You Can Now 3D Print Your Own Steam Deck Case

I want to make something quite clear right off the bat here, folks. I do not know the first thing about computer aided design or 3D printing. I’ve never tried to rectify that, and I intend to make no effort to pretend otherwise. That’s why I think writing this article is going to be more than a bit tricky for me, but it’s on a topic I want to cover, so I’ll soldier on and do my best. I hope those of you who are more well-versed than I am in things like 3D printing and CAD might find the information contained within this article useful.

With that said, several outlets have reported upon the fact that Valve shared their CAD files for the upcoming handheld Steam Deck console. No, today isn’t the Steam Deck’s official February 28th release date, but if you have the necessary equipment, you can download those files in order to 3D print the outer case of that particular gaming device in the meantime. Around 2 PM Pacific time on February 11th, 2022, Valve announced that they have now made all necessary CAD files freely available under a Creative Commons license.

I shall now quote Valve’s announcement directly, which will require me to parrot a bunch of technical jargon at you. Valve stated the following within the blog post in question: “Today we’re making the CAD files for the external shell (surface topology) of Steam Deck available for download under a Creative Commons license. This includes an STP model, STL model, and drawings (DWG) for reference. We’re looking forward to seeing what the community creates!”

I don’t profess to know anything about what those files entail or how to actually use them. However, this move on Valve’s part seems to have been widely interpreted as a demonstration of Valve’s goodwill by the Steam community, so that’s definitely a good thing. I didn’t want to just abruptly end this article here, so I did a little digging in the comments on the blog post in which Valve made this particular announcement to see if I could find anything that would shed a little more light on this whole scenario for me.

Aside from all the obligatory, completely irrelevant comments about things like Dota 2 tournaments and the current state of Team Fortress 2, I found evidence of a tidbit contained within Valve’s Creative Commons license which states the following: “If you are interested in creating a commercial product based on the Materials, please get in touch with Valve.”

If it really is that simple, it certainly sounds like legitimate, custom-made Steam Deck cases may very well appear on shopping sites like Etsy. Moreover, if that’s the case, those who wish to make and sell such merchandise will have the same measurements and whatnot that Valve themselves used, so there shouldn’t be any discrepancies provided custom cases properly adhere to those CAD files. For my part, I’ll still have to wait until I can actually afford a Steam Deck of my own before I even think about commissioning any custom accessories for it, but now I’m even more excited for the device’s launch.