The good news? Square Enix decided to release the mobile exclusive Deus Ex: The Fall a day early. The bad news - If your iOS device happens to be jailbroken, you'll be playing the game very stealthily. Players who have just such a device are reporting a message reading, "We are sorry but you can't fire on jailbroken devices," when they try to fire any of the game's weapons.
Square Enix's decision to render the game almost unplayable is likely an attempt at curbing piracy. The only problem is players are getting the message on account of the device they have running the game, regardless if they paid for a legitimate copy of the game.
Jailbreaking is a term describing removing system locks to access software that isn't permitted by Apple. Basically, it's a backdoor method, and about the worst thing it can do is void the warranty on your device.
Curbing attempts at pirating games is completely understandable. As a matter of fact, game developers and publishers have had some pretty hysterical methods of screwing with people who do pirate their games. For example, Rockstar made it so that any pirated version of Grand Theft Auto IV had the game's camera was the same whenever Niko got drunk. Permanently. Pirated versions of EA's Crysis Warhead made it so player and enemy guns alike shot chickens instead of bullets, and perhaps most infamously (and hysterically), if you made it all the way to Earthbound's final boss on your pirated copy, your game would freeze, reset, and all your save files erased.
This is understandable. But making a game you paid for essentially unplayable, all because you've altered your device in a completely legal way, hogwash. If the company wants to make this part of their practice, fine, but at the very least, it and the staff have an obligation to inform the audience they've done so, so gamers can then decide to support it.
If you've yet to purchase Deus Ex: The Fall, let this be a warning to you if you do have a jailbroken device.
UPDATE - Square Enix has since apologized for not mentioning the jailbreak restriction in advance of The Fall's release, and has plans to fix the issue with an update some time in the future. The company provided Eurogamer with a full 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."
