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Square Enix Reverses Course on 'Deus Ex' Anti-Jailbreak Code

Friday July 12, 2013 1:14 pm PDT by Jordan Golson
Yesterday it was reported that users who purchased the new game Deus Ex: The Fall were unable to properly play the game on jailbroken devices because of an anti-piracy measure. Users were prevented from firing any guns, a key part of the game.

Today, Square Enix has apologized for not properly communicating that the game would not work on jailbroken devices and has announced that it will rectify the issue in a future software update, Eurogamer reports.

Deusexjailbreak
Publisher Square Enix issued this statement:
We have not been clear in our communication earlier this week when we launched Deus Ex: The Fall. We did not state clearly that the game would not support jailbroken devices and so we will be switching this off via an update, so that all the supported iOS devices will be able to play the game in the near future.

We feel it's the right thing to do in this situation and apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused. No customer should be out of pocket when we were not clear from the start, so we'll get the game updated as soon as possible so that everyone who wants to play Deus Ex: The Fall can do regardless of whether their device is jailbroken or not. As soon as this update is live we will communicate this via the Eidos Montreal Community channels.


[ 170 comments ]


Top Rated Comments

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invalidname
74 months ago
All iOS pirates are jailbreakers, but not all jailbreakers are pirates.
Rating: 33 Votes
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Michael Goff
74 months ago

I dont understand why companies do this, as long as they are getting the money for the app. Can someone fill me in on how this works anyway?


The idea was to try to stop people from being able to side-load the app when a person hasn't paid for it... you know, theft.
Rating: 27 Votes
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cclloyd
74 months ago
They realized that too many people were asking for returns. If they are asking for a return that means they actually bought the game. Then they realized "Wait, the jailbreakers are actually buying our game".
Rating: 20 Votes
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mike...
74 months ago

jailbroken iphones can download and play the game illegally.


Yeah well PCs and Macs can download and play games illegally. That doesn't stop people making games for them! To assume that all jailbreakers are pirates is completely wrong.
Rating: 16 Votes
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macs4nw
74 months ago
They couldn't afford to antagonize such a large chunk of their customers.....
Rating: 13 Votes
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bassfingers
74 months ago

There are many ways they can accomplish this without restoring to these kinds of tactics.

That being said, this comes too little, too late, I will not buy any of their games. The kind of mentality that has to exist to enact this in the first place demonstrates that the company does not really care about it's users.


Wow, chill
Rating: 9 Votes
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komodrone
74 months ago
looks like our jailbroken devices can still fire...fire square-enix employees.
Rating: 9 Votes
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pgiguere1
74 months ago
This fits well with my previous theory:

I don't get this. How is it helping Eidos at all?

[LIST=1]
* Those who have jailbroken iPhones but planned to buy the game will not = lost sales.
* Those who have jailbroken iPhones and planned to pirate the game will not = no consequence on sales.
* Some Deus Ex fans who planned to buy it may remove their jailbreak just to buy it = no consequence on sales.
* Some Deus Ex fans who planned to pirate it may remove their jailbreak just to buy it = sales gain.


Basically, case 2 and 3 have no effect and the number of people from case 1 is undoubtely significantly higher than those in case 4. Which means the overall result is lost sales.

My guess is that they're doing it for free publicity, so that their game gets mentionned on tech websites (see, it worked here). I see no other logical explanation.


Now that they've had the free publicity (twice), they want to avoid the lost sales.

Makes sense.
Rating: 8 Votes
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komodrone
74 months ago

I dont understand why companies do this, as long as they are getting the money for the app. Can someone fill me in on how this works anyway?


jailbroken iphones can download and play the game illegally.

EDIT
-----
and apparently several people on macrumors misinterpret my answer for "OMG komodrone thinks all people that jailbreak their iPhones are pirates". frustrating. I'M JUST ANSWERING THE QUESTION.
Rating: 8 Votes
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tempusfugit
74 months ago
Pretty sure the vast majority of app piracy was coming from installous, which got shut down.

Targeting every jail broken device with this kind of stuff is imprudent and juvenile. A lot of us jailbroken iPhone users are just your average Joe's when it comes to buying apps. I'd say I spend way more than the average on apps.
Rating: 8 Votes

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