Dbrand has canceled its Steam Machine Companion Cube wrap after Valve's legal team demanded its removal due to licensing issues. Dbrand admitted it created the case without obtaining permission from Valve, stating, "We made the Companion Cube without a license from Valve" and removed the product from its website, YouTube, and social media platforms last week [1].
The Companion Cube wrap, inspired by Valve's Portal game, was first revealed as concept art on November 12, 2025—the same day Valve announced the Steam Machine [1, 2, 3, 4]. The concept generated immediate interest, with more than 15,000 people signing up to be notified on the first day of the reveal [1, 3, 4].
Dbrand launched pre-orders for the $99 case on June 22, 2026, making it the second-fastest selling product in the company's 15-year history. "Overnight, it became the second-fastest selling product in our 15-year history, behind only the Switch 2 Killswitch," a company spokesperson said [1, 5, 3, 4, 6].
However, soon after pre-orders opened, Valve's legal team contacted Dbrand and requested the immediate removal of the Companion Cube product and all promotional materials because the company had not secured a license [1, 5, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7]. Dbrand complied promptly, taking down all references and beginning to issue refunds, including shipping fees to international customers. "Refunds for the product are being issued today," the company confirmed [1, 5, 2, 7].
Dbrand appealed for permission to sell a licensed version but Valve declined the request [1, 5, 2, 3, 4, 7]. Although Dbrand spent over 1,000 hours on the design and produced multiple iterations, even renting a university campus to film its launch video, it said the project was a passion endeavor. The company noted it was losing money on every $99 unit sold [2, 3, 4, 6].
Dbrand acknowledged Valve's right to control its intellectual property, saying, "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." The company called its approach "backwards," building the product before asking for permission and admitted, "We’re going to regret that decision for a very long time." [5, 2, 4]
Valve has promised to release Steam Machine front plate design files for 3D printing but did not extend the same to the Companion Cube case design [1]. With no license granted, Dbrand has officially ended plans to sell the Companion Cube wrap.
