Ross Scott keeps fighting for our digital rights

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

He was just in front of the EU Parliament, debating the issue of digital rights and game preservation:

https://twitter.com/x/status/2044944431380398445

Godspeed, Ross

 

[BrawlMan]

I found out last week. Keep fighting Scott! We are with you!

 

[Netra]

It's very sad for me that only 1.2 million European players bothered to sign, to the point that the petition almost didn't pass.

I know there must be over 1 million Steam players in Spain alone, not to mention Germany and France. And I mention Steam because we're among the group of people who actually find out about these things and bother to at least click on a link, unlike other, more complacent communities.

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

It's very sad for me that only 1.2 million European players bothered to sign, to the point that the petition almost didn't pass.

I know there must be over 1 million Steam players in Spain alone, not to mention Germany and France. And I mention Steam because we're among the group of people who actually find out about these things and bother to at least click on a link, unlike other, more complacent communities.

I mean... They needed to reach minimal thresholds in at least seven countries, so getting a bunch of signatures from just one or two places wouldn't have helped, but I completely agree — many European gamers dropped the ball hard or were misled by a certain fatso, and that's simply not good.

Thankfully, support did show up in the end, even if at the "cost" of fulfilling Ross's half-joking prophecy of having the world think that PewDiePie did it.

 

[Dakarus]

I just want to play Gotham City Impostors again

 

[adamalons]

I just want to play Gotham City Impostors again

It's unofficial, but last I checked Gotham City Imposters has fan run servers that were active earlier this year at least.

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

Reading more and more replies to that Tweet, I'm disheartened by just how many people STILL DON'T GET IT — How's getting robbed not an issue for such vast swathes of people?

And the things they come up with to try and derail the conversation are either complete BS or senseless parroting of someone else's bad-faith arguments.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I hope law-makers have more sense than the citizens they represent.

 

[Vreeves]

It's very sad for me that only 1.2 million European players bothered to sign, to the point that the petition almost didn't pass.

I know there must be over 1 million Steam players in Spain alone, not to mention Germany and France. And I mention Steam because we're among the group of people who actually find out about these things and bother to at least click on a link, unlike other, more complacent communities.

It's even more sad that we have to fight for basic consumer rights in 2026.

 

[Zerpina]

Ya Ross even said he never thought this would really go anywhere some time ago....
He is a good dude, from what Waffles has told me, kind of guy who would joke with you and have a drink with you. From what I gather, he seems to be a genuinely good person, and I wish him all the best with this...

Because if this passes, a whole lot of companies will be up the proverbial shit creek without a paddle.

 

[ThatOneLum]

I hope to see his work go somewhere.

Even though I rarely enjoy online-only games, I liked his fight to force companies to offer their older games in a working state after dropping support.

I think most games should offer private servers that users can host themselves, especially if they don't want to run a game any more.

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

What pisses me off the most is not that we are asking for our rights to be respected (although, that also gets me going), but that we aren't asking for anything NEW.

From my recent article: remember buying Half-Life/Counter-Strike? You could go on to official servers to play it, you could set up a LAN game, or you could download some bots and play by yourself, and this wasn't anything deep or hidden — you were literally given the tools to do so with your basic installation! How come that was all well and good in 2002 but is unthinkable now? Fuck off.

 

[Zerpina]

What pisses me off the most is not that we are asking for our rights to be respected (although, that also gets me going), but that we aren't asking for anything NEW.

From my recent article: remember buying Half-Life/Counter-Strike? You could go on to official servers to play it, you could set up a LAN game, or you could download some bots and play by yourself, and this wasn't anything deep or hidden — you were literally given the tools to do so with your basic installation! How come that was all well and good in 2002 but is unthinkable now? Fuck off.

The problem is, when they give you all the tools.... let's use the game that got Ross started with this, Ubisoft's The Crew, if they provided the entire open toolset, they would be more worried that there might be a line of code later on they want to use, or that you might somehow infringe on their I.P. by using it.

At least this is the slimy, snake-oil excuse they use, or some variation of it. Also, they might be thinking about other I.P.'s, such as McDonald's, cellphone companies, etc. They don't want to have to go back, pay someone to remove or replace these, so people can freely play the game they've paid for. It's a shitty way to run things, and they don't care. They've already got your money, so as far as they're concerned, you can go get royally fucked....

But again, it all boils down to greed.
Again, I hope Ross wins this because, and I am Paraphrasing here, when it starts in the UK/EU, it will create a domino effect and will affect every gaming company in the world

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

The problem is, when they give you all the tools.... let's use the game that got Ross started with this, Ubisoft's The Crew, if they provided the entire open toolset, they would be more worried that there might be a line of code later on they want to use, or that you might somehow infringe on their I.P. by using it.

I have no doubt that that's how they operate, but it just highlights how narrow-minded and irresponsible - or even downright clueless - some developers truly are.

For you (the costumer) to even get your hands on that one, troublesome line of code, a design document would have to be written and approved by the developer, then passed on to the publisher, and finally given to the chief engineer and all the programmers to code into the final product. Sounds like a lot of steps required to fuck up, and that's the offspring of carelessness and disinterest, not burnout or anything like that. We are paying with our rights just so they can be content with fucking up.

Also, they might be thinking about other I.P.'s, such as McDonald's, cellphone companies, etc. They don't want to have to go back, pay someone to remove or replace these, so people can freely play the game they've paid for. It's a shitty way to run things, and they don't care. They've already got your money, so as far as they're concerned, you can go get royally fucked....

I'd agree a 100%, had it not been for the fact that EA of all companies went back and removed all Cingular ads from Carbon/Most Wanted when they merged those into Need For Speed World — it CAN be done, but they, again, just don't care.

But again, it all boils down to greed.
Again, I hope Ross wins this because, and I am Paraphrasing here, when it starts in the UK/EU, it will create a domino effect and will affect every gaming company in the world

This will open more doors than a fucking SWAT raid.

 

[Netra]

I mean... They needed to reach minimal thresholds in at least seven countries, so getting a bunch of signatures from just one or two places wouldn't have helped, but I completely agree — many European gamers dropped the ball hard or were misled by a certain fatso, and that's simply not good.

Thankfully, support did show up in the end, even if at the "cost" of fulfilling Ross's half-joking prophecy of having the world think that PewDiePie did it.

Untill the last 2 months the petition was signed only for 700k EU gamers, this almost not even pass the first phase, no one care about this and this is really bad.

Post automatically merged: Apr 17, 2026

It's even more sad that we have to fight for basic consumer rights in 2026.

And what?.