CHEATS
Unlike QTEs and invisible walls, cheat codes are an industry trend whose disappearance we’re not happy with at all. Once upon a time, using cheat codes in games was perhaps the greatest way to enjoy them – the Grand Theft Auto series wouldn’t be half as much fun without them, for instance – but for whatever reason, we don’t see a lot of them in games anymore. The rise of microtransactions, as well as video game patches and updates, means that cheats of both kind – advertent and inadvertent – now no longer really have a purpose to exist. Things like secret costume unlocks or EXP boosts can easily be sold to the player for a few bucks, rather than handed for free by a secret code, while unintended cheats (such as the item duplication glitches in the old Pokémon games) can now be patched out as soon as they are discovered. Such can be the price of progress, we guess.
