If there were anyone who needed to hire a PR firm to handle all of their public-facing communications, Tim Sweeney is it, because every time I read a news article that starts “Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney Says…”, it is always (from my memory, at least) the dumbest and/or most infuriating bullshit you’ve ever heard from someone who is, notionally, supposed to sell customers on their products or services.

I, for one, would be in favor of selling physical PC games on flash drives. Like, flash drives are (were? not sure how bad the chip shortage has hit them, if at all) dirt cheap, and even the biggest games today generally don’t go far beyond 128GB (not counting post-launch patches), and I can find 128GB flash drives retailing for $10 right now at Micro Center. I assume a big enough publisher buying in bulk could get them far cheaper and more price optimized for this specific use case, and 256GB drives for even larger games for not much more. It would be more expensive than discs or cards, true; but not every PC has a disc drive or SD card reader, every PC these days has USB ports and most of them have USB 3.0 now. And still being smaller and more durable than a disc the same way cards are, could save on packaging costs if they optimized the packaging for it.

I also feel that people buying physical PC games are usually enthusiasts willing to pay a premium, anyhow, and giving them a reasonably nice flash drive with the game on it would feel more “substantial” than just getting a card or disc in a plastic case.

Seriously, dude above you forgot the series that made Bungie a name almost every gamer is aware of in the same way we’ve pretty much all heard of, say, id or Bethesda. Halo was in no way “smaller scope” or focused only on singleplayer (at least, it definitely wasn’t after CE), Halo was the reason most people bought an Xbox. People who were camping outside fucking GameStop for the launch of (insert favorite Halo here) will remember this well.

I’m just saying that there are no innocent people likely to be invited to such a convention (reading the guest list included in that article, this suspicion seems to hold true – the ADL, the Cato Institute, the Koch Foundation – ew.), and the Irish have a history of asymmetric warfare and resistance against the powerful that gets results and doesn’t solely cause tragedy. They certainly seem to be much better at it than we Americans are. And having advance notice of when and where such a gathering is could be useful to the right person in the right place at the right time.

wishful thinking on my part, but god, how often do you hear “a great number of rich and powerful evil bastards ruining the planet, most of the ones worth knowing, are going to be gathering at this time and place” and not wish for something to happen? An asteroid. A car bomb. A sinkhole swallows their hotel. Something.

A source separately provided WIRED with the registration list for Dialog’s 2026 retreat, which names 222 people and records what the list describes as each registrant’s membership status and attendee type, including “active member” and “guest.” The retreat is scheduled for August 12-16 at a venue near Dublin, Ireland.

some pissed off Irishmen have what is, quite possibly, the best chance to do the funniest thing about the state of the world.

beep boop, son, beep boop.

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Please use your thinking meat parts to communicate with your fellow meat creatures, or don’t communicate at all.

some services are not worth paying for – movie/tv streaming services, for instance.

Some services, on the other hand, are not worth not paying for. A decent VPN is one of them.