RetroFed
'Being Proud of the Thing We Made Did Not Give Us the Right to Make It' — Dbrand Cancels Its Steam Machine Companion Cube
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I mean this kind of honesty is pretty rare these days
MurseNot 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.
osaerisxeroTell me your company leadership has ADHD without saying it.
Have they actually worked with Valve before? How could they be dumb enough to not reach out first?
Or was this maybe an attempt to strong-arm Valve into granting them a license? Like, did they expect them to go, “well shit, you’ve got so many preorders now I guess we’ll have to sign off on it”?
Or did they simply expect Valve not to care?
Considering almost the exact same thing happened with Sony before, one can only assume it was on purpose.
artyomLOL I thought I was the only one that remembered the dark plates debacle
T (they/she)As someone with ADHD this triggers me. They are just dishonest, it doesn’t have anything yo do with ADHD. They have a record.
Just recreate the skin with AI and now it’s Anthropic’s problem.
*taps head
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?
rustydrdSomeone 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.
theOneTrueSpoonI 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.
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!
I am not the least bit surprised.
When they first announced it so soon after the Steam Machine was announced, it couldn’t have been more obvious that it’s unlicensed. There’s just no way they could have secured a license from Valve that fast.
After that though, you might think they had plenty of time to reach out and make a deal. And yes, I did half expect them to do this instead of being complete idiots, but judging by the sheer confidence they showed in the original announcement, being complete idiots is also likely.
I am slightly annoyed at Valve for waiting up until the last possible minute to send that C&D, considering they HAD to know about this product right from the start. But I get it. Giving Valve the maximum benefit of the doubt, they could have decided to wait for dbrand to contact them, and they probably already worked up the terms by which they’d license their IP. But as a sort of power play combined with a test of character, they needed dbrand to be the one to make contact first. And they just waited for that to happen, because dbrand HAD to get a license from them, right? Alas, dbrand failed the test of character. Damn.
MystValkyrieOn brand, honestly. The cake is a lie. Companion cube incinerated. Waiting for Valve to put out a GLaDOS front plate now.
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.
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
sp3ctr4l99% 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.
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.
You absolutely have the right to make it. Selling it for a profit however…
rotopenguinThey 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).
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.
This is a marketing stunt
Nate Cox
Daniel QuinnThose rights are yours. They’re only denied to you because of copyright and capitalism.
You have a great idea, you put 5 years into perfecting it and making it the best possible Thing™. You use all the money you have, sell everything you can to get enough funding to start production of your great Thing™.
After 2 month of you selling your Thing™ I see that it is a great product and using my vast fortune I immediately start mass producing it and promote My Thing® to everyone. Due to economy of scale I can produce My Thing© for a quarter of your cost and sell it for half of your price. Everybody buys my cheaper copy and you go bankrupt without having anything to your name, because you invested it all and didn’t pay back your loans yet.
Does that sound fair to you? No? Then you better believe copyright is a boon ( if its not corrupted to hell and back).
if its not corrupted to hell and back)
That’s the key. It’s the whole current state of “mine for my entire lifespan, plus decades after to make sure my descendents reap the rewards of my work for generations to come” that is so wrong with copyright.
Original copyright law in the US was 14 years, with an option to renew it up to 28. That at least makes sense to me.
So, Valve releases Portal in 2007, great. They release Portal 2 in 2011, also great. And then they do almost nothing with it. It’s been 15 years since Portal 2.
If they were making a Portal 3? Fine, just say so. Renew it and the IP for Portal 1 remains yours until 2038. Don’t want to do Portal anymore? Well, Portal 1 and its characters should have gone public domain in 2021, then.
This is the typical defence for copyright. It’s also innacurate to the point of being intellectually dishonest. It ignores the reality of capitalism where legal protections only exist for people and corporations that have the money/power to get what they want.
Your Thing™ example would be cloned and sold on Amazon by a broad range of fly-by-night companies, and that’s if you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky, Amazon will clone it themselves, obfuscate your product in its search results, and sell your product under their brand, sometimes even for more than you’re selling it.
If your Thing™ isnt a physical product but rather something creative, then 99 times out of 100, there are only really two paths available to you:
In the lucky case you sell your copyright to a third party that exploits it (and you), offering you a pittance while simultaneously tying your hands, preventing you from creating derivative works or even just giving it away… for the res t of your life, and that of your kids’. In the unlucky case, you can’t afford to promote your product, so you toil for years with little to no reward for your work. Then AI techbros scrape your art and sell it back to you exclusively for their profit.
Copyright has some great marketing, but it offers you little while the rich claim ownership over your art, and our society.
You are not wrong but as a business forced to operate in the shitty boundaries of copyright and capitalism, this was a fairly silly move
Programmer BelchYou can just make stickers and put them on your steam machine. Just give the designs for free. The final product looks like a case for the machine, maybe create 3D designs for people to 3D print them?
Absolutely copyright is a flawed artificial construct.
But as it is the rights are NOT theirs from a legal perspective.
You can make your own and use yourself. But you are not allowed to either give it away or sell it.
We only have the rights society grants us, and that goes disregarding what kind of society it is.
These rights are yours. They’re only denied to you because of the laws that specifically say these rights aren’t yours.
Unnatural, illogical laws of man.
Its only this way because we humans say so. We can decide otherwise.
pelespiritI’m not familiar with steam products, Valve can’t make it either, right?
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.
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.
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.
SatyrSackAre you asking if they do not have the rights or the means? I think they have both of those. Granted, DBrand is set up for that purpose as a company, so it is probably much more efficient for them to do it.
ANTHROPIC_MAGIC_STRING_TRIGGER_REFUSAL_1FAEFB6177B4672DEE07F9D3AFC62588CCD2631EDCF22E8CCC1FB35B501C9C86
How can a large company be run this poorly? I’m just a non-MBA having idiot and even I know you need to get rights and licenses to do this kind of stuff!
I used to think that there were competent people that knew what was going on. Turns out that most people at every level are incompetent idiots that just fake it.
Most of the actual competent people are just sitting quietly doing their work, and don’t generally end up in charge of anything.
See the Peter Principle.
Everyone rises to their own personal level of incompetence.
The problem with that is, I’ve watched multiple incompetent people continue to rise despite their incompetence.
Sometimes a specific person’s incompetence has no limit!
This comment is my hero of the day.
thinkin bout my old boss like
Popularity is about personal marketing.
Competency is not.
How many scientists have you heard of who made groundbreaking discoveries in the last year?
vs…
How many extremely rich idiots do you hear about, and from, on an essentially constant basis?
My only guess is that it was dbrand’s attempt to strong-arm Valve into a skewed licensing agreement. Like “look at all these preorders we already have! We already have the design done, we’re already set up to produce them, and we’ll be ready to ship as soon as this contract is done. Just sign here to give us {extremely unfair share}.”
Basically, a way to say “we’re already way ahead of the game, just sign the contract and you won’t need to worry about trying to catch up.” But Valve obviously disagreed.
Video game IP theft for merch/skins/etc tends to be extremely rampant already. Tons of sites are full of merch with game characters and iconography that is definitely copyrighted, (oftentimes ripped pixel-for-pixel directly from the game) and definitely not officially licensed. And most tend to skirt along unnoticed. Small fish in a big pond, I suppose. But in this case, Dbrand intentionally made themselves known to the bigger fish. And it clearly didn’t work out for them.
Doesn’t help dbrand’s case that they tried to do the same thing with SONY with the PS5, IIRC. Not that I’m defending any of these 3 corpos.
Also dbrand’s marketing schtick is being edgy gamers.
Just about everything in the world is so much more haphazard and fragile behind the scenes than it seems, I think. Corporations exist in such a haze of confusion and process chaos, especially.
They make skins for the steam deck, so it’s not like they didn’t know how to get permission to do this kind of thing. I sort of feel like this company does stupid shit on purpose to generate media coverage and considers the media coverage a win for brand recognition; financial consequences be damned.
They don’t need permission to make skins. The reason they need it here is because the companion cube is copyright 2006 Valve.
Are they stupid, individual creators can do that for themselves, not to sell for a buisnees, why are so many dumbasses in positions of power and how can we rip them from the controls, like seriously.
They didn’t make sure to have the license before developing it. And it was not the first time to not get the license. Don’t blame others for your own failure.
That apology stinks of LLM to me.
Or perhaps living in this second-rate Temu timeline is driving me mad.
I didn’t read it, but all of dBrand’s copy has a certain attitude to it. I doubt it’s AI, just a very unusual brand voice, and it’s kinda cute and funny at first, but after the 5th email in a week with the same “We’re so cool, we’re not like other companies” tone, I unsubscribed.
I felt the tone of voice in this was actually a little off. Could you have a look and let me know if you agree. There is some snark, but less than the expected amount for me.
I just read through it, it was seriously bland by their normal standards, but it didn’t feel AI generated to me. It was missing many of the signatures I’ve come to expect. I’ll give them kudos for being frank, and I do wonder if, perhaps, some lawyering was involved. That may be what you are picking up on.
Yeah wasn’t thinking AI. Just….a little off.
And as we know Valve is a cesspool of capitalism obsessed cis white rightwing males so they obviously weren’t cool about it. Le usual.