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Dbrand has confirmed that the Steam Machine Companiion Cube which recieved over 100,000 pre-saves and went on pre-order last week will sadly no longer be produced.
This was the second-fastest selling in Dbrand’s 15 year history only behind the Switch 2 Killswitch, but even though the company spent months and months and countless hours building the product, it never got approval from Valve, which reached out after pre-orders went live to say that Dbrand could not sell it.
Dbrand subsequently took the listing down and tried to work with Valve, but unfortunately it seems that they weren’t willing to co-operate which has led to the item not able to be sold, and all orders refunded.
“We launched around 3am on Monday, June 22nd. Overnight, it became the second-fastest selling product in our 15-year history, behind only the Switch 2 Killswitch.
Shortly after, Valve’s legal team reached out. They stated that the Companion Cube is Valve intellectual property, for which dbrand does not have a license. 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.”
The entire thread that has been posted on Reddit is quite fascinating, and as someone in possession of it, I’m really sad for this one because obviously it is Valve’s IP but it is very, very cool and perfectly infuses Valve’s iconic item with Dbrand’s fantastic design quality so I’m sad to not see this one exist.