---
title: 'How Does a Company Even Make This Mistake'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=SZCDarRfpsc'
video_id: 'SZCDarRfpsc'
date: 2026-07-01
---

# How Does a Company Even Make This Mistake

> Source: [How Does a Company Even Make This Mistake](https://youtube.com/watch?v=SZCDarRfpsc)

## Summary



## Transcript

I've been keeping up quite closely with
everything going on in the gaming space
over the last couple weeks. Obviously,
I've been yapping about it a lot. I
can't stop blabbering about it really
because it has just been awful news out
the wazoo every single day. It's a
septic tank explosion that I can't look
away from. And while I sit here just
wideeyed like someone who just saw
boobies for the first time, I'm now also
seeing things like adjacent to the AAA
gaming space falling victim to the orb
of confusion. Dbrand, an extremely
popular company that specializes in like
customizable cases and skins for
devices, has now just made a bafflingly
awful admittance here about their highly
anticipated companion cube product,
which was supposed to be a case for the
Steam Machine. Well, it turns out they
never even had permission to make that.
It they never had a license. They even
spent thousands upon thousands of clams
to put this in front of everyone's
peepers. They sponsored Lionus Tech Tips
here in this video as an integration for
him to show this off and promote the
companion cube from Dbrand. But
meanwhile, they never even had a license
for it. So, they went straight to like
marketing it, doing a huge marketing
spend, thousands of dloons to develop
it, obviously thousands of hours to make
it as well to manufacture it. But they
skipped step one of getting a license,
getting permission to do it. How is that
possible? That is DBrain deadad. Now,
I'm not the biggest consumer of this
kind of product. I don't buy customized
skins and and protective devices or
anything like that, but I am familiar
with Dbrand. They are a huge
corporation. They're a big company. I'm
most familiar with them because of
everything that happened with them verse
Caseify with the plagiarism stuff. That
was some wacky I don't
know if Caseify still exists. I don't
know how they could after how
embarrassingly cringe that was back
then. But that's like the main thing I
remember about Dbrand. I don't really
keep up with their products, but after
seeing this, I decided to look into it
to see if they normally get like
permission and stuff. And while I can't
see if they always do, it seems like
they love to tiptoe on the line of
legality. Like even back in, I think it
was 2021, they had a legal spat with
Sony about their dark face plates Dbrand
was doing where they even egged on Sony
to sue them. And Sony eventually did
cease and desist them from what I can
tell. they stopped. So Sony said, "All
right, bet." And big dogged them. And it
seems like that's part of Dbrand's image
is that they're kind of like the bad
boys. And this is I guess just another
marketing tactic from them to get their
name out there like, "Oh, we're getting
sued by these companies, which I guess
it's effective. It does get the brand's
name out there." And they are very
successful. I don't really get the point
though to be honest like especially in
the case with companion cube because
they spent so much money doing this and
never had the license or permission and
no one can really rally behind that and
support them like you know pumping their
fist for the little guy against Valve
that's trying to bully them unjustly
like they even openly admit yeah we just
never asked we just never got permission
like how do you like you you can't
defend that you can't like be on
Dbrand's side all you did was waste not
only all your time and resourc resources
and the time of your employees, but you
also wasted the time of all the people
that put in the pre-order and Now,
it does seem all of them are getting a
refund, so that's great, but like what
the was the point in this whole
charade, the this hoot and nanny? I I I
find it hard to believe that they just
didn't think to get a license or ask for
permission. But anyway, let's take a
look at their statement. As you've
probably noticed, the Steam Machine
Companion Cube was eviscerated from our
website, YouTube, and other social media
platforms last week. The blunt version
is that we made the companion cube
without a license from Valve. Everyone
who purchased the companion cube will
have their refund issued by end of day.
Everything else beyond this is just
detail. If you want the full story, keep
reading. I want the full scoop, please.
On November 12th, 2025, the day the
Steam Machine was announced, we put up a
concept render and signup page to see if
anyone would be interested in a
companion cube enclosure. Went
moderately viral with over 15,000 people
signing up to be notified in the first
day. In the months that followed, we
built the idea into something real
without ever asking Valve if we could.
Why though? Like why would you do that?
So like it's fine to put up like that
render and get interest. Hey, how would
you guys feel if we did pursue this? But
then why wouldn't the next step be like,
"Oh, okay. There's clear demand here.
You guys are hungry. You got some
grumbly bellies and you need a companion
cube in there. Go, don't you?" Okay,
we'll ask Valve if we can. Like I don't
know how being a business of Dbrand's
size that wouldn't cross your mind. I
believe that they did this knowing full
well that they were playing with fire
and that if they did get shut down, it
would only be good for them as like no
publicity is bad publicity and that this
would be something people would be
supportive of. Like, hey, Dbrand fought
the good fight. It didn't work out, but
we're real Dbrand diehard loyalists now
cuz they really went for it with the
companion cube. I'm not even seeing that
response from anyone, even the
biggest fans of Dbrand. Everyone's
calling this stupid because it doesn't
even make sense. Like it is actually
going out of your way to be an imbecile
to not ask the company whom you're using
their IP if you have if you can do that.
Like you need to get the license. Like
that's the most basic ever everyone
knows. We're going to regret that
decision for a very long time. Over the
next 7 months we poured our souls into
this project. More than a thousand hours
went into engineering from our
industrial design team. 44 sets of
injection molding tools were developed,
one for each of the cube subcomponents.
The entire product was redesigned from
scratch more than once just to get it
just to get the way it cradles the
console exactly right. We literally
rented out a university campus to film
the launch video. By the end, we were
losing money on every $99 poverty cube
sold, but it didn't matter. This had
turned into a passion project for the
entire organization. So, you went
through all of this and never once
thought, maybe we should ask, maybe we
should at least be safe and see if
Valve's going to be okay with it. Let's
try and get a license here. Somehow
you've BLJ backward long jumped through
the first step here, completely
forgetting to ask about the license, and
now you're trying to film a launch
video, renting out a university campus
for it. Probably directed by
Christopher Nolan or something. And
still no one pipes up and says, "Guys,
should we ask permission to do this?"
Like, we still never got the thumbs up
from Valve, the green light. What do you
thoughts? Thoughts? Unfortunately, being
proud of the thing we made did not give
us the right to make it. We launched
around 3:00 a.m. on Monday, June 22nd.
Overnight, it became the second fastest
selling product in our 15-year history
behind only the Switch 2 kill switch.
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, asking permission later, it was a
fair answer. That's basically the whole
story. We made something a lot of people
were excited about then incinerated our
shot at bringing it to the market. It's
a hard lesson to learn publicly. But I I
I
you've actually got me malfunctioning.
How is that a lesson you needed to learn
at all? Everyone already knows that.
That's like basic common sense. Even if
you've never been in business or
anything, just boiling it down to the
bare bones here, if you were going to
make something based on someone else's
work and sell it for yourself,
don't you think like naturally your
brain would go, maybe I should ask the
people that own that if they'd be okay
with it? Like even if you know nothing
about licensing or whatever, that's like
the most basic, you know, following the
breadcrumbs of thoughts imaginable. Like
it feels deliberate. It feels like they
didn't want to ask for a license cuz
they knew it might be a slow process,
which means they would be late to the
Steam the Steam Machine market. They'd
be late to the launch. So, in order to
be there on time, right away to
capitalize off the hype train, they felt
that they needed to immediately go in
production and didn't have time to deal
with that pesky license. So, they
crossed their fingers and hoped for the
best. That's what it feels like to me if
this isn't just another one of like
their marketing things. But, it's still
such a stupid gamble. Like, it's still
dumb. It goes without saying, but we'll
say it regardless. 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. To
everyone who was who was as excited
about this project as we were, thank you
and sorry. Refunds are being issued
today. If it hasn't landed in your
account by end of week, you know how to
reach us. To Valve, thank you for
Portal. Sorry for the headache. We
should have asked first. I can at least
appreciate that they're not trying to
fling at Valve for this or paint
them as the bad guys for stepping in.
That was big of them because I thought
when I initially read the headlines that
they'd try and like fight back like,
"No, why is Valve doing this? They're
stomping all over us. This is absurd."
But they are outright saying, "Yeah,
Valve didn't do anything wrong. We're
dumb." I still find it just so hard to
believe that they wouldn't have even
toyed with the idea of trying to get
permission from Valve or get a license.
So, I still believe it's one of two
things. a a calculated marketing uh
tactic here where they were willing to
roll the dice and if it did go tits up
as it inevitably did that they thought
this would be good publicity regardless
for the Dbrand image and it fits in line
with how they've conducted it in the
past like with Sony as as it appears. So
maybe it could have been like a
marketing thing which again I don't
think was smart anyway cuz you devoted
so much time and resources to this with
so many thousands of signups. I I really
like all you do is just lose money on
that. I don't think it does anything for
your brand image and it just paints you
as dumb for it. Or it could be uh that
they knew that if they tried to go
through the proper channels of getting
the licensing first for the companion
cube in order to use the portal license
to make the companion cube, they thought
it would take too long and they'd miss
this golden opportunity, this window to
be there right away for the Steam
Machine for the Steam Machine users and
have this companion cube ready off RIP.
So, just being early, they didn't they
didn't want to take the chance of being
too late. So, they decided, "Fuck it. We
won't even bother with the permission of
the license. We'll just hope they're
cool with it." And it didn't work out.
Both of these though are not smart.
They're both dumb. And I can't decide
what's worse. If they made just a bad
business decision of knowingly just not
getting the license, or if this is a
company run by individuals who never
even think to get permission first. it
never crosses their mind like ah we're
so ditsy and we just got so excited we
dove right into the companion cube
started making it going to marketing
pushing it renting out a university
campus and would you believe it not a
single one of us even thought to contact
Valve about a license ain't that the
darnest thing like I don't know what's
worse if they're like run by people that
are that absent-minded or if they just
made such a stupid decision uh about
like knowingly avoiding the license and
hoping for the best either way
decision here from D brand as a company.
This was a a wacky little thing to be
learning about. Uh anyway, that's about
it. See you.