Deus Ex: The Fall Disables Weapons on Jailbroken Devices

[Amir Kondori]

That is 100% ridiculous. If they want to put in something that tries and determine if the copy is pirated that is one thing, I don't think it is the best way to combat piracy but at least they would be targeting the right people.

But a jailbroken phone does not in anyway translate into "anything on it must be pirated". Either these guys don't understand what jailbreaking is or they just don't mind breaking the game for a large portion of their player base, as core gamers are among the most likely to jailbreak.

 

[Unsilenced]

The fact that they didn't come forward and say, up front, that you couldn't play it on a jailbroken system makes it inexcusable in my book. If it had come with a warning, WILL NOT WORK ON JAILBROKEN SYSTEMS. DO NOT BUY IF YOU JAILBROKE YOUR SYSTEM, then fuck it. It'd be stupid, but it'd be their choice to make.

But as far as I'm aware, aside from possibly something in the EULA, there was no warning that jailbroken system owners would be throwing their money into the shitter. If you're going to deny someone access to your product, you should probably tell them before they fucking /pay for it/.

 

[Aramis Night]

In my experience one of the biggest reasons people jailbreak/root their smartphones is just to get rid of all the useless bloatware they force you to keep on your phone that uses up your system resources. Pirating apps isn't really a prime consideration and besides, there isn't much to stop you from using pirated apps on a non-rooted phone. People just want the ability to actually utilize the phone specs they purchased rather then the 1/2 specs the bloatware allows you to use. My phone came with at least 1/3rd of its internal data storage full of apps i have no use for whatsoever, i have to root to uninstall them so i can actually put more apps i want to use in and not have all my ram filled up thanks to updates everytime i turn on the 4g for internet on apps i dont use (i mean seriously, a nascar app?!).

 

[rob_simple]

Quick question: I bought my iPhone second-hand online, and I'm pretty sure it's been changed to take a SIM card from any network rather than who the phone was originally sold by. Is this the same as jailbreaking?

I just want to know so I can avoid shit like this if I ever decide to take up gaming on my iPhone.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

Looks like it's standard procedure for companies not to tell their customer that they're going to deny their right to use content they paid for if they 1. Don't match the ridiculous requirements or 2. Don't install their bullshit DRM, whether it's SecuRom or even Steam. Hell, Steam is awesome, but there have been complaints from people who didn't realize their on-disk content needed to validated, and then that they needed to download the rest of the game with their horrible internet connections.

 

[Steven Bogos]

This is a pretty big dick move, especially since Jailbreaking is completely legal. Really fucking weak play from square enix on this one, punishing legitimate users who simply like to customize their phones. Personally, I rooted my android phone to get rid of all the bullshit bloatware my carrier put on there. Should I be punished because I want to get the most out of the device which i OWN??

iPhone is even worse. No-one actually owns an iPhone. You just lease it from Apple.

 

[Rellik San]

Yeah no, I'm with Square Enix on this one.

I've never met anyone who didn't use a jailbroken to get free music, apps, etc.

Besides, its kinda funny.

So if I customise my PC to run more effectively and to my liking, I shouldn't be allowed to play games and other media on it?

Because that's effectively what you've said, that anyone who custom builds their PC then runs Linux/Ubuntu on it shouldn't be allowed media... regardless of if they've paid for it or not?

Except people don't "build" iphones so your comparison is without merit.

You're quite right, my analogy needs work.

So here I'll refine it to be more precise: It's in effect saying if I modify my Windows OS in anyway (say setting up specific program boot orders, using a custom interface, running VLC player instead of Windows Media Player), that all games and other media should lock me out, because not using windows in the pre-approved Microsoft way means I'm more likely to pirate, regardless of if I've paid for the media.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

I think if you're going to buy into a device which is very clearly intended to be a closed system that you should not be surprised that there will be consequences when breaking that system.

If you don't like the philosophy of the closed system, then don't buy it. No one forced you to get an iphone.

If you were talking about consequences like bricking your phone in the process of jailbreaking or fucking it with custom software then I'd be inclined to agree. But as the article says, jailbreaking isn't illegal so anyone who does it shouldn't expect to be treated like criminal for buying a game on a device that could use pirated software. Besides, its not like android phones are fully open either. You either have to root them or pay $600-$700 for an unlocked version

When did kids get to be such corporatists? I never figured younger gamers would be so conservative.

Its sad but most people eventually want something they can't buy (like an old game or a software feature that doesn't work on locked devices) so they'll resort to piracy or hacking or something and they'll realize how stupid it is for hardware and software companies to use things like drm and locked devices in the first place

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Quick question: I bought my iPhone second-hand online, and I'm pretty sure it's been changed to take a SIM card from any network rather than who the phone was originally sold by. Is this the same as jailbreaking?

I just want to know so I can avoid shit like this if I ever decide to take up gaming on my iPhone.

If they had to change the software to accept the card then yeah I think is. I'm not really an apple person though. I'd google "how to use a sim card from any network on an iphone" and the results should tell you if you needed to jailbreak or not

 

[MHzBurglar]

Quick question: I bought my iPhone second-hand online, and I'm pretty sure it's been changed to take a SIM card from any network rather than who the phone was originally sold by. Is this the same as jailbreaking?

I just want to know so I can avoid shit like this if I ever decide to take up gaming on my iPhone.

If they had to change the software to accept the card then yeah I think is. I'm not really an apple person though. I'd google "how to use a sim card from any network on an iphone" and the results should tell you if you needed to jailbreak or not

There's a difference between carrier unlocking and rooting/jailbreaking. Carrier unlocking is usually accomplished by using a built-in feature that allows the user to enter an unlock code to lift the phone's hardware-level restriction to block SIM cards from other carriers. Generally, doing this will leave the operating system itself alone and software/apps will not be aware of nor care that this has been done.

Rooting/jailbreaking refers to modifying the phone's operating system to gain root (administrator) access to the underlying Linux-based operating system and, with that elevated level of access, gaining additional control over the operating system itself to bypass built-in restrictions.

In this case the software shouldn't care if your phone is carrier unlocked as long as the operating system is not jailbroken.

Please note: I am writing this from an Android perspective as I refuse to touch anything made by Apple.

--------------

Now, all of that aside, I do not agree with this practice one bit. I run a rooted Andorid device to have access to additional features and a smoother experience, but I pay for all of my apps to support the developers. Square-Enix pulled this same stunt with Chaos Rings being gimped to not run on rooted Android devices regardless of whether or not you legitimately paid for it (and it was/is a $15 game!) The Android dev community came up with a workaround (albeit an inconvenient one that required a root on/off toggle and a phone reboot.)

Square-Enix eventually changed their tune on rooted devices after poor sales and tons of 1-star reviews. You'd think they would have learned.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Oh wow, so not only to Squeenix lose out on many customers by only supporting the 2nd most popular smartphone platform, even that one platform has less users able to play the game?

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Quick question: I bought my iPhone second-hand online, and I'm pretty sure it's been changed to take a SIM card from any network rather than who the phone was originally sold by. Is this the same as jailbreaking?

I just want to know so I can avoid shit like this if I ever decide to take up gaming on my iPhone.

If they had to change the software to accept the card then yeah I think is. I'm not really an apple person though. I'd google "how to use a sim card from any network on an iphone" and the results should tell you if you needed to jailbreak or not

There's a difference between carrier unlocking and rooting/jailbreaking

Ah. Some of these terms get confusing. I had an Apple user friend explain it to me but I like Android better so I never really cared to remember

Now, all of that aside, I do not agree with this practice one bit. I run a rooted Andorid device to have access to additional features and a smoother experience, but I pay for all of my apps to support the developers. Square-Enix pulled this same stunt with Chaos Rings being gimped to not run on rooted Android devices regardless of whether or not you legitimately paid for it (and it was/is a $15 game!)

Wow seriously? Anyone could have side-loaded a cracked version of the app on a non-rooted handset and played the game unhindered. What a bunch of idiots. Luckily we have the power of reviews and nost people won't give a 2 or 3 star app a second glance

 

[Chairman Miaow]

Honestly if I had bought it and this happened to me, I would get a refund and then pirate it. (probably not, but I would definitely get the refund.) No way would I give money to somebody who pulled that shit.

 

[Something Amyss]

IT's confirmed and already fixed: http://forums.imore.com/jailbreaking-unlocking-hacks-themes-mods/258945-deus-ex-has-jailbreak-code-here-how-fix.html

via @Totalbiscuit.

Totalbiscuit posted that? I'm surprised. I would assume he'd do a fifteen minute tirade on how jailbroken devices are hurting the industry because ponies, and delete any comments that questioned it.

 

[Weaver]

Such bullshit. Imagine if you had a game that wouldn't start because it detected you had an ISO mounting program on your PC? In that case, at least you could uninstall the program.

I'm not sure if you realize that is exactly what happened if you tried play certain securom games a few years back. Obviously if you have a ghost drive on your PC you are a dirty pirate/cheater in Battlefield 2, the online game with cd keys tied to your account. I know other DRM did it as well.

CD drives are loud, why would I want to have the cd for the game that is already installed left in a drive to verify I own the game that I needed to register a CD-key to an email account to play online.

Now that you mention it, ths does seem vaguely familiar.
I think Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory did it and used starforce. I'm totally don't remember BF2 doing it, and I played that quite a bit. But, my memory is pretty bad (as seems evident).

 

[Seydaman]

Why the hell would game developers do this? It's none of their concern if a device has been jailbroken..

It's rather funny, cracking teams often do things like this because it's like a race, who can get the crack out faster than anyone else. Try to find a small title with no DRM, it's hard as hell. Remember The Witcher 2? Had no drm on the GoG version, and that version barely made it to the Pirate Bay, while the DRM version did, and was cracked of course.

A lot of the time it's not even about getting to play games for free (For the warrez teams), but just getting the prestige. Hell, a lot of torrents lately say "Like the game? Buy it!" at the bottom.

(From what I understand, I might just be wildly miss-informed)

What does this has to do with devs restricting their game for jailbroken devices?

DRM is restriction. Maybe I'm just rambling, I do that. Or maybe the point was that by having any restriction, jailbroken or otherwise, they promote piracy.