Dbrand's Companion Cube case for the Steam Machine was a lie

This was not a triumph.

Dbrand

More than six months ago Dbrand showed off an awesome-looking mod for the Steam Machine that turned Valve's latest gaming PC into a Companion Cube. It was cute, reasonably priced and by most accounts, quite well made. The one problem is that Dbrand forgot to ask Valve for permission, so even after garnering more than 100,000 pre-orders, the company was forced to cancel the accessory and take down all of its listings last week.

In a surprisingly forthcoming post on Reddit, Dbrand admitted that despite all the work that went into making the case, it had never asked for or received a license from Valve to use images and intellectual property from Portal — the game that originally spawned the Companion Cube — on its product. So unsurprisingly, after the mod went on sale last week, Valve's legal team reached out to Dbrand and asked the company to take down the product and remove any related materials.

Dbrand says it tried to reach an agreement with Valve in order to keep the Companion Cube mod on sale, which Valve declined. To Dbrand's credit, given the backwards nature of making an unlicensed product and then asking for permission after the fact, the company seems to understand why Valve did not want to give it their blessing. In its post, Dbrand said "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." However, perhaps the most poignant comment came from user Degenerate_Media on Reddit, but we'll let you read that one on your own.

Unfortunately, this means that anyone who was looking forward to customizing their Steam Machine with a Companion Cube-themed case is out of luck with Dbrand saying that refunds for the product are being issued today. Furthermore, for international customers that may have had to pay additional shipping costs, the company also says those fees will also be included as part of the refund.

In the end, I guess just like the cake from Portal, Dbrand's Companion Cube is a lie too.