"Code Red: The history of the cheat"
Found this via slashdot. It's basically a brief history of cheat codes in video games and why they pretty much no longer exists these days.
The take-away quote from that article, for me, is this: "'The rise of strategy guides has probably contributed too, with guide maker no doubt encouraging game publishers to withhold cheats to avoid lost strategy guide revenue,' Sorrell says. 'Of course, least positively of all, another angle for many publishers is in-app purchasing - why provide a feature as a hidden cheat when you can get people to pay money to unlock it?' Seavor has also noticed this trend. 'Bigger publishers have now realised 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!'"
So yeah, it's not like "cheat codes" have gone anywhere, really. You simply have to pay for them now, that's all. It's just one more reason on a vast pile of reasons as to why the advent of DLC has been mostly shit.
The take-away quote from that article, for me, is this: "'The rise of strategy guides has probably contributed too, with guide maker no doubt encouraging game publishers to withhold cheats to avoid lost strategy guide revenue,' Sorrell says. 'Of course, least positively of all, another angle for many publishers is in-app purchasing - why provide a feature as a hidden cheat when you can get people to pay money to unlock it?' Seavor has also noticed this trend. 'Bigger publishers have now realised 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!'"
So yeah, it's not like "cheat codes" have gone anywhere, really. You simply have to pay for them now, that's all. It's just one more reason on a vast pile of reasons as to why the advent of DLC has been mostly shit.