Dbrand cancels Companion Cube Steam Machine case after Valve objects

In November 2025 Dbrand teased a Portal Companion Cube case for the Steam Machine. Despite an imperfect initial render and a public push from hardware editor Andy Edser to “make it now, no takesie-backsies,” the company has pulled the product and scrubbed all traces after realizing it never asked Valve for permission.

Dbrand wrote on Reddit that it posted a concept render and sign-up page on November 12th 2025, the day the Steam Machine was announced, and that the page drew more than 15,000 sign-ups in the first day. Over the following months the team spent “more than a thousand hours” on engineering work, multiple redesigns, sets of injection tools and even rented a university campus to film a launch video, calling the project a passion despite losing money on every $99 Poverty Cube sold.

Sales made the case the second-fastest selling product in Dbrand’s history and caught Valve’s attention.

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