The unlicensed Companion Cube engineered, illegally, for Valve’s Steam Machine will never go on sale again, with those who preordered already being refunded. But what about the handful that made it out of the door and into the hands of journalists, influencers, and content creators? Instead of becoming collector’s items, it seems they’re all being destroyed.
The fate of the existing Companion Cubes wasn’t covered in the lengthy statement describing the entire fiasco, which was published by manufacturer Dbrand earlier this week. But it seems that the company is requesting existing samples to be sent back to them so that they can be destroyed, mimicking the fate of many of the cubes across both Portal titles. At least that’s what’s happening to the sample sent to The Verge, who captured the entirety of the cube’s design and elaborate packaging before it was ripped away.
The detailing, from the Portal iconography to the actual reproduced cube itself, shows exactly why Valve would’ve been extremely irate at a company making money on one of its IP without consent. Dbrand admitted that it made a mistake attempting to sell the Steam Machine accessory without explicit permission from Valve, but also didn’t do itself any favors with the cube’s advertising, which even hints at a non-existent Half-Life 3.
The Steam Machine launches next week for those lucky enough to have secured the chance to throw lots of money Valve’s way, with the base 512GB model without a Steam Controller starting at $1,050. Valve says this is much more than it originally wanted the compact computer to cost, and cannot promise that it’ll come down in the future, either.
