You can now use Tim Sweeney's office as your teleconferencing background

(Image credit: Tim Sweeney)

Remember the big Unreal Engine 5 livestream from a few weeks ago, when Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney was telling us about triangles and meshes and nanite virtualized geometry, but we were all distracted by that plasma ball sitting in the middle of his floor like some misplaced portal into another dimension?

If, while watching that stream, you thought to yourself, "Man, I wish I had a '90s novelty product I could leave lying in the middle of the floor for no apparent reason," we can help—and by "we," I mean Gamespot, where you can pick up the official Tim Sweeney's Office Zoom background to use in your next online meeting. It won't actually put anything on your floor for people to trip over, but it may inspire a few of your coworkers to ask why you've got that thing sitting there.

And if you're curious about why Sweeney had that thing sitting there, the answer is actually quite simple: He explained in a Gamespot interview earlier this week that he knocked over his Diet Coke just before the start of the UE5 show, so he grabbed the plasma ball—"from Spencer's, at the mall"—and used it to cover the mess.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.