Thanks for watching TechWiz. Click the subscribe button, then enable
notifications with the bell icon, so you won't miss any future videos. Ever since
human beings coalesced into actual societies that came up with systems for
handling their affairs, people have found ways to cheat them. From taxes to
sports to that show where Joey Greco got shanked by a philandering lover, trying
to gain an unfair advantage is nothing new. And so it is with video games. Just
like there are plenty of shortcuts you can take that would land you in trouble with the IRS, the history of cheating in
video games is long and varied. In fact, cheating goes all the way back to the
earliest days of gaming when developers started putting cheat codes into their
games to allow them to skip levels in order to test their functionality more
quickly. And although many of these codes weren't intended to be disclosed
publicly, some early gamers were still quite interested in examining the
underlying code of many games in detail, meaning it wasn't long before they
started finding exploits. Some of these were even used to try and fix underlying
problems, such as an early retail trainer program for Castle Wolfenstein,
released in the mid-1980s that promised to fix crashes and other bugs, but also
gave players access to additional items and level skips. But other times, gamers
just discovered these debugging codes on their own instead of relying on
commercially available trainers for additional functionality, as the
developers usually didn't bother to take these out before the games were
released. The famous Konami Code, which is now an Easter egg on many popular
websites, is a notable example of this. Before long, developers took notice of
the fact that cheat codes made their games more appealing and started actively putting them into games with
the intent that players would use them. Back in the '80s and '90s, chasing down
the almighty high score was the holy grail of many a gamer, meaning codes for
things like infinite lives could help them reach scores that were previously
unattainable. And even if players didn't care about maxing out their scores,
cheats provided a new way to experience titles that a gamer had already beaten.
For example, Mortal Kombat featured a code that wasn't really a cheat, but
enabled gore in the game, which was default by default, because some
politicians in the US thought a little bit of 2D pixelated blood was far too
much for the masses to handle responsibly. So by the mid-1990s, cheat
codes were wildly popular, and the demand for them was so high that gamers
didn't want to be restricted to just what was built in by a developer. So
products like the Game Genie, Game Shark, and Action Replay hit the market.
Cartridges that actually manipulated the code of whatever game was inserted into
them. In this way, players could discover their own cheats, even in games
that didn't have any built in, and share them with other gamers. And even though
some developers, notably Nintendo, did not appreciate this and tried to
litigate cheat cartridges out of existence by saying that they were
infringing upon copyrights, courts disagreed, and the devices remained
popular well into the late 1990s and early 2000s. But in the mid-2000s, the
popularity of cheat codes plummeted rapidly. But why? Did gamers just
suddenly have a change of heart? Well, sort of. Back when cheat codes were the
height of cool, they were typically found primarily by reading gaming
magazines or simply by word of mouth, making gamers that had them they were
part of some super rad secret society. But internet search engines came along
and blew up that entire paradigm, since now anyone could look up a code in a
matter of seconds. But what really killed off the traditional cheat code
was the achievement system that was introduced around the same time that
online play became a key feature of first PC and later console gaming.
Gamers now chase down achievement points like they did the high scores of
yesteryear. But since you can now instantly compare your achievements with
those of others from around the world, instead of just playing for personal
satisfaction, using cheat codes or other exploits to rack up achievements became
frowned upon, as it undermined those who poured tons of time and effort into
acquiring them honestly. And for those who care more about online multiplayer
than single-player achievements, online game services like Xbox Live and EA
Origin started aggressively banning cheaters in order to provide a level
playing field for the millions of gamers who log onto their servers. Of course,
this doesn't mean that cheats don't still exist. While cheat codes are much
rarer in games than they used to be, many games still contain secrets or
Easter eggs that can be discovered in ways other than entering codes. And
exploits are still used by speedrunners to beat games in record time, Taren,
making it sort of a twist on the concept of a high score. And you can learn more
about that right up here. But of course, actual modern-day cheating, in the sense
of gaining an unfair advantage, is the most common on online multiplayer
servers. So, let us know if you'd like to see a follow-up episode on the arms
race between game studios and players of ill repute as we explore modern-day
cheating techniques. But you know what's the exact opposite of something of ill
repute? Private internet access, a VPN.
Not only does PIA work on up to five devices at once by hiding your true IP
address and allowing you to bypass geo-restrictions and censorship by
making you appear that you're connecting from somewhere else, it also blocks
unwanted connections to help prevent attacks, auto blocks all traffic if the
VPN disconnects, keeping your data out of the hands of advertisers and other
snoops who are tracking your activity, prevents DNS leaks, and even includes
Mace, PIA's built-in malware blocker. PIA supports multiple VPN protocols and
encryption levels, allowing you to dial in the exact level of protection you
need. They have apps for Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, Linux, and a Chrome
extension with support for more platforms coming soon. And PIA has over
3,000 servers in 28 countries and does not log user activity. So, what are you
waiting for? Check them out today at the link below.
So guys, thank you very much for watching. Let us know in the comments if
you'd like to see a follow-up video on cheating. Make sure to like the video,
dislike, comment, get subscribed, and
you know, we'll see you on the next one.