It’s more likely because 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.
With better development tools, debuggers/profilers, and easier ways to distribute builds, they stopped being left in the game. And with the gamification from achievements/trophies, cheats would devalue/trivialise unlocking achievements etc and break their purpose.
Also some of the creative and fun codes that did things like altering models in a comical way orreplaceing gunfire with cows mooing just aren’t added as part of development anymore.
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.
Improvements in development/debugging tools definitely explains part of the puzzle - but I think your last sentence is actually a much better explanation, because I absolutely remember games where cheats weren’t just in the game, but were explicitly available to the player through menus (the Ratchet and Clank quadrilogy comes to mind).
The culture around cheats has kinda just changed. People much more value either a vanilla single-player experience, or a truly modded one. Plus the prevalence of multiplayer games has increased exponentially since cheats were popular - and of course outright cheating online is a big no-no (though I wish that were the case with P2W)
Not if it’s blood is smiley faces, you fall down you land on a roof, your head gets bigger, omg you can fly!, everyone has a clown nose, you reveal a hidden set of armor that has no actual stats but is purely for looks.
If it’s, it skips you ahead, defeats a part of the game, unlocks achievements and has an effect on the online servers then I understand not leaving them in. If it’s fun garbage Easter egg bullshit, then it should be left in.
It’s more likely because 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.
With better development tools, debuggers/profilers, and easier ways to distribute builds, they stopped being left in the game. And with the gamification from achievements/trophies, cheats would devalue/trivialise unlocking achievements etc and break their purpose.
Also some of the creative and fun codes that did things like altering models in a comical way orreplaceing gunfire with cows mooing just aren’t added as part of development anymore.
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.
And Gandhi goes nuclear.
That was an underflow error.
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.
Improvements in development/debugging tools definitely explains part of the puzzle - but I think your last sentence is actually a much better explanation, because I absolutely remember games where cheats weren’t just in the game, but were explicitly available to the player through menus (the Ratchet and Clank quadrilogy comes to mind).
The culture around cheats has kinda just changed. People much more value either a vanilla single-player experience, or a truly modded one. Plus the prevalence of multiplayer games has increased exponentially since cheats were popular - and of course outright cheating online is a big no-no (though I wish that were the case with P2W)
Yeah, really need that sense of pride and accomplishment while we pay for another loot box
Not if it’s blood is smiley faces, you fall down you land on a roof, your head gets bigger, omg you can fly!, everyone has a clown nose, you reveal a hidden set of armor that has no actual stats but is purely for looks.
If it’s, it skips you ahead, defeats a part of the game, unlocks achievements and has an effect on the online servers then I understand not leaving them in. If it’s fun garbage Easter egg bullshit, then it should be left in.