

The Fall jams your gun on jailbroken iOS devices - cobrausn
http://www.joystiq.com/2013/07/11/deus-ex-the-fall-jams-your-gun-on-jailbroken-ios-devices/

======
flyosity
So if someone buys the app legitimately from the App Store with a jailbroken
phone, they'll still get this popup? That's pretty ridiculous. This isn't
about stopping piracy or shaming pirates, it's a blanket accusation that all
iPhone owners who jailbreak their phones are thieves.

~~~
hahainternet
Counter argument: You can't legitimately buy from the App Store with a
jailbroken phone. Either you or the developer is violating the agreement you
have with Apple and in fact if you are in any way touching copyrighted code
then you can be charged with a crime. Fun times.

~~~
ihuman
Wrong. People who have a jailbroken phone CAN use the app store. Also,
jailbreaking (phones currently) is a DMCA exception.

~~~
hahainternet
Wrong. Jailbreaking phones may be a DMCA exception but if you copy any memory
of any sort then it becomes copyright infringement offences. See WOW Botnet
case.

~~~
ihuman
I don't know what you're talking about.

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/jailbreaking-
now-...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/jailbreaking-now-legal-
under-dmca-for-smartphones-but-not-tablets/)

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samweinberg
Legally purchase a $7 app and get screwed by the DRM.

Pirate a $7 app and subvert the DRM using a Jailbreak tweak like xCon.

It seems that this only hurts the legitimate users, as others will still be
able to pirate the app.

~~~
britta
Just to clarify what xCon does: it's intended for use with legally-purchased
App Store apps that refuse to work correctly on jailbroken devices - xCon
tricks those apps into thinking that they're running on non-jailbroken
devices.

So yes, the gun-jamming hurts legitimate users, but those legitimate users can
use xCon to work around it.

Here's some more documentation:
[http://theiphonewiki.com/wiki/XCon](http://theiphonewiki.com/wiki/XCon)

~~~
cheeze
Why would I want to support a developer that treats me as a criminal off the
bat? I might as well be a criminal and just pirate it at that point... Self
fulfilling prophecies at work.

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cobrausn
It looks like they decided to patch this 'feature' out of the game.

[http://kotaku.com/patch-will-give-jailbroken-deus-ex-
players...](http://kotaku.com/patch-will-give-jailbroken-deus-ex-players-the-
ability-757580067)

~~~
davidgerard
"We're sorta sorry we got caught."

~~~
ihuman
"but we're not sorry that we did it."

~~~
wmf
But their error message starts with "We are sorry"!

------
angrydev
More anti-consumer crap from SquareEnix. It's really a shame they are hellbent
on running their fantastic franchises into the ground.

~~~
venomsnake
Because there is someone of the big publisher that is consumer friendly?

Only indies seem to treat their customers with respect. That is why I buy all
bundles for at least a buck even if I have the games already.

------
rdl
How do you detect a jailbroken device from software? Presumably someone could
just patch that, but maybe that's a bit beyond what most people want to do.

~~~
samweinberg
There are quite a few different ways a Jailbroken device can be detected.

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/413242/how-do-i-detect-
th...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/413242/how-do-i-detect-that-an-sdk-
app-is-running-on-a-jailbroken-phone)

~~~
conradev
In fact, it can be an arms race at times. People can use insanely clever ways
to detect if the runtime is being modified, and then others can come up with
an equally clever solution to subvert this check.

~~~
chid
Such as xcon.

------
ctdonath
Given what one can do when trusting a walled garden, and can't without, is
there some reasonable concern critics overlook?

Say, apps having access to other apps' data could unfairly modify cached user
data, frustrating legitimate multiplayer gameplay? i.e.: write an app which
auto-maximizes all player capability stats?

To wit: cheats may become easy to perpetrate and hard to block when full
sandbox access is not prevented.

~~~
mikeash
You can access app data with a USB cable and the right PC software. Cheating
is already rampant in many games and it doesn't require jailbreaking.

------
jmduke
There's a lot of outrage about this -- a lot of frustrated consumers.

I think its naive to assume that Square-Enix didn't have data that said "Money
lost to pirates > Money to be gained from legitimate purchasers on jailbroken
devices."

That being said, pirates always seem to win the DRM-escalation arms race --
and the PR blowback from this will probably outweigh the extra purchases they
snag.

~~~
stcredzero
The reason why pirates seem to always win, is that it is highly asymmetric. To
do this correctly takes more patience and sneakiness than 90% of executives
have in the technology context. Not everyone can be Irwin Rommel or Laurence
of Arabia.

------
Zikes
They will be releasing an update to remove this:
[http://www.joystiq.com/2013/07/12/deus-ex-the-fall-update-
wi...](http://www.joystiq.com/2013/07/12/deus-ex-the-fall-update-will-unjam-
guns-on-jailbroken-ios-devic/)

~~~
Zikes
Their wording bugs me, as they show no remorse except that they did not make
this particular restriction known to people before they bought the game.

Essentially they're saying it would have been okay if they'd told everyone up
front, even though it's still tantamount to calling all those who jailbreak
their phones a thieving pirate.

~~~
reginaldo
I thought it was quite good, comparing tho most company statements I see. They
even used the word _apologize_. Most companies do not use such wording as it
might imply admission of guilt. That's why you see _regret_ instead of
_apologize_ in a lot of company issued statements...

------
mindslight
What is with the prevalence of always mentioning "jailbreaking will void your
warranty" completely out of the blue? It's not clear that it's actually true,
and being constantly repeated everywhere only works to make it true. The
manufacturer sold me a computer - installing software on it _is the expected
use_. We wouldn't say a laptop was out of warranty because someone nuked
Windows and put Linux on it.

Still, it's wise to jailbreak any device as soon as you get it. This way you
can be sure of having a jailbreak method, it's still in the return period, and
you won't end up becoming reliant on a locked down device and worried about
changing it.

~~~
marshray
Jailbreaking carries some risks to the user and this article is an example how
no one really understands these risks fully. Nevertheless, jailbreaking is
quite popular and it's something that ordinary iPhone users do. It's not just
hackers who have some idea what they're getting into. So it's worth reminding
readers that jailbreaking may bring your phone real economic consequenses.

Also, this is an article about how a bit of 3rd party software behaves on
jailbroken devices. It seems entirely relevant to discuss how Apple itself
views the practice.

~~~
stcredzero
The latest stat I've seen is that only 4% of iOS devices are jailbrokem.

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loki540
This seems like a really good way to invite a lot of 1-star reviews from angry
players with jailbroken phones...

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ricardobeat
A ridiculous attempt to prevent piracy? Jailbroken != pirated.

~~~
rocky1138
If they hadn't fixed this with a patch, I could see a class action lawsuit on
the horizon for fraud. You can't sell something as working when it is not.

~~~
chid
It is included in the description.

 __Please be aware, the Deus Ex: The Fall play experience is currently
restricted on jail broken devices. Do not purchase if you have voided your
warranty and have Jail broken your device.

I'm not sure whether that's exactly fraudulent (equivalent for people not
reading what devices an app supports and purchasing it)

------
egb
What I'd like to see is their analytics showing how many unique users are
playing the game compared with sales numbers from the App Store, to get the
actual percentage of piracy that's occurring.

Bonus points would be to show how many jailbroken users have purchased vs how
many have pirated. Not sure how'd you detect this without IAP and receipt
validation, though, given that that's the point of piracy...

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tricolon
The title of this submission should start with "Deus Ex:" since the game's
name is "Deus Ex: The Fall".

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83457
Does anyone know if this is a shooting optional stealth game? In other words,
essentially still playable with this restriction?

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stcredzero
This is doing it wrong. You must bias to false negatives. You must make the
initial impression and experience sacrosanct. You must avoid penalizing your
paying customers.

It's stupid to do this so obviously, so quickly, and for it to be triggered by
jail breaking. Jailbreak != piracy!

------
sergiotapia
Can you issue a chargeback if the publisher does not provide you with working
software?

~~~
rcfox
If you're buying from the App Store, this is probably a terrible idea. Other
software distributors (like Steam, for example) have been known to disable
people's accounts when they do a chargeback.

Chargebacks aren't just "I want my money back". They're meant to fight against
fraud, and there's an implicit indication that you won't be doing business
with that vendor any more because of this.

