I just read that the Watch Dogs promotional app from Ubisoft in Canada is using a similar feature - if you have Cydia installed, it won't run. Which is ironic, because Watch Dogs the game (and the app) is about hacking the world around you...
I used to jailbreak all the time back in the early days. Yes, the jailbreaking scene has become more associated with pirating than installing tweaks. But that doesn't mean there aren't people like me who like to jailbreak for the soul purpose of installing tweaks. I'm currently on Straight Talk and jailbreaking allows me to edit my APN settings so I can get MMS working properly with my Straight Talk at&t sim. I could care less about pirating apps. Majority of the iOS apps are either free or cheap, there is no reason for me personally to pirate them. You don't even need to be jailbroken to install pirated apps. Many of the websites that sell UDID registrations also offer an alternative method for installing cracked apps.
and I actually gave up my 6.1.2 jailbreak and APN settings tweak so that I could test iOS 7 - something I do every year. If I cared about running cracked apps, I would never give up my jailbreak.
iOS and the community owes a lot to the jailbreak scene. So many tweaks that used to be jailbreak only have made their way over to stock iOS. And it is because of that, I still support jailbreak scene.
Well I should have said that stealing games is the number one reason people jailbreak *today* perhaps.
It's true that at the beginning it was more 50/50 in terms of people jailbreaking for tweaks and people jailbreaking for theft. Now that Android is a viable alternative and iOS has addressed and incorporated every tweak and then some, the number of people doing it for any other reasons than theft is much smaller.
I think it's fair to say that theft was always a large part of the reason for jailbreaking but that now it's grown to be easily the number one reason for jailbreaking. A lot of the folks that like to tweak are happier on Android now.
I wouldn't be shocked if Apple demanded the change. They don't support jailbroken devices in terms of warranty etc but it is legal to do in a general sense. So not warning folks means Apple was likely getting complaints and refund demands from legit buyers. And not just JB folks. Some folks don't jailbreak themselves but support folks right if they like.
It's almost as if they implemented deliberate policies that would ensure they were financially compensated for their work involved in creating the game.
Sorry, but you really don't know what you're talking about. Piracy seems to be down overall for iOS apps. I say this because so many piracy repositories have shut down. Even Installuous shut down stating lack of interest. Meanwhile jailbreaking is at an all-time high. There are a record number of tweaks, themes and apps in Cydia. While iOS has incorporated many features that were jailbreak features only before, the development of additional features has increased considerably.
"These days, many people jailbreak for the major purpose of installing cracked apps." Citation? Why would this be true if you don't need to jailbreak to pirate apps? If all you wanted to do was pirate apps, it would be easier not to bother with jailbreaking.
The fact is that neither of you knows how many people jailbreak to steal apps so you're both just guessing.
The part in bold is misleading, though. Take some of the 'free" apps which require you to use gems or stars or whatever to buy special items. These gems/stars are often difficult to come by but you can buy them - and they appear to account for substantial revenues for the vendor. There are almost always broken versions of the apps which give you an unlimited supply of gems/stars/etc - and they appear to be widely used. So even if you're not pirating the app itself, there are reasons for jailbreaking - that deprive the developer of revenues.
No, but it does mean that you have a very, very high probability of being a person who pirates games. It's literally the number one reason people jailbreak.
People say this, but do not back it up with any type is statistics.
More importantly, who cares? Most people can't figure out how to do it. Moreover, I'd guess most people installing cracked apps were not going to buy the game anyway so there is no lost sale. Some people actually will buy apps they like after trying out cracked ones.
I jailbreak because I want access to the file system, I want to be able to customize the system, and on principle. Having access to the file system allows me to easily save text messages, and voice mail messages on my computer.
The fact is that neither of you knows how many people jailbreak to steal apps so you're both just guessing.
The part in bold is misleading, though. Take some of the 'free" apps which require you to use gems or stars or whatever to buy special items. These gems/stars are often difficult to come by but you can buy them - and they appear to account for substantial revenues for the vendor. There are almost always broken versions of the apps which give you an unlimited supply of gems/stars/etc - and they appear to be widely used. So even if you're not pirating the app itself, there are reasons for jailbreaking - that deprive the developer of revenues.
You are not depriving developers of revenue if they were not going to get the revenue anyway.
It's almost as if they implemented deliberate policies that would ensure they were financially compensated for their work involved in creating the game.
What the f*ck is the world coming to.
It is almost as if they were shortsighted enough not to foresee a problem with disabling game play on jail broken devices that actually buy the game by not listing a disclaimer on the game's download page.
Seems like enough users of jail broken devices actually bought the game for the company to care.
Well I should have said that stealing games is the number one reason people jailbreak *today* perhaps.
It's true that at the beginning it was more 50/50 in terms of people jailbreaking for tweaks and people jailbreaking for theft. Now that Android is a viable alternative and iOS has addressed and incorporated every tweak and then some, the number of people doing it for any other reasons than theft is much smaller.
I think it's fair to say that theft was always a large part of the reason for jailbreaking but that now it's grown to be easily the number one reason for jailbreaking. A lot of the folks that like to tweak are happier on Android now.
I do not know about most people but I would not be happier on Android. I have been using Apple products for twenty years. I want my phone to be more like my computer. I want access to the the file system. Thanks to jail breaking, I can have that.
It's a good PR move, but that's all it is. I doubt there would be "mass" refunds considering jailbreaking is not mainstream any more and most jail breakers are in fact criminals. There are some that are "legitimate" of course and out of that small group there is another smaller sub-group of people who bought the game. Out of that group, some other smaller sub-group would have asked for a refund.
All in all, the money they would be refunding would most likely be a lot less than the money they are losing from people who pirate the game.
I don't play many games myself so I don't really care, but I do think it's too bad that everyone who creates a game for iOS has to figure on a not insignificant loss from the fairly large group of people who will steal it, and that there is currently nothing that can be done about such people. Crime is crime, thievery is thievery. There should be some sort of downside to stealing games and it's sad that there isn't IMO.
Or you can just do away with software attempts to prevent illegitimate use of the software. They are not effective.
More importantly, if a person illegally downloads a game he was not going to buy anyway, the developer has not lost any money. They should stop acting like a pirated copy of a game equates to a lost sale. It does not.
I would be more sympathetic to developers if companies did not lobby to have the terms of copyright changed from ten years to over a hundred completely undermining the intent of copyright protection to begin with.
. And I'm being completely honest here, most people I meet with jailbroken devices, start showing off some of their cracked apps once you start a conversation.
That says more about your social circles than jailbreaking at large (in terms of fact)
Yes jailbreaking started as a way to side load apps etc. but it is not the only use. Had they found a wy to detect a cracked version that our be fine. But they didn't. They assume all jaill breakers are thieves as you seem to agree.
It's almost as if they implemented deliberate policies that would ensure they were financially compensated for their work involved in creating the game.
What the f*ck is the world coming to.
Well its kind of like detecting if its a PC and not allowing play, because on a PC there most likely are cracked versions of games and people do pirate games, software, other content on PCs and Macs, of course there are also honest users. Yes, creators have the right to protect their hard work, but this kind of protection casts too large a net, everyone who jailbreaks gets caught in it.
Well its kind of like detecting if its a PC and not allowing play
Developers test apps against certain operating systems / firmwares. If the system you use is modified, they are not obliged to support it. An operating system hack could affect the running of the game, which their support staff has to deal with. The console developers do this - new games often require the latest firmware. The difference with PCs is they can run stolen apps in their default state so developers have tried all sorts of things like rootkits, online verifications etc. What they tend to do these days is not bother supporting the platform, which is what you see happening with Android. If PCs came with locked down operating systems, they'd have the same thing.
There's a developer here talking about the piracy rates he saw for his own app:
"There are several myths about pirates. When I read the forums, I get tired of the excuses for downloading the game for free. The most typical example is made by players who allegedly download a pirated copy because a demo version did not exist to try, allowing them to decide whether or not they wanted to buy it. In our case, that’s simply not true. Some of our games have demos, but the piracy rate was same for games with demo as for games without.
Another one often repeated is that, while they might have a jailbroken device, they still buy games anyway. Then I do not understand how the number of pirates on iOS is comparable with the amount of jailbroken devices. Of course, I know that some jailbreak users are paying for games as well, but could it be around 1% at the most?
Another ridiculous comment is that developers of games should attend more to their games by providing new upgrades, contents, etc, to protect their games from piracy. In my opinion, the amount of piracy is equal to how easy the pirating is, and the game developer has nothing to do with it. It is really very sad for us and the gaming industry that with a few clicks of a mouse (err.. touches), a user can install the game and use it for free. It‘s definitely more easy than setting up an account on iTunes or Google Play, filling out large forms and answering all security questions."
Or you can just do away with software attempts to prevent illegitimate use of the software. They are not effective.
More importantly, if a person illegally downloads a game he was not going to buy anyway, the developer has not lost any money. They should stop acting like a pirated copy of a game equates to a lost sale. It does not.
I would be more sympathetic to developers if companies did not lobby to have the terms of copyright changed from ten years to over a hundred completely undermining the intent of copyright protection to begin with.
I think you are being too harsh and making some blanket statements that aren't supported by any facts. Obviously software attempts to limit stealing of software are at least partially effective. They are usually cleverly worked around, but to say that it just doesn't work ever and has no effect is to exaggerate and mischaracterise.
It's also trivially false to suggest that everyone who downloads a stolen game was "not going to buy it in the first place." Again, to a large degree this may be true because the kind of person who generally does this is the kind of person who has no morals, and has committed many other minor or major crimes in their lives. However, there is a big difference in a habitual criminal who knows how to get his way, and the casual user who's boyfriend shows her this site where she can get all the games for free. In other words, temptation and ease of access has a great deal to do with it.
Clearly, putting blocks in the software affects ease of access. Clearly, the type of hardened criminals who create the sites that make the software available, the weak laws that make it possible for these sites to stay in business, and especially the jail breakers who provide "one click" jailbreaks affect ease of access, and are a large part of the problem there. In the old days, you had to know something and actually be a hacker to do this sort of stuff, even if only a minor one. You had to find and follow some arcane series of instructions and actions to get to the point where you had access. The fact that jail breakers have "commercialised" the process and made it so easy that all it takes is a monetary lapse in moral attitude and a single click to get to the same place, obviously contributes to the popularity of the process.
I agree with you on copyright going to the hundred year mark which is ridiculous. But the line in the sand should have been drawn long ago when they did the same to books, movies, and patents. It's down to corporatism/capitalism.
I still think that most jailbreakers pirate games. Not many people are going to post and say, yes, I jailbreak my device and i pirate games.
The problem with facts is that they require actual evidence, and there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the claim of "most jailbreakers pirate games" is true. Of course, that doesn't at all seem to limit people claiming otherwise.
PCs/Macs allow users to install programs from various sources, including sources that exist predominately for pirating, therefore most PC/Mac owners pirate games. /s
Or you can just do away with software attempts to prevent illegitimate use of the software. They are not effective.
More importantly, if a person illegally downloads a game he was not going to buy anyway, the developer has not lost any money. They should stop acting like a pirated copy of a game equates to a lost sale. It does not.
I would be more sympathetic to developers if companies did not lobby to have the terms of copyright changed from ten years to over a hundred completely undermining the intent of copyright protection to begin with.
Even if the 'customer' was not planning to buy it, piracy is theft. Both legally and morally. Your rationalizations don't change that.
Even if the 'customer' was not planning to buy it, piracy is theft. Both legally and morally. Your rationalizations don't change that.
At no point did TBell say that piracy was acceptable and not theft.... what he said was that equating 1 pirated copy with 1 lost sale is not sound reasoning as somebody who is going to the trouble to pirate something that only costs a couple of dollars was very unlikely to ever buy it in the first place.
Meanwhile the original decision by SquareEnix to cripple the game for jailbroken devices without any notification was misguided at best, as would seem to have been proved by the number of complaints they have obviously received from jailbroken users who legitimately paid for the game that has made them perform this u-turn and announce it's removal in a future update..
Comments
I just read that the Watch Dogs promotional app from Ubisoft in Canada is using a similar feature - if you have Cydia installed, it won't run. Which is ironic, because Watch Dogs the game (and the app) is about hacking the world around you...
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrENGLISH(TM)
I used to jailbreak all the time back in the early days. Yes, the jailbreaking scene has become more associated with pirating than installing tweaks. But that doesn't mean there aren't people like me who like to jailbreak for the soul purpose of installing tweaks. I'm currently on Straight Talk and jailbreaking allows me to edit my APN settings so I can get MMS working properly with my Straight Talk at&t sim. I could care less about pirating apps. Majority of the iOS apps are either free or cheap, there is no reason for me personally to pirate them. You don't even need to be jailbroken to install pirated apps. Many of the websites that sell UDID registrations also offer an alternative method for installing cracked apps.
and I actually gave up my 6.1.2 jailbreak and APN settings tweak so that I could test iOS 7 - something I do every year. If I cared about running cracked apps, I would never give up my jailbreak.
iOS and the community owes a lot to the jailbreak scene. So many tweaks that used to be jailbreak only have made their way over to stock iOS. And it is because of that, I still support jailbreak scene.
Well I should have said that stealing games is the number one reason people jailbreak *today* perhaps.
It's true that at the beginning it was more 50/50 in terms of people jailbreaking for tweaks and people jailbreaking for theft. Now that Android is a viable alternative and iOS has addressed and incorporated every tweak and then some, the number of people doing it for any other reasons than theft is much smaller.
I think it's fair to say that theft was always a large part of the reason for jailbreaking but that now it's grown to be easily the number one reason for jailbreaking. A lot of the folks that like to tweak are happier on Android now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by charlituna
I wouldn't be shocked if Apple demanded the change. They don't support jailbroken devices in terms of warranty etc but it is legal to do in a general sense. So not warning folks means Apple was likely getting complaints and refund demands from legit buyers. And not just JB folks. Some folks don't jailbreak themselves but support folks right if they like.
And those 6 people are really influential, right?
It's almost as if they implemented deliberate policies that would ensure they were financially compensated for their work involved in creating the game.
What the f*ck is the world coming to.
The fact is that neither of you knows how many people jailbreak to steal apps so you're both just guessing.
The part in bold is misleading, though. Take some of the 'free" apps which require you to use gems or stars or whatever to buy special items. These gems/stars are often difficult to come by but you can buy them - and they appear to account for substantial revenues for the vendor. There are almost always broken versions of the apps which give you an unlimited supply of gems/stars/etc - and they appear to be widely used. So even if you're not pirating the app itself, there are reasons for jailbreaking - that deprive the developer of revenues.
People say this, but do not back it up with any type is statistics.
More importantly, who cares? Most people can't figure out how to do it. Moreover, I'd guess most people installing cracked apps were not going to buy the game anyway so there is no lost sale. Some people actually will buy apps they like after trying out cracked ones.
I jailbreak because I want access to the file system, I want to be able to customize the system, and on principle. Having access to the file system allows me to easily save text messages, and voice mail messages on my computer.
You are not depriving developers of revenue if they were not going to get the revenue anyway.
It is almost as if they were shortsighted enough not to foresee a problem with disabling game play on jail broken devices that actually buy the game by not listing a disclaimer on the game's download page.
Seems like enough users of jail broken devices actually bought the game for the company to care.
I do not know about most people but I would not be happier on Android. I have been using Apple products for twenty years. I want my phone to be more like my computer. I want access to the the file system. Thanks to jail breaking, I can have that.
Or you can just do away with software attempts to prevent illegitimate use of the software. They are not effective.
More importantly, if a person illegally downloads a game he was not going to buy anyway, the developer has not lost any money. They should stop acting like a pirated copy of a game equates to a lost sale. It does not.
I would be more sympathetic to developers if companies did not lobby to have the terms of copyright changed from ten years to over a hundred completely undermining the intent of copyright protection to begin with.
That says more about your social circles than jailbreaking at large (in terms of fact)
Yes jailbreaking started as a way to side load apps etc. but it is not the only use. Had they found a wy to detect a cracked version that our be fine. But they didn't. They assume all jaill breakers are thieves as you seem to agree.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GTR
It's almost as if they implemented deliberate policies that would ensure they were financially compensated for their work involved in creating the game.
What the f*ck is the world coming to.
Well its kind of like detecting if its a PC and not allowing play, because on a PC there most likely are cracked versions of games and people do pirate games, software, other content on PCs and Macs, of course there are also honest users. Yes, creators have the right to protect their hard work, but this kind of protection casts too large a net, everyone who jailbreaks gets caught in it.
Developers test apps against certain operating systems / firmwares. If the system you use is modified, they are not obliged to support it. An operating system hack could affect the running of the game, which their support staff has to deal with. The console developers do this - new games often require the latest firmware. The difference with PCs is they can run stolen apps in their default state so developers have tried all sorts of things like rootkits, online verifications etc. What they tend to do these days is not bother supporting the platform, which is what you see happening with Android. If PCs came with locked down operating systems, they'd have the same thing.
There's a developer here talking about the piracy rates he saw for his own app:
http://www.zdnet.com/madfinger-game-goes-free-on-ios-piracy-to-blame-like-on-android-7000002050/
"There are several myths about pirates. When I read the forums, I get tired of the excuses for downloading the game for free. The most typical example is made by players who allegedly download a pirated copy because a demo version did not exist to try, allowing them to decide whether or not they wanted to buy it. In our case, that’s simply not true. Some of our games have demos, but the piracy rate was same for games with demo as for games without.
Another one often repeated is that, while they might have a jailbroken device, they still buy games anyway. Then I do not understand how the number of pirates on iOS is comparable with the amount of jailbroken devices. Of course, I know that some jailbreak users are paying for games as well, but could it be around 1% at the most?
Another ridiculous comment is that developers of games should attend more to their games by providing new upgrades, contents, etc, to protect their games from piracy. In my opinion, the amount of piracy is equal to how easy the pirating is, and the game developer has nothing to do with it. It is really very sad for us and the gaming industry that with a few clicks of a mouse (err.. touches), a user can install the game and use it for free. It‘s definitely more easy than setting up an account on iTunes or Google Play, filling out large forms and answering all security questions."
Quote:
Originally Posted by TBell
Or you can just do away with software attempts to prevent illegitimate use of the software. They are not effective.
More importantly, if a person illegally downloads a game he was not going to buy anyway, the developer has not lost any money. They should stop acting like a pirated copy of a game equates to a lost sale. It does not.
I would be more sympathetic to developers if companies did not lobby to have the terms of copyright changed from ten years to over a hundred completely undermining the intent of copyright protection to begin with.
I think you are being too harsh and making some blanket statements that aren't supported by any facts. Obviously software attempts to limit stealing of software are at least partially effective. They are usually cleverly worked around, but to say that it just doesn't work ever and has no effect is to exaggerate and mischaracterise.
It's also trivially false to suggest that everyone who downloads a stolen game was "not going to buy it in the first place." Again, to a large degree this may be true because the kind of person who generally does this is the kind of person who has no morals, and has committed many other minor or major crimes in their lives. However, there is a big difference in a habitual criminal who knows how to get his way, and the casual user who's boyfriend shows her this site where she can get all the games for free. In other words, temptation and ease of access has a great deal to do with it.
Clearly, putting blocks in the software affects ease of access. Clearly, the type of hardened criminals who create the sites that make the software available, the weak laws that make it possible for these sites to stay in business, and especially the jail breakers who provide "one click" jailbreaks affect ease of access, and are a large part of the problem there. In the old days, you had to know something and actually be a hacker to do this sort of stuff, even if only a minor one. You had to find and follow some arcane series of instructions and actions to get to the point where you had access. The fact that jail breakers have "commercialised" the process and made it so easy that all it takes is a monetary lapse in moral attitude and a single click to get to the same place, obviously contributes to the popularity of the process.
I agree with you on copyright going to the hundred year mark which is ridiculous. But the line in the sand should have been drawn long ago when they did the same to books, movies, and patents. It's down to corporatism/capitalism.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Apple ][
I still think that most jailbreakers pirate games. Not many people are going to post and say, yes, I jailbreak my device and i pirate games.
The problem with facts is that they require actual evidence, and there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the claim of "most jailbreakers pirate games" is true. Of course, that doesn't at all seem to limit people claiming otherwise.
PCs/Macs allow users to install programs from various sources, including sources that exist predominately for pirating, therefore most PC/Mac owners pirate games. /s
Quote:
Originally Posted by TBell
You are not depriving developers of revenue if they were not going to get the revenue anyway.
And that makes it okay to steal? Is that how you rationalize things?
Even if the 'customer' was not planning to buy it, piracy is theft. Both legally and morally. Your rationalizations don't change that.
At no point did TBell say that piracy was acceptable and not theft.... what he said was that equating 1 pirated copy with 1 lost sale is not sound reasoning as somebody who is going to the trouble to pirate something that only costs a couple of dollars was very unlikely to ever buy it in the first place.
Meanwhile the original decision by SquareEnix to cripple the game for jailbroken devices without any notification was misguided at best, as would seem to have been proved by the number of complaints they have obviously received from jailbroken users who legitimately paid for the game that has made them perform this u-turn and announce it's removal in a future update..