Someone pointed this out in another thread, and I think it’s worth repeating: dbrand has a history of doing this and has had the same thing happen before when they produced unlicensed faceplates for the PS5.
In April 2024, an Indian-origin customer named Bhuwan Chitransh complained about a defective MacBook skin on Twitter. Dbrand responded by mocking his surname with the tweet: “Your last name is basically shit rash, be serious.” […] CEO Adam Ijaz acknowledged the remark as a “severe lapse in judgment”
Holy shit that’s an understatement!
My guess would be that it also involved more than a little bit of alcohol.
Probably racism
Absolutely, but it still feels like there is booze involved.
Booze helps it slip out. At least in a there was no catch for this kind of racism.
The catch is like us learning our inherent biases and growing from it. I just don’t have a better term for it
What you are describing requires a bit of introspection that many racists don’t seem to be capable of.
Fair. So he’s just a racist then
I hope they really gave that guy $10,000
I feel like the thing with the PS5 faceplates was bs. They’re just solid colour plastic. But the companion cube one I can understand, as that it was using the design of a “character”(?) that Valve owns without permission
I don’t know a thing about IP laws, so I can’t judge what shape of plastic is required to provide a basis for an IP rights violation. The reason I linked this was that I would take this entire story with a huge grain of salt, considering this company did this before and has apparently not learned all that much from that experience.
Yeah, I get that. I agree that dbrand seem quite sketchy with all that stuff you linked to. Especially the Twitter thing, that’s just fucked up.
IIRC the original plates included trademarked logos belonging to Sony, and dbrand literally invited Sony to sue them in their marketing.
I’m not familiar with steam products, Valve can’t make it either, right?
Are you asking if they do not have the rights or the means?
Valve made the portal games. So they own the rights to the companion cube and can absolutely make this. That is why they sent the cease and desist order to dbrand.
I guess what I’m asking is, I’m assuming dbrand made it look a certain way that is popular with the fans, can Valve make it look like that? Sorry that my question wasn’t probably clear.
The cube thing is from portal, a game made by valve. Valve owns the rights to portal and can therefore use the ip however they please.
Dbrand made a Companion Cube enclosure for Valve’s new console. Valve owns the copyright for the Companion Cube, since it is from one of the games they made. Valve sent a cease & desist to dbrand, for infringing on their copyright. Valve could absolutely make a Companion Cube enclosure of their own, if they wanted to. Hell, they could even make a Companion Cube edition of their console, so the enclosure is redundant.
Dbrand wasn’t doing anything notable with their enclosure, except that they were the first ones to announce it. But it is a clear violation of Valve’s copyright, and Dbrand didn’t even bother checking with Valve ahead of time to form a partnership contract. If Dbrand wanted to do things properly, that would have been step 0. But they just skipped it entirely, and started selling directly to customers. So naturally, Valve slapped them.
Wow, that does seem really stupid them. I thought maybe they came up with a great new look or something, but no, lol.
I’m not sure I understand. Dbrand made a steam machine skin that looks like a companion cube from portal. Valve made the portal games, and thus owns the rights to the companion cube. So valve can make a companion cube skin because they already own the rights to it. Dbrand cannot because they didn’t license it with valve.
Of course they can, whatever makes you think they can’t???
Ok so leak the STLs from your R&D dept.
Funny thing noone talks about, they had a bunch of existing skins for other devices that use Valve IP, for years. The big thing here is the Steam Machine case cancellation, but they actually also removed lots of other designs they had the entire time.
So not only they flew too close to the Sun on this new product, they ended up losing a bunch of existing products that Valve never called then out on earlier.
Well there ya go
I mean this kind of honesty is pretty rare these days
Not that rare, considering they did the exact same thing already.
Kinda looks like they’re doing it on purpose so that the following apology gets them some free publicity and reputation for being honest… which is manipulative and shady.
If they made the tooling to mass produce the cubes like they claim they did, that advertising was very not free. In fact, paying for a lot of advertising would be quite a bit less money. I think they had been getting away with using Valve IP on skins for years, and thought they’d get away with this too.
like they claim they did
Am skeptical.
They might just sincerely be stupid, but this all carries a strong scent of bullshit.
My money’s on a calculated PR move, with almost no investment made into it leading up to the action from Valve, culminating with a woe-is-me to stir up some community support.
Anything is possible, but they announced it very early, made what looks to be a good design, made enough examples to send to a bunch of content creators, and took pre-orders. For the this to be intended to be a PR stunt only, everything would have hinged on Valve sending them a C&D after they did all those things. What if Valve had ignored it? The most simple explanation is usually correct, and never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity, lol.
The most simple explanation is usually correct
In most contexts, yes.
and never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity, lol.
The problem with that rule is most malicious people are well aware of it, making the appearance of stupidity a tool to free them from accountability. Look at politics - we (collectively) give Trump the village idiot pass, ogling at someone could be so stupid as to blunder their way into the absolute worst economic, tactical, social, etc outcome possible. He’s not an outlier in that behavior, and corporate reps / CEOs often do the same shit.
I don’t have the insider knowledge to say with certainty that any one instance is an example or not, but I definitely reject the whole ‘never attribute to malice’ spiel.
That PR person is over this shit lmao
Talk about boneheaded. This idea would have been an easy shoe-in for all parties involved. How is a company whose whole business model is to work with licensing designs manage to forget like the first step in licensing?
What else do they have that is licensed?
This is a marketing stunt
Found the dbrand sock puppet.
That’s Dbrands whole schtick. Not a fan of them at all.
Just recreate the skin with AI and now it’s Anthropic’s problem.
*taps head
The companion cube gets made and valve sues anthropic into oblivion. That’s a win-win in my book.
Only if Valve invests the winnings into Linux, which tbf they probably would
They might have gotten away with a “future space crate” design, without the hearts. And then throw in a set of “I ❤️ Dbrand” stickers that you can snip the heart out of.
They could still do a generic “shipping crate” case, with handy little front cover removal tool and storage slot (crowbar emoji goes here).
They should have made it cost 50% more than planned as a tribute.
You absolutely have the right to make it. Selling it for a profit however…
You don’t actually have to make a profit for it to be a trademark violation
Sure fine cool… but you feel me?
I do wonder if Valve will do a 180 and agree to license it. Seems like they could stand to make good money by just charging dbrand a per-unit fee
If I had a steam machine I’d want one of these
I’m not gonna lie, not being able to buy it makes me want the steam machine less. Sadly I don’t even need one to begin with.
Agree, but mostly its the AI companies that make me not want to buy it
99% certain this is what will end up happening.
Its not even a 180.
Its… you used our IP without asking, please go to the back of the line, fill out the form where you properly ask for permission to use it, and wait in the queue again.
All they had to do was ask permission first.
I doubt it, they seemed pretty pissed at how dbrand works.
That sucks, but is understandable. I hope Valve can do something positive like buy the design from Dbrand then sell it themselves. Then Dbrand doesn’t loose a bunch of money, Valve can protect their IP, and fans can buy the fun thing they want. Seems unlikely, but it would be cool.
On brand, honestly. The cake is a lie. Companion cube incinerated. Waiting for Valve to put out a GLaDOS front plate now.
If valve does a real weighted companion cube steam machine I’m in real danger of throwing down a lot of money for something I don’t really need.
The Enrichment Center reminds you that the Weighted Companion Cube will never threaten to stab you and, in fact, cannot speak.
