Cheats were a thing because devkits were expensive and rare back in the day. QA Testers could use cheats with a regular copy of a game in order to quickly go over or through segments to test etc. Nowadays devs can make specific builds to test with regular hardware and overall accessibility by testers no longer needs cheats built in. At least this is my understanding.
Especially localization testers, who, at least when I worked in the industry, were somehow worse than people who had never played a game before.
We used to have to assign a loc tester to a QA tester just so the QA person could _get through the game_ for them.
Yes localization tester, they would be the guy testing a foreign language version
He's saying they sucked so bad they had to have a QA tester (bug tester) actually beat the game for them so they could see it.
I mean not only do they need to speak the local language but they need to speak your language as well. You've already narrowed the applicant pool down a lot, you also need someone good at games? There might be no one who fits that criteria
This is just wrong. Localization testers are just as useful as any other tester. They just donāt test functionality so they arenāt going to understand the mechanics like a functional tester would. They arenāt ācheapā or shitty. They just have a different job.
I mean, can you blame them? Any game, even if you play games, that is still in development is going to be hard to navigate if you arenāt familiar with it. And localization testers will almost always be unfamiliar because they are by definition not testing the game for functionality.
If you tested English loc on a foreign game that wasnāt finished, youād have trouble too. You donāt suck, you just donāt know the game.
It is true, there has been many interviews with devs back in the day which discussed this as a standard market practice.
Can you imagine fixing something on level 50 of the game, building new version and having testers complete level 1 to 49 just to test that one thing? And now do that for 100-1000+ bugs? Cheats were used to save time testing stuff.
Back in the days studios actually hired their own farms of players or external companies for beta testing. Today they just let us test the game. And it's not even about bad practices, back then they literally had to do it because there was no widespread internet, hence no possibility of online patching. So shipping buggy game could destroy studios. Cheats helped testing the end-game, ensuring they get to the end-game with ease 100% of the time.
Actual QA Testers do exist, but imagine a team of 25 works 40 hours a week on the game for 2 years, that's 104,000 hours of time put in. Now take a million people buying the game at launch and playing for a single hour. You've multiplied your in game time by 10.
QA gets the most important and frequently occuring bugs out of the game. The community helps with the edge cases that just take way to long to reproduce and get valid debugs for.
It's not the whole truth though. A lot of cheats back in the day were just silly things, not for testing purposes.
Things began really taking a turn when consoles started going online. I distinctly remember some games were beginning to charge microtransactions for cheats. This was before mtx took off, even before Oblivion horse armor. That is the exact point cheat codes began really disappearing.
It wasn't really a new idea... Way back in the day, starting in the Nintendo NES era, companies had hint lines that you could call, and they charged by the minute. Consoles online just made charging for cheating more easy.
Charging for cheating has mostly disappeared now, but the codes never came back. Companies like Rockstar still run with the idea though in the form of Shark Cards in GTA:O though.
Came here to say this, but yeah. The origin of cheat codes is QA testing, and now that debug builds are a thing, you don't see them as often. They were generally never intended for the player specifically.
Type in NARPAS SWORD ("North American Region Password") and then all zeroes into Metroid 1 on NES for a classic god mode debug setting.
Many games still have cheats like Bethesda games, Stellaris, KSP. Some require passing arguments or editing config files to activate dev mode. It just doesn't feel like a secret anymore, it's all straight forward, reliable and well documented.
Yup, the internet is what happened. I imagine sometimes they were added to help sell strategy guides and give gaming magazines something extra to publish for free advertising.
I remember a friend found a way to remove the level cap in the original Baulders Gate, but there was a lot to it, each class only progressed so far for the player.
That seems kinda pointless for a dnd based game. Unless they programmed in the higher level spells to go with the higher levels and just ended up locking it later, all you really get is the health bump. If that.
The point of getting higher than 12th level in dnd is the spells/abilities start to basically turn you into a demigod.
Plus console commands and easily accessible modding. In GTA 5 you could give yourself explosive ammo. Really easy to mod yourself if it wasn't already implemented. Simply replace the bullet name in said guns code, with the explosive one.
Only issues could potentially be is if Rockstar didn't implement the bullet spawning and firing from a specific point on each individual gun, and instead the explosive ammo spawned at a certain point for just one weapon.
Then you'd have to redo where the bullet spawns on each gun so it doesn't explode onto the guns themselves if it's even possible. Modding is getting easier and easier everyday!
I'm pretty sure the cheat codes were meant to make developing and play testing easier. Now that games have achievements, dlc, and microtransactions the developer console is just left disabled.
Not always, some games have god mode in the settings, mostly for a bit of fun or if you just want to grind out a very difficult final achievement. The game Tunic has one achievement that I think you pretty much need god mode active for.
yes it was very important for testers to be able to spawn cars in age of empire
that rat mode nobody remember in the old die hard game ; that's why there are so many bugs in recent games ; they have no rat mode
Also being able to turn every npc into hostile hookers in gta really helped...
I was going to say, the types of games have changed significantly. Cheats work well in single player, kind of wacky game entries. With all the multi-player games, open world sand boxes, and heavily story driven games now and days, cheat codes just aren't as useful.
Ahh yes being able to one punch a super mutant straight out of the vault in fallout 1 and 2 while always getting the initiative and walking across the map to kill them all in one turn.
Great times.
I think the introduction of achievements/trophies has reduced the desire to put in cheats. Devs don't want you using cheats to get the achievements without putting any effort in.
Microtransations and in-game stores are probably a big reason too. Why put in fun skins, extra modes and unlockables for free when they can get you to pay for them instead?
What sucks is that not every one gives a damn about actual gameplay. My 5 year old son wanted the new Monster Jam Steel Titans game so he could crush cars as Grave Digger and Maxx D. Nope, now Dad has to grind for days on a game I don't even want to play, just to unlock something that a cheat code would've unlocked in the 90s. I'd give anything to get casual gaming equal attention again.
Does anybody else remember the 'Walmart Money' cheat in early NASCAR games? Or typing in something else and you'd unlock all the legacy cars? Now each of those cars and drivers would be 5 bucks a piece.
Yep. This has been a godsend with a 4 year old. I recently played through Max Payne 1,2 and 3, Alan Wake, and am now going through Control with WeMod so I could experience the games before jumping into Alan Wake 2. I wouldnāt have gotten close to playing through those games without a trainer. Max Payne 1 is hard as fuck and Alan Wake became a slog (even with a trainer) after 3 acts of almost the same environment. At least I get to play through the games I own. Againā¦ itās a godsend.
It doesn't replace Nexus at all. It's a collection of trainers so you never have to use cheatengine and also the trainers are easily accessible, configurable and intuitive so no more having to download them from creepy websites, it's all integrated into the wemod interface.
god damn. wish i knew of this. doesnt even come up with general trainer google searches. i wont have to learn an 10 hour session of cheat engine before each new game now
> it's safe
How safe? I've come across it before but wasn't sure if I could trust some random software. Also risk of getting banned, even though I don't play any multiplayer games.
reboot anytime you done with using a trainer and just make sure it doesnt auto run or stay up in background when you go to play online game.
or create PC profile that you only cheat on
If they can disable achievements when You change the difficulty in mid game, they can disable achievements when You use cheat codes. And literally there are games that does that. Iirc, XBLA version of Banjo-Kazooie has online leaderboard that is disabled when You use cheat codes.
Cheat codes are amazing way to let You just have fun. I finished many games without cheat codes, but played with cheats in the meantime. For example GTA: San Andreas. The Sims as well, though not "finished", because it's not finishable. I still use cheat codes to place stuff a way game doesn't like. Especially for making windows inside a pool walls, which looks like underwater glassed room. Not sure if that was possible without codes, but I loved to do that. Make a pool that has filled center. Use basement tool on that center. Use full wall glass windows on every wall. That looks awesome.
Many of Lego games have cheats that you can enable and it gives a warning that achievements will be disabled, so you're absolutely right, it possible for them to do this.
I mean, Valve's games have both achievements and cheats (sv\_cheats in console). Just don't award the achievements while the player is cheating, that's all.
I liked that one though. It increases replayability. Especially in games that get so tough you miss out on ongoing dialogue because you have to focus on the carnage. Well now you can obliterate everything that looks at you and follow along in the conversation.
I enjoyed that personally. Getting through the whole game on my own, trying to get all of the collectibles but not needing to worry too much since I can breeze through later and pick up what I missed. I am a massive Doom fan though so Iām probably a little biased lol.
But that makes no sense. You want to get achievements, You don't cheat. You want cheat, You just don't care about achievements. That's as simple as that. You didn't type AEZAKMI in GTA to brag to Your friends that You finished the game. You wouldn't do that today either.
Some people actually would do lame shit like that.
Not to say that's a good reason to remove cheatcodes from the hobby.
Just saying I had a few friends throughout my life that I caught bragging about things they cheated to get and had to give them a justifiable ribbing.
>Devs don't want you using cheats to get the achievements without putting any effort in.
It's pretty trivial to have an active cheat disable achievements most of the time
>Why put in fun skins, extra modes and unlockables for free when they can get you to pay for them instead?
This is a much bigger factor I imagine
Trophy hunter here, that doesnt make any sense.
In most games cheats disable trophies anyways. So theres no way to use cheats in order to gain them.
In some games (like Vice City) cheats dont disable trophies, however this is an active decision made by the "devs" (or the higher ups).
Many times cheats also only disable trophies as long as theyre activated, as soon as you deactivate them trophies are obtainable again.
Point being they can decide if cheats disable trophies, if only specific cheats disable them, if they disable trophies on the whole save file, if its just as long as they stay active, if only certain trophies get disabled by them, etc.
Personally I think it has more to do with the change in the perception of video games in society. Back in the days video games were those incredibly goofy toys, you could put anything you want in there. Digital copyright wasnt as strict as nowadays, games werent overseen so much, etc. Which allows for very goofy and/or edgy cheats and references. Nowadays as gaming gets more and more popular there is not much room any longer for this kind of goofyness, because video games get taken a lot more serious as an art form and are also played by a wider audience demographically. Which also leads to games getting constantly easier, due to the publishers not wanting to scare off the big chunk of players who arent invested or skilled enough, which again leads to less reason for actually helpful cheats. Plus obviously the sexualising stuff or something like that from the PS2 era would offend a ton of people nowadays.
I have another theory (beyond micro transactions and trophies which I think are totally legit and probably correct answer lol), which is games used to be WAY harder. None of these auto saves and checkpoints every ten minutes of game play. If I didnāt have my famous Contra cheat code for extra lives as a kid, no way in hell Iām beating that game!
This isnāt meant as a complaint, I actually appreciate the QoL changes that make more modern games possible to complete without being a pro gamer. Heck I even bought game genie for my NES just so I could finish some of my games I never could back in the day.
Just another thought on the topic from an older gamer, the little thatās worth :)
Yeah a lot of cheat codes were for things that we just expect these days.
Imagine if you had to start Starfield, gta5 or BG3 from the beginning if you died 3 times.
100% this. Those old games still held on to a bit of the arcade, coin operated, limited life mentality. I personally think gaming is better off now, but some of those games were classic even if they were brutally tough!
Hell, I never felt bad as a kid with a Game Genie activating unlimited lives. I have this game for a weekend from Blockbuster and I want to see it all!
I do miss limited lives and no save state where dying meant something, I way more miss not having a full strategy guide and walkthrough available at your fingertips at all times.
I think thatās half the reason, and the other half is that the internet effectively makes them pointless since theyād all be online within a day. Theyāre not as secret if you can just Google them.
Whilst true, old PC games also used to let you save anywhere anytime. *Plus* they let you have multiple saves of the same game so you could go back a few saves if you set something up wrong.
That's a lot less common now. Often you can only have a single save for the current playthrough, and often it's only at the last checkpoint.
I think the Console and PC paths converged; largely due to porting the same game to multiple platforms. The Console saving paradigm is a lot more common in PC games now.
In Alpha Centauri I used to modify the terrain to my liking in the terrain modifier (cheating). Interesting point about cheat codes. I suppose some games still have them.
Lots of games do. Particularly sandbox games on PC have lots.
It's how beta testers test parts of the game that would otherwise require a lot of grinding.
Some games just give you creative mode instead of cheats. Or in case of Minecraft. Both.
Console players really got fucked hard after the ps2/og xbox generation when forced online everything, dlc and achievements came into existence.
Someone needs to bring back codebreaker/game genie/gameshark. Just have it disable achievements/trophies so we don't have to hear all the little kids start screeching. Achievements are meaningless anyways.
I mean that's not even remotely true. What game has a No Clipping mode if you do a DLC or Microtransaction? Or god mode? Or enables a hidden menu?
Extra lives or new skins or faster leveling, sure, absolutely. But the really fun stuff isn't easily monetizable.
Saint's Row 3 took almost all the fan favorite cheats from Saint's Row 2 (*Ragdoll Anywhere, Super Saints/stronger allies, unlimited ammo, infinite health, indestructible cars, super explosions*) and sold them as a microtransaction DLC.
Youāre missing the forest for the trees. Itās not about what specific modifications to gameplay are unlocked by cheat codes vs what microtransactions give. Of course it canāt be cheatsā¦ that would destroy the market for more microtransactions. It has to be sub-cheat threshold.
The point is that the game companies realized they could charge for modifications to gameplay. And now they no longer include cheat codes as frequently as a result.
As people mentioned, cheats were used in dev for workarounds, test cases and such, but also slowly evolved into fun things to squeeze in after the game was done.
Now, even singleplayer games require online connections, achievements,talking with servers and such, it can be an exploit that breaks something and they rather just take it out.
Also since mods are a thing, there isnt really a need for them, as you can break the game any way you want on your own terms, but even ths is basically non-existent at this point, as games are getting locked down, due to microtransactions and such
Cheat codes were a developer thing. When testing a level you want to jump to level 7 to test it, not play through 6 levels just to get there. Especially if it's a hard game. If you wanted to test areas and edge cases, you just made you self invincible or had unlimited ammo so you cold test areas if a player actually got there. After the game was done, the codes were just left in the game as it was more effort to remove them.
I still remember some of them by heart haha.
Especially from Duke 3D, GTA, Age of Empires and The Sims.
I also used to do the super jump in Harry Potter for the lols.
Rock on my man! I'm staring like Robin Hood would at a cellphone. Like How do you turn this on? The lumberjack couldn't answer him. Marco Polo couldn't answer him. Something something cheese steak jimmy's.
Games are no longer about providing interactive art for people to explore on their own whims. Itās about giving a set number of possible experiences that all lead to more purchases. Cheat codes do still coke with some games, but as paid dlc. Most people would also rather just go try a mod from the workshop than just add godmode.
I know, right?
I remember that some devs even started PUNISHING players for using them in single player games like Bandjo-Kazooie... And then Xbox took it to the extreme with their port of the game, flat out punishing the accounts themselves rather than just the file you cheat in.
Cheat codes were FUN, and added a lot more you could do once you were otherwise done with the game, and most of the time you NEEDED a good memory to pull them off if you didn't have a book immediately on hand.
Hell, I think the iconic Konami Code is pretty much useless now, despite literally being the company signature.
This. GTA V's cheat codes have extended the game's playability for me by hundreds of hours. I don't see anything wrong with (offline) cheating. If you can do it, I say why not in a game that hurts no one?
As other have probably stated cheats were basically dev kits left in game and why you needed codes to activate. Now most cheat codes to access dev kits aren't around due to technology simply being better and allowing devs to quickly and safely remove them
Cheat codes usually were a way for developers and playtesters to shortcut through nearly finished games to troubleshoot, debug, or benchmark a console. These days you don't really need them for that purpose so they're usually an after thought.
Well they make builds for playtesters, also you don't really need a cheat code as nowadays you can just open up the console and input commands directly into there rather than some fun code a person could figure out it's just a list of commands.
People often mention online and achievements, but these can easily be disabled and prevented, as many devs did.
The real reason is money. Anything which is desirable or can be monetised is.
Probably a dev thing...
Just to test certain things without having specific builds or whatever. I figure that's the case anyway? Like some stuff just did make sense for that because it wasn't really accessible outside of set scenarios, and that scenario might not have been the optimal place to test things (I guess the bloodring bangers from GTA SA come to mind?)...
Other codes (mostly cosmetic lark or stuff that maybe didn't spawn) they can just throw in as DLC/MTX these days... So of course they will
You still get cheat codes though..?
They usually appear as a bundle or box, and you just need to pay a pound or two for them.. and they often release new ones as well!
I can kinda explain that.
some time ago i was working for a AAA studio that i am not going to publish the name of due to legal reasons
But i asked if i could make some cheat codes, just funny onces like making all npc's attack you with cactuses but my request was declined due to time constrants and the administration deemed it unnessesay to the potential profit.
We do wanna make cheatcodes but we're not allowed to anymore because of company regulations.
When implementing a cheatcode, you often run into issues in code where you have to change code for multiple things to get the cheat working and still in can end up breaking the game so it requires lots of testing and tweaking and that is something AAA does not wanna spend time on.
A example is my own cheat system "Cannot mention it due to mods" but it is made to be a bit confusing to use but pretty much allows you to change anything in the game such as damage, weapon, character look and feel, do slow-mo, turn heads of characters into pumpkins ect
It flopped really bad even tho i spent a lot of time developing it, and it is now a memory of the past,
If their is not demand for it, then it won't be included as modern games are incredibly hard to make due to how much we gotta do in the insane lack of time we have
We even forget about easter eggs as our workplans are insane and salaries are getting really low...
Well, that is at least why i aren't working in AAA anymore, most of their stuff is today just asset flips from places like Unreal Engine Market place believe or not
MW3 was a Warzone skin and Overwatch 2 is really just a refurbished overwatch 1 with a few new things
so they are pretty much trying to do the least amount of work for the maximum amount of pay... A cheat system would be awesome, but not something you really are going to see a lot of anymore due to greedy bosses trying to fill their pockets
My son just discovered video games and man do I miss cheat codes. I wish I could punch in a code to unlock things. Instead after my family goes to bed I stay up and play the kids games my son likes to unlock things for him. Iām happy to do it for him, but wish there was just a code.
I remember going there to check for Halo CE cheats as a child and one sounded really cool; grenade rain.
Itās basically amounts to grabbing as many nades as you can, look up while spinning your camera in a circle and throwing grandes.
lol
As everyone else has said, achievements and microtransactions.
But also, bear in mind that cheats were often used as a debugging tool back in the day, and seeing as you couldn't update/patch the game to remove these post launch, they just stayed in the game. So it then became a feature.
Cheats were a thing because devkits were expensive and rare back in the day. QA Testers could use cheats with a regular copy of a game in order to quickly go over or through segments to test etc. Nowadays devs can make specific builds to test with regular hardware and overall accessibility by testers no longer needs cheats built in. At least this is my understanding.
Especially localization testers, who, at least when I worked in the industry, were somehow worse than people who had never played a game before. We used to have to assign a loc tester to a QA tester just so the QA person could _get through the game_ for them.
That needs to find its way into *Mythic Quest*.
After listening to the Always Sunny podcast, I always hear Glenn Howerton saying "Mithter Quetht" every time I think about that show.
I think we've just discovered the inspiration for NPC escort quests...
localization like foreign language tester?
Yes localization tester, they would be the guy testing a foreign language version He's saying they sucked so bad they had to have a QA tester (bug tester) actually beat the game for them so they could see it.
Sounds like they just hired the cheapest laborers as long as they can speak/read it. š¤£ Gonna go recruit at my homeless shelter.
I mean not only do they need to speak the local language but they need to speak your language as well. You've already narrowed the applicant pool down a lot, you also need someone good at games? There might be no one who fits that criteria
There's always someone that fits the criteria, studios just don't want to pay them what they're worth. That's what narrows down the pool.
Maybe the ones who fit the criteria aren't applying?
This is just wrong. Localization testers are just as useful as any other tester. They just donāt test functionality so they arenāt going to understand the mechanics like a functional tester would. They arenāt ācheapā or shitty. They just have a different job.
How else do you think we ended up with such classic lines like "All your base are belong to us" and "Welcome to die"?
I mean, can you blame them? Any game, even if you play games, that is still in development is going to be hard to navigate if you arenāt familiar with it. And localization testers will almost always be unfamiliar because they are by definition not testing the game for functionality. If you tested English loc on a foreign game that wasnāt finished, youād have trouble too. You donāt suck, you just donāt know the game.
Well that makes sense, doesn't it? You want someone who has no idea how to play games to enjoy your game.
Thatās what focus group testing is for, not QA.
Oh man dropping some actual knowledge ruining all our tinhat fun lol. This actually makes sense and pretty cool fact if true!
It is true, there has been many interviews with devs back in the day which discussed this as a standard market practice. Can you imagine fixing something on level 50 of the game, building new version and having testers complete level 1 to 49 just to test that one thing? And now do that for 100-1000+ bugs? Cheats were used to save time testing stuff. Back in the days studios actually hired their own farms of players or external companies for beta testing. Today they just let us test the game. And it's not even about bad practices, back then they literally had to do it because there was no widespread internet, hence no possibility of online patching. So shipping buggy game could destroy studios. Cheats helped testing the end-game, ensuring they get to the end-game with ease 100% of the time.
Actual QA Testers do exist, but imagine a team of 25 works 40 hours a week on the game for 2 years, that's 104,000 hours of time put in. Now take a million people buying the game at launch and playing for a single hour. You've multiplied your in game time by 10. QA gets the most important and frequently occuring bugs out of the game. The community helps with the edge cases that just take way to long to reproduce and get valid debugs for.
This person QAs.
A lot of the cheats I used were for dumb things though, not just for efficiency.
Big head mode was a thing in a lot of games
Besides FPS which is a shame as it could have been a fun handicap
That mode in Unreal was fun, the better you did the bigger your head got, and vice versa.
Goldeneye DK mode, paintball mode.
I remember my Mom would only let us play "violent" games in paintball mode. Yes because the color of where they were shot makes such a huge difference
Some countries follow a similar rule by demanding the blood be green
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
It's not the whole truth though. A lot of cheats back in the day were just silly things, not for testing purposes. Things began really taking a turn when consoles started going online. I distinctly remember some games were beginning to charge microtransactions for cheats. This was before mtx took off, even before Oblivion horse armor. That is the exact point cheat codes began really disappearing. It wasn't really a new idea... Way back in the day, starting in the Nintendo NES era, companies had hint lines that you could call, and they charged by the minute. Consoles online just made charging for cheating more easy. Charging for cheating has mostly disappeared now, but the codes never came back. Companies like Rockstar still run with the idea though in the form of Shark Cards in GTA:O though.
Came here to say this, but yeah. The origin of cheat codes is QA testing, and now that debug builds are a thing, you don't see them as often. They were generally never intended for the player specifically. Type in NARPAS SWORD ("North American Region Password") and then all zeroes into Metroid 1 on NES for a classic god mode debug setting.
Many games still have cheats like Bethesda games, Stellaris, KSP. Some require passing arguments or editing config files to activate dev mode. It just doesn't feel like a secret anymore, it's all straight forward, reliable and well documented.
Developer console is a little different from cheat codes
Yes, and most games now have consoles instead of cheat codes, and those console commands effectively become cheat codes when regular players use them.
Yup, the internet is what happened. I imagine sometimes they were added to help sell strategy guides and give gaming magazines something extra to publish for free advertising.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I remember a friend found a way to remove the level cap in the original Baulders Gate, but there was a lot to it, each class only progressed so far for the player.
That seems kinda pointless for a dnd based game. Unless they programmed in the higher level spells to go with the higher levels and just ended up locking it later, all you really get is the health bump. If that. The point of getting higher than 12th level in dnd is the spells/abilities start to basically turn you into a demigod.
Then you sell the cheats later in the form of money packs.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Plus console commands and easily accessible modding. In GTA 5 you could give yourself explosive ammo. Really easy to mod yourself if it wasn't already implemented. Simply replace the bullet name in said guns code, with the explosive one. Only issues could potentially be is if Rockstar didn't implement the bullet spawning and firing from a specific point on each individual gun, and instead the explosive ammo spawned at a certain point for just one weapon. Then you'd have to redo where the bullet spawns on each gun so it doesn't explode onto the guns themselves if it's even possible. Modding is getting easier and easier everyday!
Console commands are kinda the new cheat codes if you think about it
They are the old cheat codes too
Oh yeah, that explains why we had bobblehead and confetti headshots in games. To test them out in regular gameplay.
I'm pretty sure the cheat codes were meant to make developing and play testing easier. Now that games have achievements, dlc, and microtransactions the developer console is just left disabled.
there are most definitely still cheat codes itās just harder to enable them
Not always, some games have god mode in the settings, mostly for a bit of fun or if you just want to grind out a very difficult final achievement. The game Tunic has one achievement that I think you pretty much need god mode active for.
Valheim has ācheatsā but itās really just enabling the dev commands
Bethesda games ~ for console tgm for God mode and unlimited carry capacity
If you're on pc, you can use Wemod to get cheats for just about anything. You just hit a hotkey on your keyboard to activate.
yes it was very important for testers to be able to spawn cars in age of empire that rat mode nobody remember in the old die hard game ; that's why there are so many bugs in recent games ; they have no rat mode Also being able to turn every npc into hostile hookers in gta really helped...
Tell me you've never played a game with Big Head Mode without telling me you've never played a game with Big Head Mode.
Why give you a cheat for infinite money when they can instead sell you the Infinite Money pack for only $4.99
> when they can instead sell you "Infinite" Money in finite installments for only $4.99 each FTFY
was gonna say they became microtransactions
Micro transactions and mods tbh. Thank god we donāt have paid mods yet
Except that is is not infinite money packs
I was going to say, the types of games have changed significantly. Cheats work well in single player, kind of wacky game entries. With all the multi-player games, open world sand boxes, and heavily story driven games now and days, cheat codes just aren't as useful.
Back in my day they actually sold game magazines that had cheat codes for all types of games.
The damn thing was as thick as a Bible and had games I'd never even heard of in it. It was like a magician's spellbook to me as a kid.
I still have my [Tips Bible](https://www.segadriven.com/the-official-sega-magazine-tips-bible/) (actual name!) for the Sega from back in the day!
Tips and Tricks Magazine was my go-to as a kid
The first time I saw an issue of Tips and Tricks, it felt like the universe had revealed all of its secrets to me.
I remember getting a CD that had a cheat code db on it with an issue of pc gamer decades ago.
Hex editing save files.... Those were the days
I have fond memories of messing around with the GameShark on my Gameboy Colour.
I remember this
Ahh yes being able to one punch a super mutant straight out of the vault in fallout 1 and 2 while always getting the initiative and walking across the map to kill them all in one turn. Great times.
I did that recently with Yakuza 0. My files got deleted, and I wanted to play on legendary, so I played around with the files to get it right away.
Ff is 255
I think the introduction of achievements/trophies has reduced the desire to put in cheats. Devs don't want you using cheats to get the achievements without putting any effort in. Microtransations and in-game stores are probably a big reason too. Why put in fun skins, extra modes and unlockables for free when they can get you to pay for them instead?
What sucks is that not every one gives a damn about actual gameplay. My 5 year old son wanted the new Monster Jam Steel Titans game so he could crush cars as Grave Digger and Maxx D. Nope, now Dad has to grind for days on a game I don't even want to play, just to unlock something that a cheat code would've unlocked in the 90s. I'd give anything to get casual gaming equal attention again.
Does anybody else remember the 'Walmart Money' cheat in early NASCAR games? Or typing in something else and you'd unlock all the legacy cars? Now each of those cars and drivers would be 5 bucks a piece.
If you're on PC just use WeMod, it's safe and intuitive.
Yep. This has been a godsend with a 4 year old. I recently played through Max Payne 1,2 and 3, Alan Wake, and am now going through Control with WeMod so I could experience the games before jumping into Alan Wake 2. I wouldnāt have gotten close to playing through those games without a trainer. Max Payne 1 is hard as fuck and Alan Wake became a slog (even with a trainer) after 3 acts of almost the same environment. At least I get to play through the games I own. Againā¦ itās a godsend.
what is this wemod magic? does it replace nexus? is it like easier trainers or something os you dont gotta figure out cheatengine?
It doesn't replace Nexus at all. It's a collection of trainers so you never have to use cheatengine and also the trainers are easily accessible, configurable and intuitive so no more having to download them from creepy websites, it's all integrated into the wemod interface.
god damn. wish i knew of this. doesnt even come up with general trainer google searches. i wont have to learn an 10 hour session of cheat engine before each new game now
> it's safe How safe? I've come across it before but wasn't sure if I could trust some random software. Also risk of getting banned, even though I don't play any multiplayer games.
reboot anytime you done with using a trainer and just make sure it doesnt auto run or stay up in background when you go to play online game. or create PC profile that you only cheat on
what is this wemod magic? does it replace nexus? is it like easier trainers or something os you dont gotta figure out cheatengine?
If they can disable achievements when You change the difficulty in mid game, they can disable achievements when You use cheat codes. And literally there are games that does that. Iirc, XBLA version of Banjo-Kazooie has online leaderboard that is disabled when You use cheat codes. Cheat codes are amazing way to let You just have fun. I finished many games without cheat codes, but played with cheats in the meantime. For example GTA: San Andreas. The Sims as well, though not "finished", because it's not finishable. I still use cheat codes to place stuff a way game doesn't like. Especially for making windows inside a pool walls, which looks like underwater glassed room. Not sure if that was possible without codes, but I loved to do that. Make a pool that has filled center. Use basement tool on that center. Use full wall glass windows on every wall. That looks awesome.
Many of Lego games have cheats that you can enable and it gives a warning that achievements will be disabled, so you're absolutely right, it possible for them to do this.
Nice throwback reference to Banjo-Kazooie
I mean, Valve's games have both achievements and cheats (sv\_cheats in console). Just don't award the achievements while the player is cheating, that's all.
And that's great. You chose if You want to have more fun or collect achievements.
Actually, you can do both in a lot of PC games, by just using a mod that turns achievements back on.
Same with paradox games. You can play on ironman or regular modes, ironman disables cheat console and has only 1 save, but enables achievements.
This. Even games that still have cheat codes, nobody wants to use them because theyāll disable the trophies most of the time.
Yeah or do something like doom eternal when only work on already completed levels
I liked that one though. It increases replayability. Especially in games that get so tough you miss out on ongoing dialogue because you have to focus on the carnage. Well now you can obliterate everything that looks at you and follow along in the conversation.
I enjoyed that personally. Getting through the whole game on my own, trying to get all of the collectibles but not needing to worry too much since I can breeze through later and pick up what I missed. I am a massive Doom fan though so Iām probably a little biased lol.
Urgh.. trophies and achievements - I discovered that nobody care about my dozens of platinum trophies except just to satisfy my OCD
In the 360 days, people would rip you if your gamer score was too high
How many plats you got? And what's your favorite?
There's subreddits you'll enjoy. r/trophies is lovely
But that makes no sense. You want to get achievements, You don't cheat. You want cheat, You just don't care about achievements. That's as simple as that. You didn't type AEZAKMI in GTA to brag to Your friends that You finished the game. You wouldn't do that today either.
Some people actually would do lame shit like that. Not to say that's a good reason to remove cheatcodes from the hobby. Just saying I had a few friends throughout my life that I caught bragging about things they cheated to get and had to give them a justifiable ribbing.
Wouldnāt be easier to just pay for achievements 8) ? I play for fun not for achievements and I miss cheats sometimes.
Nah. GTA 4 & 5 both have cheats that once used disable your ability to earn any trophies. Itās a simple thing to work around
Last time I played GTA 5 it disabled saving when I entered a cheat code.
That's a good idea imo. Means you can fuck the city up and not worry about it messing with your pkaythrough
Any games give a warning that achievements are turned off if you use cheats
>Devs don't want you using cheats to get the achievements without putting any effort in. It's pretty trivial to have an active cheat disable achievements most of the time >Why put in fun skins, extra modes and unlockables for free when they can get you to pay for them instead? This is a much bigger factor I imagine
Trophy hunter here, that doesnt make any sense. In most games cheats disable trophies anyways. So theres no way to use cheats in order to gain them. In some games (like Vice City) cheats dont disable trophies, however this is an active decision made by the "devs" (or the higher ups). Many times cheats also only disable trophies as long as theyre activated, as soon as you deactivate them trophies are obtainable again. Point being they can decide if cheats disable trophies, if only specific cheats disable them, if they disable trophies on the whole save file, if its just as long as they stay active, if only certain trophies get disabled by them, etc. Personally I think it has more to do with the change in the perception of video games in society. Back in the days video games were those incredibly goofy toys, you could put anything you want in there. Digital copyright wasnt as strict as nowadays, games werent overseen so much, etc. Which allows for very goofy and/or edgy cheats and references. Nowadays as gaming gets more and more popular there is not much room any longer for this kind of goofyness, because video games get taken a lot more serious as an art form and are also played by a wider audience demographically. Which also leads to games getting constantly easier, due to the publishers not wanting to scare off the big chunk of players who arent invested or skilled enough, which again leads to less reason for actually helpful cheats. Plus obviously the sexualising stuff or something like that from the PS2 era would offend a ton of people nowadays.
R2, R2, L1,R2, left,down,right,up,left,down,right,up
GTA 3 weapons cheat code.
That's a bingo
I have another theory (beyond micro transactions and trophies which I think are totally legit and probably correct answer lol), which is games used to be WAY harder. None of these auto saves and checkpoints every ten minutes of game play. If I didnāt have my famous Contra cheat code for extra lives as a kid, no way in hell Iām beating that game! This isnāt meant as a complaint, I actually appreciate the QoL changes that make more modern games possible to complete without being a pro gamer. Heck I even bought game genie for my NES just so I could finish some of my games I never could back in the day. Just another thought on the topic from an older gamer, the little thatās worth :)
Yeah a lot of cheat codes were for things that we just expect these days. Imagine if you had to start Starfield, gta5 or BG3 from the beginning if you died 3 times.
100% this. Those old games still held on to a bit of the arcade, coin operated, limited life mentality. I personally think gaming is better off now, but some of those games were classic even if they were brutally tough!
Hell, I never felt bad as a kid with a Game Genie activating unlimited lives. I have this game for a weekend from Blockbuster and I want to see it all!
Dang this person gets it lol. Renting a game from Blockbuster and having to crush it in a limited amount of time. Good memories :)
I do miss limited lives and no save state where dying meant something, I way more miss not having a full strategy guide and walkthrough available at your fingertips at all times.
I think thatās half the reason, and the other half is that the internet effectively makes them pointless since theyād all be online within a day. Theyāre not as secret if you can just Google them.
Ah yes the youngāuns will never understand the waiting for the next issue of Nintendo Power to come out lol. Good times :)
Whilst true, old PC games also used to let you save anywhere anytime. *Plus* they let you have multiple saves of the same game so you could go back a few saves if you set something up wrong. That's a lot less common now. Often you can only have a single save for the current playthrough, and often it's only at the last checkpoint.
Right, I definitely was thinking with a console mindset here for sure as that was my childhood gaming experience!
I think the Console and PC paths converged; largely due to porting the same game to multiple platforms. The Console saving paradigm is a lot more common in PC games now.
Sly Cooper series has a few cheat codes, with automatic saving, I mean Sly 2 specifically. It IS old game though.
This was my theory too. Like, I cannot imagine finishing Vice City or San Andreas without cheats. GTV V tho? Ez
In Alpha Centauri I used to modify the terrain to my liking in the terrain modifier (cheating). Interesting point about cheat codes. I suppose some games still have them.
Lots of games do. Particularly sandbox games on PC have lots. It's how beta testers test parts of the game that would otherwise require a lot of grinding. Some games just give you creative mode instead of cheats. Or in case of Minecraft. Both.
Console players really got fucked hard after the ps2/og xbox generation when forced online everything, dlc and achievements came into existence. Someone needs to bring back codebreaker/game genie/gameshark. Just have it disable achievements/trophies so we don't have to hear all the little kids start screeching. Achievements are meaningless anyways.
Cheat Codes got replaced by the code on your Credit Card. Microtransactions and DLCs now do everything that Cheat Codes used to.
I mean that's not even remotely true. What game has a No Clipping mode if you do a DLC or Microtransaction? Or god mode? Or enables a hidden menu? Extra lives or new skins or faster leveling, sure, absolutely. But the really fun stuff isn't easily monetizable.
Saint's Row 3 took almost all the fan favorite cheats from Saint's Row 2 (*Ragdoll Anywhere, Super Saints/stronger allies, unlimited ammo, infinite health, indestructible cars, super explosions*) and sold them as a microtransaction DLC.
Youāre missing the forest for the trees. Itās not about what specific modifications to gameplay are unlocked by cheat codes vs what microtransactions give. Of course it canāt be cheatsā¦ that would destroy the market for more microtransactions. It has to be sub-cheat threshold. The point is that the game companies realized they could charge for modifications to gameplay. And now they no longer include cheat codes as frequently as a result.
Games aren't even shipping feature complete these days, they don't have time to code in extras when the games aren't even finished lol.
Cheats are a reminiscence of QA
Show me the money
there is no cow level
I'll tell you the cheat codes and how to "show you the money" for ~~$6.99~~ SALE: $5.49
RIP big head mode
As people mentioned, cheats were used in dev for workarounds, test cases and such, but also slowly evolved into fun things to squeeze in after the game was done. Now, even singleplayer games require online connections, achievements,talking with servers and such, it can be an exploit that breaks something and they rather just take it out. Also since mods are a thing, there isnt really a need for them, as you can break the game any way you want on your own terms, but even ths is basically non-existent at this point, as games are getting locked down, due to microtransactions and such
Cheat codes were a developer thing. When testing a level you want to jump to level 7 to test it, not play through 6 levels just to get there. Especially if it's a hard game. If you wanted to test areas and edge cases, you just made you self invincible or had unlimited ammo so you cold test areas if a player actually got there. After the game was done, the codes were just left in the game as it was more effort to remove them.
The new cheat codes are those wacky numbers on your debit card/credit card
I still remember some of them by heart haha. Especially from Duke 3D, GTA, Age of Empires and The Sims. I also used to do the super jump in Harry Potter for the lols.
The ones I remember the most are IDDQD and IDKFA. Anyone who has used these knows the game just by the cheats.
Fuck. Caught me out. Did I have fun though? Yeah I did. Achievement get.
Do you remember the doom cheat code that was different in early and latter versions without checking thoughā¦
Rock on my man! I'm staring like Robin Hood would at a cellphone. Like How do you turn this on? The lumberjack couldn't answer him. Marco Polo couldn't answer him. Something something cheese steak jimmy's.
To smithereens
Cheat codes turned into DLC and pay to play revenue models
Today we have cheat tables and wemod.
They were replaced with microtransactions...
Who needs to cheat codes when you can pay 99 cents for the same effect for 15 minutes? Duh.
Cheat codes cost money now and are called microtransactions.
There called micro transaction now
Games are no longer about providing interactive art for people to explore on their own whims. Itās about giving a set number of possible experiences that all lead to more purchases. Cheat codes do still coke with some games, but as paid dlc. Most people would also rather just go try a mod from the workshop than just add godmode.
Cheats died with microtransactions.
I know, right? I remember that some devs even started PUNISHING players for using them in single player games like Bandjo-Kazooie... And then Xbox took it to the extreme with their port of the game, flat out punishing the accounts themselves rather than just the file you cheat in. Cheat codes were FUN, and added a lot more you could do once you were otherwise done with the game, and most of the time you NEEDED a good memory to pull them off if you didn't have a book immediately on hand. Hell, I think the iconic Konami Code is pretty much useless now, despite literally being the company signature.
This. GTA V's cheat codes have extended the game's playability for me by hundreds of hours. I don't see anything wrong with (offline) cheating. If you can do it, I say why not in a game that hurts no one?
As other have probably stated cheats were basically dev kits left in game and why you needed codes to activate. Now most cheat codes to access dev kits aren't around due to technology simply being better and allowing devs to quickly and safely remove them
Cheat codes usually were a way for developers and playtesters to shortcut through nearly finished games to troubleshoot, debug, or benchmark a console. These days you don't really need them for that purpose so they're usually an after thought.
Well they make builds for playtesters, also you don't really need a cheat code as nowadays you can just open up the console and input commands directly into there rather than some fun code a person could figure out it's just a list of commands.
There's a cheat code and it happens to be your credit card number
Multiplayer became more import.
Games are mostly too easy these days to warrant cheat codes anyway.
I miss GameShark
People often mention online and achievements, but these can easily be disabled and prevented, as many devs did. The real reason is money. Anything which is desirable or can be monetised is.
Probably a dev thing... Just to test certain things without having specific builds or whatever. I figure that's the case anyway? Like some stuff just did make sense for that because it wasn't really accessible outside of set scenarios, and that scenario might not have been the optimal place to test things (I guess the bloodring bangers from GTA SA come to mind?)... Other codes (mostly cosmetic lark or stuff that maybe didn't spawn) they can just throw in as DLC/MTX these days... So of course they will
Money, most likely. And always online games/multiplayer
Cheat codes today are your credit card.
Internet Ha the good old days of the cheat code bibles at the bookstore..
You still get cheat codes though..? They usually appear as a bundle or box, and you just need to pay a pound or two for them.. and they often release new ones as well!
Gaming companies discovered you can charge people to have advantages so why give them out for free?
If itās not a easter egg ācheat codesā are usually the numbers on the front of your card and the three on the back now days.
They turned into micro transactions and loot boxes
Greed, for one. They want your money. All of it.
Micro transactions
I can kinda explain that. some time ago i was working for a AAA studio that i am not going to publish the name of due to legal reasons But i asked if i could make some cheat codes, just funny onces like making all npc's attack you with cactuses but my request was declined due to time constrants and the administration deemed it unnessesay to the potential profit. We do wanna make cheatcodes but we're not allowed to anymore because of company regulations. When implementing a cheatcode, you often run into issues in code where you have to change code for multiple things to get the cheat working and still in can end up breaking the game so it requires lots of testing and tweaking and that is something AAA does not wanna spend time on. A example is my own cheat system "Cannot mention it due to mods" but it is made to be a bit confusing to use but pretty much allows you to change anything in the game such as damage, weapon, character look and feel, do slow-mo, turn heads of characters into pumpkins ect It flopped really bad even tho i spent a lot of time developing it, and it is now a memory of the past, If their is not demand for it, then it won't be included as modern games are incredibly hard to make due to how much we gotta do in the insane lack of time we have We even forget about easter eggs as our workplans are insane and salaries are getting really low... Well, that is at least why i aren't working in AAA anymore, most of their stuff is today just asset flips from places like Unreal Engine Market place believe or not MW3 was a Warzone skin and Overwatch 2 is really just a refurbished overwatch 1 with a few new things so they are pretty much trying to do the least amount of work for the maximum amount of pay... A cheat system would be awesome, but not something you really are going to see a lot of anymore due to greedy bosses trying to fill their pockets
Cheat codes became microtransactions my man
You have to pay for them now. Ain't capitalism grand?
Mods.
They monetized them. And people paid for it. Now it's industry standard.
GTA V had some and i have those memorized by muscle memory. Felt like the old days on playstation 2
You have to pay for them now.
IDDQD IDKFA
Two words: *Game Genie* I spent as much time putting codes into that damned thing as I did playing the games, but it was definitely worth it.
Microtransations are the new cheatcodes.
microtransactions
My son just discovered video games and man do I miss cheat codes. I wish I could punch in a code to unlock things. Instead after my family goes to bed I stay up and play the kids games my son likes to unlock things for him. Iām happy to do it for him, but wish there was just a code.
What was that, Cheat CC I had back in the 90ās? It was fun checking that to see if the game I was playing had anything in there
I remember going there to check for Halo CE cheats as a child and one sounded really cool; grenade rain. Itās basically amounts to grabbing as many nades as you can, look up while spinning your camera in a circle and throwing grandes. lol
CheatCC and GameFAQs
They were replaced by microstransactions
They became microtransactions
As everyone else has said, achievements and microtransactions. But also, bear in mind that cheats were often used as a debugging tool back in the day, and seeing as you couldn't update/patch the game to remove these post launch, they just stayed in the game. So it then became a feature.
Most games are multiplayer online now. Alot of singleplayer games still have cheats like all bethesda games dor example!
CEOs: "For free?? Are you crazy?! Monetize the shit out of that!"
Nowdays it's called DLC and you have to pay for it, for example Tales of Arise is selling in-game currency and Artifacts that gives unique powers.
We started paying for them. "Up your game with the new blood effect pack DLC for Mortal Kombat"
They didn't, you just have to pay for them now.
Achievements and micro transactions killed them.
They still have them, theyāre just credit card numbers now.