Ross Scott

Ross Scott (born December 28, 1982) is an American YouTuber and video game preservation activist. He is primarily known for his Half-Life machinima series Freeman's Mind and Civil Protection, as well as for starting the Stop Killing Games movement, which he remained active in as a figurehead since its inception in April 2024 until he stepped back in August 2025. Scott runs the YouTube channel Accursed Farms, which hosts episodes of Freeman's Mind, its sequel Freeman's Mind 2, Civil Protection, and a video game review series Ross's Game Dungeon.

Civil Protection is a machinima comedy series created by Scott, produced using Half-Life 2 and Source SDK.^[1][2] The series centers on the exploits of two Combine Civil Protection officers as they navigate a futuristic dystopia under rule by aliens. The show's comedy largely derives from the contrast between the mundanity of their jobs and the darkness of the setting, covering everything from routine patrol work to absurd events.^[1]

Elaborating on writing for Civil Proection, Scott wrote that the "cornerstone" of the series was "believable human behavior. Comic situations are funnier to me if the characters treat it the way real people would as opposed to trying to ham things up or make things seem too contrived."^[1] Scott called production of Civil Protection a complicated affair, akin to "creating a small mod for a game", with each episode taking between 70 and 80 hours per week to produce.^[3]

Civil Protection debuted in 2006 on the Machinima network to high praise.^[3][4] PopMatters's L. B. Jeffries called it "one of the sharpest comedy series on the machinima scene and for good reason: it's genuinely funny to non-gamers. ... [It] goes far beyond the initial trapping of in-game humor and uses its game-generated setting for a legitimate story".^[1]

Freeman's Mind is a machinima comedy series created by Scott, produced using the Source remake of the 1998 video game Half-Life.^[3] It follows the first-person perspective of the silent protagonist of the game, Gordon Freeman. Freeman is given a voice in the series by Scott, who acts as a combination of narrator and running commentary, often criticizing and satirizing the game world's conventions in a style similar to that in Mystery Science Theater 3000.^[1] According to Scott, the production workflow for Freeman's Mind was much simpler than that of Civil Protection, leading to episodes taking half as long to produce.^[3] Freeman's Mind ran from 2007 to 2014 and consisted of 71 episodes.^[a] In the same year, IGN reposted the series.^[5]

A sequel series, titled Freeman's Mind 2 set in Half-Life 2, debuted in 2017 and is still ongoing.^[6][7] Freeman’s Mind 2 also features modifications to the original maps, adding new or changing existing set pieces and adding entirely new areas.^[6]

Ross's Game Dungeon is a video game review series written and produced by Scott. Launched in 2013, episodes in the series have been uploaded exclusively to his YouTube channel Accursed Farms. The games showcased in Game Dungeon skew towards the obscure and forgotten, with many titles having been published in the 1990s.^[8] Many episodes in Game Dungeon also discuss the game industry itself and its practices.^[9] The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung praised the series, writing that it demonstrates Scott's "passion for gaming curiosities" and dedication to video game preservation.^[8]

Scott is critical of online-only games being shut down, describing the practice as an "assault on both consumer rights and preservation of media"^[10] and comparing it to movie studios during the silent film era "burning their own films after they were done showing them to recover the silver content", while also pointing out that "most films of that era are gone forever."^[11] In 2019, Scott made a video criticizing games as a service, calling it "fraud",^[12] and has been openly critical of the issue on Ross's Game Dungeon for several years prior.^[9]

In April 2024, after the shutdown of the 2014 video game The Crew, Scott launched the Stop Killing Games campaign through a video on his YouTube channel, simultaneously creating a website for the campaign.^[12] The movement encourages users to vote on petitions to force developers into providing ways to play games after the end of support, such as adding an offline mode or an ability to host private servers.^[13] He also encouraged multiple petitions for Stop Killing Games, such as the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Protection in France,^[10][14] the UK Parliament petition, and the European Citizens' Initiative in the European Union,^[11][15][16] the latter of which gained over 350,000 signatures in the first two months.^[17]

Scott expected the movement to fail when the European Citizens' Initiative stagnated at 45% of the amount necessary for government action to be taken, which he attributed in part to opposition and misinformation about the campaign by YouTuber Jason Hall, also known as PirateSoftware.^[18][19] The movement has seen success in Europe, where the European Citizens' Initiative closed with over 1.4 million signatures, 97% of which were considered to be valid.^[20][21][22] The movement has seen less success in the UK, which prompted a debate in UK Parliament following a petition of almost 190,000 signatures. The movement saw support by some members of parliament, but it was ultimately decided no changes would be made to UK law, stating that the government would instead work with game companies to ensure accurate information is provided to consumers.^[23][24]

Scott would figurehead this movement through videos uploaded to his YouTube channel and interviews with the press throughout 2024 and 2025.^[25][26][27] He would continue to do so until August 4, 2025, when he announced he would take a "standby break", in which he would only contribute to the campaign if something were to arise that he felt would benefit from his involvement.^[28][29][30]

Ross Scott was born December 28, 1982,^{[8][‡ 1]} in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.^{[‡ 2]} He grew up in Southwest Virginia, first in Roanoke, then in Blacksburg.^{[‡ 3]} Scott earned a bachelor's degree in criminal justice with a minor in psychology while working various odd jobs to support his tuition. Around the time of his graduation, Scott created Freeman's Mind series, which came out about eight years after the release of Half-Life.^[1]

Scott briefly lived in Los Angeles, California, starting in 2008 while working a full-time job at Machinima, Inc., to produce episodes of Freeman's Mind. He had previously worked for the company on a freelance basis since 2006.^[3] He produced roughly 60 videos for the Machinima network before abruptly quitting the company in 2013, citing a "unethical and predatory" workplace environment. He sued the company in the same year; the two parties settled out of court by the end of 2013.^[2] Scott currently resides in Poland.^[8]

In the text, these references are preceded by a double dagger (‡):