As a youth, I used to rent video games from Blockbusters on a Friday after making a deal with my mom that we hit the library first. I would spend a good part of the weekend playing that single game in the hopes of beating it, and getting the most out of it as I possibly could before having to return it in a couple of days. Besides the usual incentives for picking out a new game; the gameplay, story, and overall fun of it etc I always looked forward to the cheats. I loved visiting websites like cheatcc.com or cheatplanet.com to see what ways the developers had fun with the games and could create a new form on intended gameplay. In some cases cheats always felt like the game designers were getting more personal and relaxed with their games. In the end, they know it's just a game and they wanted to have fun with it.
 
Either by entering, usually a funny word, or a series of numbers, or even a button sequence, cheating was fun. For me the departure from the established normalcy of the game was flipped upside down and that usually proved to be more fun. Big heads, sure. Flying around in the Men in Black car in the middle of Star Wars: Rogue Squadron hell yeah! Now, I can't do most of those things in current games, or if something fun like that is available, I'd have to pay money for it in the form of DLC. Some games do have cheats. I'm not trying to say all cheats are gone, but to me, they seem to be on the decline. Or they interfere with achievement mining, which seems to be the most important aspect in games development nowadays instead of quality. (That's a heavy handed statement I know, maybe I'm just pissed at current gaming trends)
 
I propose that every time you accomplish an achievement that would unlock a cheat. Or hell unlock something in the game as an incentive to go above and beyond.
 
Take for example Bulletstorm. I'm convinced if Bulletstorm came out before let's say 2005, changing the leash color would have been a simple cheat. Now it comes in the form of pre-ordering. (Yes, there was also the possibility of playing the demo and receiving a second color.)  On the flip side, I enjoy the notion of Halo's skulls, where you have to find skulls hidden in the game to unlock gameplay changes. I would of liked the gameplay changes to be a little more radical and in the vein of the hidden dialogue and grunt birthday party ones.
 
So what do you all think? Did you enjoy using cheats like I did, or do you think they are just a waste of time?

There are still cheats in games?

They're dlc now.

Cheats aren't disappearing, they're already dead. They haven't been prominent in games for ages. A lot of things that used to be in games as cheats are now DLC or preorder bonuses. 

The days of having a cheat code booklet on your coffe table are over. 

Why would we need cheats anymore? 99% of the games today will hold your hand from start to finish (the whole 4 - 8 hours......*sigh*.................................................)

The only cheats I can remember using in the last couple of years is GTA 4. I always have the most fun when I am just running around with full health blowing stuff up! To bad developers dont put them in now days...I think I increases the replay value a lot if there are cheats!!

There's no real need any more, most games these days are able to scale well enough to allow the majority of people to beat them. The only ones which do not (Super Meat Boy for example) are designed purely to be hard, so cheating on them sort of defeats their purpose. 
 
And regarding cheating to change the game, yeah those are DLC or unlocks now.

In tomb raider if you tap X o square triangle to the beat of spice girls ‘Wannabe’ Lara will dance and get naked.

Well in my definition of cheating, I'm not defining in the sense to purely make the game easier. I'm defining it in the sense of either cosmetic changes, gameplay changes (gravity, weird weapons etc), and anything that radically alters the usual game play. 
 
So to the fact that they are indeed dead. What do we do about it? If anything at all. I'm not trying to campaign for cheats to be in all games, but rather the collapse and destruction of this preorder/dlc nonsense. How do we beat it? Does it need to be beat? I can't even fathom a way to unite enough people to even make a change? And to that matter what change do even want or need in the game industry?

Starcraft 2 have cheats. They disable the achievements when using them but they're still there.
 
As most say, it's not really needed anymore given how many steps of difficulty you can choose between. The SC2 cheats are more a nostalgic throwback since they were in SC1.
 
Personally I think cheats should be unlocked if they're to be there at all, Goldeneye 64 style. But it's been a good decade since I used a cheat the last time so I don't really care.

The most recent games I can recall having cheats are GTAIV and Saint's Row 2.
 
Both games are actually a lot more fun to play with cheats.

idkfa

" Why would we need cheats anymore? 99% of the games today will hold your hand from start to finish (the whole 4 - 8 hours......*sigh*.................................................) "

" They're dlc now. "

I would say the Lego games red bricks count as cheats.
I think the advent of new game+ and DLC ment the end of cheats in game.

I remember getting a game genie for my NES back in the day, used to love all the crazy stuff you could do in games. I think people really lost interest in cheats, big head mode and all that just became a bit boring.

Sure, EA sell them to you.

I quite like cheat codes and It's always fun when newer games have them like the node/money cheats in Dead Space. I was also pretty amused by Army of two, 2 having the big head mode in it.  

I assume that most people posting in here are console gamers. Cheats are still a big part of PC gaming in the form of trainers and mods. If there aren't cheats built into the game, someone will find a way to manipulate variables and create them. Even in the case of GTA IV where there are cheats, there's still so much more fun to be had. Some of my best memories of the series are from manipulating car variables and driving around. 
 
  

"They're dlc now. "

I think you should get used to it.

While it's been ages since I've actually used a cheat I do miss the concept of them. It's doubtful that I would have ever beaten Contra without the use of the Konami code, and being the first kid on the playground to know about Justin Bailey or naming your save file "Zelda" somehow made you feel like you held some form of exclusive and very cool knowledge . Cheats made a lot more sense in the pre-internet era when they were a fun discovery. The arrival of the next Game Players or Game Pro magazine was something I would salivate for. Once one of those rags was in my hands I'd flip straight to the "special code" section and try every possible code I could.

PC gaming still have cheats around. But since the introduction of Achievements and Trophies there haven't been many cheat codes for current generation machines.