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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.
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.
Yeah, modern politics and big corporations can't be adequately explained by stupidity though. At a certain point malice and greed are the only plausible explanations.
In this situation with D Brand, stupidity does seem adequate. It's a lot of stupidity, but definitely not an unbelievable amount, especially since they've been doing similar things without it really biting them in the ass until now.
Although, I guess whether or not it is just a PR stunt there was a certain amount of shadiness happening. Either directed at the public if it was, or intending to make unlicensed profit off of Valve's IP if it wasn't.
That PR person is over this shit lmao
Ok so leak the STLs from your R&D dept.
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.
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!
I hope they really gave that guy $10,000
My guess would be that it also involved more than a little bit of alcohol.
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
IIRC the original plates included trademarked logos belonging to Sony, and dbrand literally invited Sony to sue them in their marketing.
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.
This is a marketing stunt
That's Dbrands whole schtick. Not a fan of them at all.
Found the dbrand sock puppet.
Tell 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.
LOL I thought I was the only one that remembered the dark plates debacle
As someone with ADHD this triggers me. They are just dishonest, it doesn't have anything yo do with ADHD. They have a record.
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?
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).
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.
On brand, honestly. The cake is a lie. Companion cube incinerated. Waiting for Valve to put out a GLaDOS front plate now.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.