The Rise and Fall of the Cheat Code

An anonymous reader writes A new feature published this week takes a deep-dive look at the history of the cheat code and its various manifestations over the years, from manual 'pokes' on cassettes to pass phrases with their own dedicated menus — as well as their rise from simple debug tool in the early days of bedroom development to a marketing tactic when game magazines dominated in the 1990s, followed by dedicated strategy guides. Today's era of online play has all but done away with them, but the need for a level playing field isn't the only reason for their decline: as one veteran coder points out, why give away cheats for free when you can charge for them as in-app purchases? "Bigger publishers have now realized you can actually sell these things to players as DLC. Want that special gun? Think you can unlock it with a cheat code? Nope! You've got to give us some money first!"

First

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

First up, up, up, left, left, down, right, down, right, up, up.

Mark of times

[qbast]

So cheat codes are alive and well - they just now start with $ sign.

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

... Hey, macarena!

Re:DLC?

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

If you leave off the last letter, does that make it a wor?

Re:Mark of times

[i kan reed]

Pay to stop playing, of course.