The good old days when cheats didnt cost money

I think using cheats added to the fun of a game especially in the gta games and not all cheats affected gameplay for example there were codes for spyro that changed his color

I don’t think that’s a cheat if it doesn’t affect core gameplay mechanics. In super Mario 1-2 there’s a shortcut that takes you to a room with 3 pipes u can use to skip levels.I don’t think of that as a cheat because the game logic allows you to do it

In the savage pre internet era, and before gaming mags could be easily found in most retail stores- in fact when they were relatively rare beasts- you called numbers like “the Nintendo tip line” and paid phone sex prices for someone to tell you how to beat a boss etc. over the phone if you didn’t have gamer friends. “Cheats” as we know them today didn’t really exist in the early days, a “cheat” that didn’t involve code manipulation was usually a glitch exploit OR some debug or test trick devs forgot to or didn’t take out. Rarely an Easter egg. So we aren’t so much in a “new age” where suddenly greedy companies are making you pay for cheats. We’ve more come full circle. Believe it or not many 8 but or less games were once “cutting edge” complex tech.

The average person or even the moderately skilled didn’t have the know how or equipment to understand or mod these games. We’ve come back to it and not without know how and possibly very expensive uncommon hardware you can’t play games other than how the designer wanted you to. Although with so many games being online, having leader boards etc- it makes sense in some scenarios that cheating would be discouraged because it could interfere with other people’s ability to enjoy the game and not just yours- but many devs still go way too far with it and are just greedy or shady.