new Steam Machine, refusing to let accessory maker dbrand keep the product on the market. The Companion Cube wrap, which cradled the console in a nod to Portal, was pulled after Valve’s legal team stepped in, and every customer who bought one is being refunded.

The twist is that dbrand does not blame Valve, admitting it should have asked for permission before making the product at all.

A Passion Project, Pulled

The Companion Cube wrap launched on 22 June and, according to dbrand, became the second-fastest-selling product the company had ever created, arriving after months of development. “We poured our souls into this project,” the team said in a Reddit post. “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.” The company added that it rented out a university campus to film the launch video and was losing money on every $99 “Poverty Cube” sold, but that it had become a passion project regardless.

dbrand Takes the Blame

The problem, dbrand said, was that it never sought permission before launching the Portal-inspired product, and when it did, Valve’s legal team moved quickly to shut it down. Despite appeals, Valve refused to grant its blessing. dbrand responded by wiping the Companion Cube from the internet entirely to avoid further issues, and issued refunds to every buyer. Ultimately, the company conceded that Valve had done nothing wrong, and that the fault lay with dbrand for not asking first.