Steam Machine stock may be in short supply, but hey, at least it hasn’t been taken off sale and scoured from the Internet, never to be seen again. That’s just the fate of Dbrand’s unofficial Steam Machine Companion Cube case, a smartly made (if overpriced and kind of pointless) Portal-themed accessory that it turns out was so unofficial, Dbrand never actually had permission from Valve to sell it. So, now they aren’t, and have issued refunds to anyone who ordered one.
“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,” a sorrowful reddit post explains. “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.”
The post claims “more than a thousand hours” went into designing and engineering the case, which in hindsight makes it even stranger not to have spent one-thousandth of that time drafting a ‘pretty please’ email to Gabe Newell’s office. Regardless, Dbrand announced the Companion Cube on June 22nd, a few hours before the Steam Machine’s own pricing and launch details came out, and had enough time to send out press samples and – allegedly – rack up enough sales to make it the company’s second-most popular product launch. Soon, however, Valve’s legal team came knocking.
“They stated that the Companion Cube is Valve intellectual property, for which Dbrand does not have a license,” the post continues. “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.
“To Valve: thank you for Portal, and sorry for the headache. We should’ve asked first.”
I’ll share in a slice of humble pie myself: I accepted a review unit on the assumption that everything was above board, partly because Dbrand weren’t striking the combative tone that they’ve adopted in previous lawyer-tussles and partly because this thing was so self-smothering in Portal iconography that there was just no way they didn’t have Valve onboard. Well, they didn’t, and the only reason I’m not the biggest mug in this situation is because I never spent the equivalent of 42 days straight making it.
