The Rise and Fall of the Cheat Code 178
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!"
And this ... (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is why my XBox isn't connected to the interwebs.
I'm not interested in your damned in-game economy, and I have no interest in getting my ass kicked by a 12 year old playing on-line.
I'll stick with my off-line gaming, thank you very much.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
They can't sell cheats anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the reason they don't have cheats anymore is not because they can sell them as DLC, but because they CAN'T sell them anymore. If you look at it, cheats were first invented as a method of copy-protection, rather than a testing device.
It's most evident in a lot of older NES games (usually ones that were made before battery-backed saves) where the most commonly used "cheats" were so-called continue codes - button inputs that could be used to continue after a game over. These things were all over the place, and were usually listed in the way back of the game's manual. This was mostly a tactic to stop rentals and re-sale, since there was no easy way to look up the codes and unless you had the manual or knew someone who did, you'd be out of luck. Even the Konami Code is an example of this: unless you are very highly skilled at Contra, which was one of the first games to feature the code, you are probably not going to finish Contra without the extra lives granted by the code.
Re:Mark of times (Score:2, Insightful)
I guess you never bothered with the Chocobo nonsense to get Knights of the Round.
Re:DLC? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, then you don't know the gaming industry. Basically people work on a game and then get laid off.
And all this has just about zero to do with the comment you replied to. Which I agree with, by the way.
THIS is the reason I don't buy many competitive games anymore. When you can buy your way through them, then who gives a shit at getting good at the game?
I don't give the slightest damn about the gaming industry's internal problems. I didn't create them. I'm a customer, and I don't like their product.
Period. It's that simple. Make a product I want to buy, or I won't buy it.