cheat codes were development / QA tools to make testing the game easier. They got left in because they were behind hidden, strange button sequences etc, removing the code risked breaking something that would be harder to test without the codes, and they can be fun.
That’s maybe how they started, but between then and now was a time when developers would very specifically add in cheat codes that had nothing to do with development or debugging, and were often just extra things added in to make the game more fun to play. (See ‘paintball mode’ in Goldeneye N64 for a prime example of that.) But those kinds of cheat codes seem to have fallen out of fashion.
But now people want them back… It’s not like people didn’t enjoy them. They fell out of fashion because of the niche audience that kept using them and because eventually everything went digital and selling things like action replay and code breakers and game shark was a hassle to load the codes onto at the time because the cables were very specific but now everything has been transferred to Type C, computers are cheap, wifi isn’t shit there’s two young generations at play and digitally adding in mods is harder than using an sd card with a preloaded cheat code system ready to hack your games or plugging in a cartridge to a flismy cartridge that if you bumped it your game would fuck up (action replay 2006). The n64 game shark destroyed games. For any online system, if you got caught online with cheats you were still subjected to potential bans.
I get why they, “fell out of fashion” but they’re a niche thing that is still oddly enough an enjoyable part of gaming.
You know that Game Shark and all that didn’t use codes that the developers made, right? The “codes” those use are memory addresses and values to set them to. You are directly editing the games memory.
Those fell out of fashion because consoles are basically PCs now and you can’t really guarantee a hard and fast memory layout. Plus, Sony doesn’t want people bypassing DRM using a memory editor.
That’s maybe how they started, but between then and now was a time when developers would very specifically add in cheat codes that had nothing to do with development or debugging, and were often just extra things added in to make the game more fun to play. (See ‘paintball mode’ in Goldeneye N64 for a prime example of that.) But those kinds of cheat codes seem to have fallen out of fashion.
But now people want them back… It’s not like people didn’t enjoy them. They fell out of fashion because of the niche audience that kept using them and because eventually everything went digital and selling things like action replay and code breakers and game shark was a hassle to load the codes onto at the time because the cables were very specific but now everything has been transferred to Type C, computers are cheap, wifi isn’t shit there’s two young generations at play and digitally adding in mods is harder than using an sd card with a preloaded cheat code system ready to hack your games or plugging in a cartridge to a flismy cartridge that if you bumped it your game would fuck up (action replay 2006). The n64 game shark destroyed games. For any online system, if you got caught online with cheats you were still subjected to potential bans.
I get why they, “fell out of fashion” but they’re a niche thing that is still oddly enough an enjoyable part of gaming.
You know that Game Shark and all that didn’t use codes that the developers made, right? The “codes” those use are memory addresses and values to set them to. You are directly editing the games memory.
Those fell out of fashion because consoles are basically PCs now and you can’t really guarantee a hard and fast memory layout. Plus, Sony doesn’t want people bypassing DRM using a memory editor.
And Gandhi goes nuclear.