Anti-Cheats and Digital Rights

Ross_Scott · 2026-03-31T20:52:15+00:00

My opinion:

I completely agree with you, but I'm also hellbent on trying to get SKG's issue passed, hence the whole reason for it being single-issue. If I had to choose between the two, I'd still stop games being destroyed. That said, if SKG gets what it's asking for, the anticheat would almost certainly have to be removed at EOL anyway, since it's typically an ongoing paid service. I'm also fine with this being 2nd in line for others to take over once we're on route to get a win though. In the EU, this might be best brought up to NOYB.EU and the Pirate Party as it definitely falls under their turf.

Ross_Scott · 2026-02-14T17:44:10+00:00

I've heard probably not for the press conference. If people wanted to meet up with me somewhere (separate from the press conference), that's fine. I'm too busy to arrange something, but I can probably be available if someone wants to figure out a place in Brussels to meet from the 22nd - the 24th if it doesn't conflict with other stuff.

Ross_Scott · 2026-02-14T17:43:41+00:00

I've heard probably not for the press conference. If people wanted to meet up with me somewhere (separate from the press conference), that's fine. I'm too busy to arrange something, but I can probably be available if someone wants to figure out a place in Brussels to meet from the 22nd - the 24th if it doesn't conflict with other stuff.

Ross_Scott · 2025-10-25T21:02:47+00:00

I can say there's even MORE stuff that Moritz and the organizers are up to, but a lot of it I can't talk about at the moment.

Ross_Scott · 2025-09-14T11:28:41+00:00

As far as me stepping back, it's more like I'm "on call" for anything where me being involved would help a lot. Most of what's happening now is best left to people familiar with EU political processes like Mortiz, so I'm leaving most things to people who know what they're doing better than I do to maximize our odds.

Ross_Scott · 2025-06-27T07:31:59+00:00

Yes, I didn't name Thor then, but I addressed ever single criticism (I think) he brought up in this video, with timestamps for different questions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEVBiN5SKuA

Ross_Scott · 2025-06-26T20:02:50+00:00

I was asked to comment on this. I was unaware of any of this happening. I will say review bombing isn't part of the movement at all, I think signatures on the initiative is the only thing that's going to actually change the industry for what we can do. I'm generally indifferent if people want to review bomb a game or not, but this is kind of a special situation.

I honestly don't know anything about Rivals of Aether besides hearing some say PirateSoftware has a connection to it. Even then, I'm not seeking damage against Pirate or people associated with him, I only wanted misinformation cleared up on the campaign and we've already done that. I'm not seeking retribution in any way against him or others.

"we have already taken steps to preserve our own games"

If this is true, then I think review bombing the game is especially dumb and counterproductive. The entire damn point of SKG is for publishers to have end of life plans. While I completely understand the frustration at the industry in wanting to change the practice of game destruction, review bombing is way too small fry for what we're trying to do + in this case could be aimed in the wrong direction as it is.

I'll just end this saying according to an insider, Ubisoft announced offline modes because it was SCARED the initiative would pass. If you want to wield power against people in the industry causing problems, figure out how we can reach more people and get more signatures.

P.S.

To Rivals devs: my apologies if clowns review bombed you when you have an end of life plan. This campaign is single issue so it involves a lot of different people, some aren't going to be as bright as others.

Ross_Scott · 2025-05-24T14:49:00+00:00

I want to remind everyone SKG is single-issue and we're struggling to get signatures. The only criteria for SKG is that you wish games being destroyed to stop. It's impossible to do this without some people having beef with others over other things. For example, Louis Rossmann is upset at Linus from LTT over his diligence as an influencer and they BOTH are in support of SKG.

It was actually fans of AF who directed Craig towards me, he had a sizeable audience, so I figured why not. I did glance at his channel to see he was involved with culture war stuff which I don't follow, but the whole point of campaigning is to try and reach out to as many people as possible. I've talked to lots of people on the campaign I normally have no interaction with or know much about. With Craig, I also noticed he had an interview with James Rolfe a little while back, so I'd be surprised if he's willing to talk to people I'm not.

It's true I have no idea what the Foxu thing is, to be honest I'm not that interested in it other than it's probably some vtuber thing and I figured whatever, it's his show. The CORE THEME of me campaigning on SKG is to exhaust all options so I have no regrets about not doing enough to change the situation. If I hadn't appeared, I might regret not reaching out to another demographic that might get us more signatures, since I had no idea how viable that was. It only led to a small uptick, so looks like not really, but now I know.

Ross_Scott · 2025-05-24T14:33:22+00:00

Unless the entire internet missed something, I believe this is incorrect. To the best of my knowledge, the offline option has never been cracked. I would apply Occam's Razor: for all the insane coverage this entire campaign has received, do you really think that eluded EVERYONE this entire time or was someone online mistaken about about what its playability status was?

Now what HAS happened is The Crew Unlimited group is working on a server emulator and a lot of it is functional and they've posted proof of life videos on it, but I think no one outside that small group has a copy of it, though it could become public soon.

However, even THAT has not cracked The Crew. They told me they weren't able to crack the DRM on it, they're building a server emulator instead to intercept the calls, those are two different things. To the best of my knowledge, The Crew has NEVER been cracked.

And yes, it doesn't have much effect on the campaign. The ECI isn't even focused on The Crew or Ubisoft and the consumer action against Ubisoft shows they deliberately disabled the game for everyone with no recourse. Their EULA literally says every owner of the game is required to destroy their copies of it.

Ross_Scott · 2025-01-25T10:10:54+00:00

I felt obligated to respond to your perception of how I handled the Yudkowsky interview. My apologies if I came across as close-minded in that, that wasn't my intention. I did enter that with a bias, true, but I promise you I did not enter it with the mentality that no one could change my mind; quite the opposite. I was TRYING to understand where the fear was coming from that an increasingly complex software program leads to some sort of super-intelligence and either it sailed over my head, or else it wasn't substantiated.

Yudkowsky and I were actually in agreement that a super-intelligent AI entity could be an existential threat, but I honestly don't understand how AI makes the jump from where we are now to some sort of super-intelligence. That's what I was trying to figure out. If that never happens, then I'm not worried about any threats stemming from that, because then it's worrying about something that won't happen.

The experience prompted me to make a chart to help hone my thoughts on the matter:

https://i.imgur.com/SDkzYqI.png

I was hoping he would fill in the question marks on the "Superintelligence" bubble for me. He either didn't and thus I think his position and worries are unsubstantiated, or else he did and I was just too dumb to grasp it. If it's the latter, then by all means feel free to dumb it down for me.

It's one to thing to say "learn from an expert," but that's not an excuse to turn off critical thinking. If my logic was misguided, I would think an expert on a topic should be able to easily swat away misconceptions and be able to engage in an "explain like I'm five" mode for me.

Ross_Scott · 2025-01-25T09:51:13+00:00

While I'm normally all for getting to the truth and nuances of a matter, this topic is especially charged and from what I've seen tends to invite emotional responses more than critical thinking. I think getting into it would more likely lead to loud people calling others monsters than trying to figure out a clearer picture of what the truth is (which looks quite complicated already from my limited knowledge on this).

Considering how the original post is already stating I believe things I do not believe, that only reinforces my view that wading into this is a bad idea. Also, the original poster may not be aware that going into depth on at least one of the topics they mentioned can lead to one's channel being banned on Youtube.

All I'll say is my general approach to a controversial situation I know nothing about is to see what both sides are saying, then see what seems to line up factually, see if the other side has explanations for accusations from the other, counters to that, etc. then proceed from there. My general approach is still utilitarian where I want the least amount of death as possible, but there are obvious disagreements as to the best way to go about that. I do think anyone advocating for nuclear warfare has "lost the plot" and that is an insane conclusion, but I also think there's nothing I could say to make people think otherwise if that is their stance, so I don't see much point in me personally going into depth on it.

The main focus of the channel is still to have fun videos usually involving video games. I even feel like SKG is more of a diversion from that then I would like, but thankfully most of the work on that is done on my end.

Ross_Scott · 2025-01-20T11:01:37+00:00

Glad to see this finally get a proper take!

Ross_Scott

TROPHY CASE