Holy shit.
Okay, so the Steam Machine is about to come out, and Dbrand decides that it's going to make a custom skin/case/whatever for it. Great, sure, that's what Dbrand does. And what form does it take? Well, obviously the Companion Cube from Portal.
They do a whole launch video, as if it's from Aperture Science, with the logos and references and everything. Really going all-in.
This isn't just a render, either - they've fully made the thing, spent all the money on the engineering and molds and whatever. They send some to various YouTubers, and they take pre-orders which go VERY well.
And then Valve calls up and says "Hey uh, you know you don't have the rights to any of this, don't you?"
THEY NEVER FUCKING ASKED FOR THE RIGHTS. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK? THAT'S STEP ONE! THAT'S THE FIRST THING YOU HAVE TO DO!
Absolutely wild. I'm just DYING to know how this happened. Did a company that has already been in this business for many years and which for sure has a legal department just assume it would be fine? Did they all think someone else had already gotten permission?
Amazing. Incredible.
Here's the explanation, from their point of view.
