Game Genie - Gaming Historian

Gaming Historian gives a complete history of the Game Genie by Galoob. This device not only made cheating easy, it helped define fair use in the video game industry. Take a closer look at the device and how it worked.
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[@shindrithargriethrat8408]

I asked for a game genie for Christmas. My mom bought it and I found the receipt, it felt like Christmas took a million years to finally arrive. It was awesome. Little known fact, you could actually stack two of them together and double the codes you could put in.

[@ryanp5052]

What did double codes do?

[@shindrithargriethrat8408]

@@ryanp5052 You could put twice as many codes in than you could with one.

[@shindrithargriethrat8408]

@sarcasticdude2320 I assume you could put in even more codes.

[@Hexstream]

Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of Game Genies stacked together! (I wonder what the actual limit would be?)

[@neoanimefreak_7606]

@@Hexstream Well, you'd also have to consider the length of the room XP . And if you have a way of safely doing so.

[@KaneRobot]

I had the Camerica one. Live in Michigan, went to Canada on family vacation right after the gaming mags broke the news it was blocked in the US and brought one back. After taking the code book to school I was the coolest kid in 6th grade for like...a day because I had this "weird illegal Nintendo cheat thing."

[@williebeamish5879]

the digital cache of illegal fireworks.

[@noralasiah5623]

Cartridge: The player has 2 lives left. Nes: What? I can’t hear you! Game Genie: They said the player has 3 lives left.

[@windowsme2327]

Snes:Shut Up Nes I'm better

[@windowsme2327]

n64:no I am

[@windowsme2327]

Gamecube:No I'm better

[@windowsme2327]

Wii:No I am

[@windowsme2327]

Wii u:no I am

[@CrimsonFox36]

I love how Sega endorsed the Game Genie as a giant middle finger to Nintendo.

[@lightningandodinify]

Sega was cool to everyone but themselves. If they trusted Sega America, the company would be flawless. Sega was before my time, but man am I sad they're gone 😞

[@Baddawg_313]

Genesis does what Nintendon't.

[@minix07]

@@Baddawg_313 eggsecly

[@minix07]

@Shoenheim okay

[@funlover163]

@@lightningandodinify Sega still here. They just don't seem to manufacture hardware anymore.

[@djandiek]

I love seeing young people showing an active interest in the history of video games. You made me smile ☺

[@adoboawesome]

Damn, five years old, and the quality isn't utterly embarrassing. Hats off, Gaming Historian guy.

[@HyperrealisticLuigi]

8 years now.

[@phillbarron3683]

adoboawes

[@spacekoalalove]

It's still charming and informative :D

[@Prauwlet213]

almost 10 years

[@TheBsheep]

11 years now.

[@redavatar]

It's kinda amusing how all these stories have "and then Nintendo sued ..." in the middle. Nintendo sure loved to lawyer up back then!

[@xLithiumFlower1]

I guess after the Universal issue they lawyered up hardcore

[@gluserty]

Nintendo really knew how to put on their law suits for sure. Video gaming was a new industry at the time though, and there just weren't a lot of rules in place yet.

[@DustinRodriguez1_0]

Ohhh yeah. Nintendos litigious nature is why I never owned a Super Nintendo or Nintendo 64. I LOVED my NES, but when it came time to go 16-bit, I specifically asked for the Genesis for Christmas instead of an SNES because of Nintendos lawsuit against Galoob. I was only 10 years old or so, but I followed that lawsuit religiously and was supremely pissed off about it. This video makes it sound like the lawsuit was a quick little couple-week affair. No. It dragged on for years. The Game Genie wasn't even released until quite late in the NES lifecycle because of the dickwad lawyers at Nintendo. No way was I going to give them more money if they were going to do things like that. Even at 10 years old I had more backbone than gamers today are able to muster. I actually didn't play the SNES because the company did things that hurt gamers. Simple. Whereas today, EA poops out something like that online Simcity game that screws millions of people and the modern community of gamers made it the best-selling game on Origin of all time. If you wonder why game publishers nowadays do terrible things to their customers, that is why. Because gamers can't bring themselves to actually not play the games no matter how bad it gets.

[@samuelmeredith2830]

I was thinking the same thing.

[@critter2]

well i can't fault them in some cases i am sure you feel the same if you weren't making money on something that took hours upon hours dayys and moths to admit. and they weren't the only company to sue

[@DukeNukem2020]

Ironically enough, if your NES won't play games anymore because the pins were worn out, the game genie actually fixes the issue and makes games work 90% of the time.

[@crescentfreshbret]

DukeNukem2020 Yep. That was the only way I could play games on my NES until it finally bit the dust completely last year.

[@daytonasayswhat9333]

That's not really ironic.

[@Autrain1980]

@@daytonasayswhat9333 Kind of is. Nintendo sued the Game Genie, yet their games won't work without it.

[@daytonasayswhat9333]

Autrain OK. That makes sense.

[@jamessanders145]

I always thought the game genie had connectors that were slightly too large and the lack of proper contact between console and cartridges was a result of using the game genie. I never expected the game genie to be and unintended solution.

[@Biosynthnut]

I used it once to see the MK1 "Blood" effect, on the SNES.

[@benharrison5816]

Same here, I was hyped to finally have blood! Then was sorely disappointed lol. At least Nintendo finally caved in and we got MK2 which was dope.

[@ctobias1984]

Biosynthnut abacabb

[@Blazeinone]

Genesis does what nintendont

[@fuzzydunlop1753]

@@Blazeinone making a ton of shitty add-ons and failing so hard they had to stop making hardware all together you mean?😏

[@Blazeinone]

Fuzzy Dunlop the genesis is not what made sega quit making hardware it was the Saturn and 32x

[@ronandheather3079]

The game genie was a prize to be admired! It was absolutely amazing and totally gave us a whole new experience in gaming

[@Larry]

What I learned recently, and the most crazy thing about the Game Genie was it was invented, developed and sold by two teenagers and their Dad. (The Darling Brothers)

[@franknitti9126]

Larry Bundy Jr maybe you should go make a video about that instead of stupid fuckin kickstarter videos

[@martinhowser4094]

Larry Bundy Jr : and one of those brothers allegedly had a Ferrari for every one of his toes, but allegedly couldn’t get laid.. so he placed a full page ad in a national newspaper.. allegedly....

[@karnagefails333]

Frank Nitti Damn dude...

[@helpnt804]

Larry Bundy Jr I

[@RikoJAmado]

Hey! I know you! You were the winner of this year's Channel Awesome Hunger Games! :-D

[@xen84]

8:12 I used to have one of these Game Boy versions. That little compartment in the back of it held a tiny little code book, so you'd always have it with you. Pretty clever design choice given that it was meant for a portable system.

[@musican67557]

My compartment handle broke off, though. Don't play with it like I did.

[@DMBWater0]

I know this comment is really old, but had to chime in. I also had it too. Mine came with stickers that you could put on the back of games in case you lost the booklet.

[@cabbycabby1770]

I had the gameshark for PS1. It was damn amazing. Plugged into the serial port on the back and was also used as a huge memory card. Good memories.

[@dacypher22]

It really is mind-blowing how much of an impact Judge Fern Smith has had on the video game industry. She presided over this case, Atari vs. Nintendo and the Tetris cases.

[@TonyDrecaps]

I'm so glad she approved it!

[@wolfetteplays8894]

@@TonyDrecaps same. Otherwise it would’ve set a far more dangerous precedent

[@TonyDrecaps]

@@wolfetteplays8894 yep! Close one

[@dacypher22]

@SuperNostalgia. Are you saying that Judge Fern Smith is......god?

[@waro9637]

There are a whole bunch of advertisements for the Game Genie in comic books I own. I never knew what it was until seeing this video though.

[@darkbowserdofus9978]

KZbin could use a few Fair Use lessons from Galoob.

[@zitz2572]

Indeed!

[@hideofreakingkojima5457]

And the companies who are so desperate in stealing people's money by taking their monitization without any consequences.

[@jacobthesitton9142]

Agreed

[@dhawk1755]

Darkbowserdofus99 I experimented with samples and loops. They banned a video I posted, that had a backwards, modified copywritten looped sample. Not sure how they even figured out the sample I used. Wasn't for profit. You can cite a fair use law on your video, and it might work.

[@DoomFinger511]

I think all people should be treated fairly

[@ImTheKingOfHyrule]

The real reason Nintendo wanted to block the Game Genie was because it made their 1-900 help hotline irrelevant, and for Nintendo, artificial difficulty was an easy way to make kids run up their parents' phone bill, which for Nintendo was pure profit.

[@xXNuclearWarXx]

That, and it effectively allowed you to bypass the CIC lockout chip which they were none to thrilled about.

[@cloudtx]

Interesting theory!.

[@ashdragon1]

cloudtx It's not a theory

[@cloudtx]

ashdragon1 It is unless there is undeniable proof.

[@Lonsoleil]

Timstuff Nintendo was an evil, greedy monopoly back then. It's a really good thing that they have totally lost their control over the video game market.

[@tribaltroll]

Ah the memories... My friends and I would stay up all night trying all the codes and seeing what kind of craziness we could create.

[@goodall1bay]

I remember requiring a game genie to get the NES to even work.

[@aBerlin1945]

Kids these days will never know the struggle of living without Game Genie

[@gaoutlaw]

Super Mario 3 had a boatload of Game Genie codes, multi jumping and start and stay as Hammer Mario were fun ones to use.

[@kelly3014]

C. Dawg Knight My favorite was infinite lives!

[@ingonyama70]

It took me forever, but I found the Holy Grail: Start and Stay as Tanooki Mario. I was a fursuited, statue-y god among turtles.

[@zeroturn7091]

Power Winged the whole game.

[@JohnRiggs]

I'm guessing the very first thing everyone did with the Game Genie was jump over the flagpole in Super Mario Bros. I know that was the first thing I did.

[@nathanhamman418]

John Riggs: RIGG'd Games my game genie never worked, though I got mine second hand

[@superduper7397]

John Riggs: RIGG'd Games and run forever after it

[@edvance1030]

My gaming career begun in the 16 bit era with my Mega Drive, but I didn't have a Game Genie or any cheat device until the 64 bit era when I bought a Gameshark for my Nintendo 64. I had a lot of fun with it.

[@jshepard152]

You can do that without cheating.

[@worldrecordcherrylicker8228]

well actually uhhh i guess so but thats considered a glitch so uhhhh i guess u can make it harder for u to do it with the glitch...

[@EricGarringer]

Game Genie was indeed an "enhancer," not a "cheat." Sure, if desired, one could make a game easier, but I remember there was also codes to make a game far more challenging. It simply allowed the player to customize the games level of difficulty (or ease). And it provided a seemingly endless combination of codes to make each time the game was played unique. Game Genie was a terrific add-on.

[@megamarsonic]

Just scored a Camerica Game Genie for three bucks. As soon as I saw the Camerica logo, I almost instantly remembered this video (which I haven’t seen in YEARS) and what you said about it being a little harder to find than the Galoob version. Thanks, Norm from nearly 12 years ago! 😊

[@markrandle9025]

5:10 camerica

[@rcala1980]

Why would you give this a thumbs down? The presentation is mostly factual and less commentary. Also very structured and accurate. Great job!

[@mcgibs]

The best thing about the Game Genie was making your own codes that glitch the game just enough to still be playable. SMB 2 was one of the best for this. Iridescent Mario, creepy glitched out music composed of sound effects, shit was great.

[@nicholastosoni707]

Makes you wonder if that's where all the ".EXE" creepypastas come from.

[@charlesdiamond1904]

mcgibs true , i didnt really mess with custom codes for nes, but i did that a lot for gameboy

[@daminmancejin]

mcgibs I still make my own codes on the sega genesis I still have fun with my game genie

[@mcgibs]

Speaking of experimental game glitching, when I was really young I remember putting a small sticker on a couple pins of a Mickey Mousecapade cartridge just to see what it would do. It actually scrambled the layout of the levels to the point they felt like secret levels. Thankfully I was able to pick the sticker and gunk back out of everything without damaging the cart and my NES.

[@kg4boj]

mcgibs LOL our NES got dusty and would glitch out all on it's own right, one time in mario brothers 3 my brother warped to the 8th lava zone and all the cannons on the wooden ships or whatever they were turned into deadly coins and all kinds of haywire.

[@adamcolbertmusic]

3:38 "...too easy to play"; true enough in many cases, but it also it made some notoriously hard games EASY ENOUGH TO PLAY.

[@tubey84]

Proper weird... just playing Shining Force on Steam, stopped playing, turned on this video and heard the soundtrack in the background. Completely threw me; thought I hadn't turned the game off!

[@jmonlive]

Lee: Actually sometimes game music hangs, even why all other game output on a pc terminates!

[@davethomas543]

Shining force 2 is the greatest game ever!!!!

[@jc.1191]

I was playing and checked too. lol

[@leviblanchard8256]

I love the background music...shining force holds a special place in my heart. I played it through 3x.

[@AmbrociousXP]

Ahhhh......the good old days. I recall my Game Genie, got it at Christmas when I was a little kid. Those were the good old days.

[@dwaynedibbly]

i like this guys vids as he doesnt like some hyperactive idiot like most youtubers do in order to get attention. Just the facts Jack. :)

[@doclorianrin7543]

Was about to post the same comment.

[@AntiJewluminatiDwarf]

+Hillary Is Evil I always liked those haha was good time to relax in class

[@PKWinning07]

That's actually why I like these videos, it's got a real cool classic PBS vibe from it. I find some modern documentaries overdramatic and most KZbinrs just straight up obnoxious. I absolutely love videos games and video games history but I simply can't enjoy sitting through neckbeards pandering torwards sugared up 13 year olds which is most of the content out there.

[@AntiJewluminatiDwarf]

K.Louis well said

[@gilavalos2400]

Exactly, some presenter act like crackheads with all that crazy arm and hand movement.

[@OneTrueBelmont]

I'd like to think that because of the Game Genie, companies realized that maybe they shouldn't set all their games to HARD as the default.

[@Chronon88]

+OneTrueBelmont They did it to make the games last longer. Renting was a big thing and game would easily flop if it was too easy and everyone could beat it during one day. Game Genie let people see everything in a game right on the spot and I bet that was the issue what Nintendo had with it.

[@OneTrueBelmont]

Chronon Well you have a point there.. The never ending fight between gamers who just want to play something and creators who want to make some money.

[@soylentgreenb]

+OneTrueBelmont Nonsense; there were obscene memory constraints. It was not possible to make a game last without being either hard or very grindy. Super mario bros is literally 20 minutes long if you disable all collision detection. Mastery was the core value of old games because it couldn't be otherwise.

[@tackthewise6421]

Metroid is like Lunatic+ Chapter 22 on Fe awakening. You know what I'm talking about.

[@invidious07]

It wasn't so much "set to hard" as it was that many early NES games were originally arcade games designed to gobble up quarters. When ported over to the NES some added free "continues" that perform the same function as putting in more quarters, but some didn't add anything, you just lost when you ran out of lives and you were done. The only way to beat the game was to play flawlessly during a single multi hour session. Just look at the original TMNT game, I defy anyone to beat that game without cheats or save states.

[@DeRockMedia]

Every gamer knew back then that sometimes you NEEDED game genie to enjoy the game...funny how they thought ppl would enjoy them less. Usually due to limited lives were the reason games got frusterating

[@DeRockMedia]

***** my guess would be sumtimes it took certain companies alot of time to make levels..so they did a few and made them hard as fawk. Just a guess tho

[@altrick9693]

It was once again the unoriginal thought process of the industry. Limited lives were a vestige of arcades, once ported there was no need but to spend five minutes adding in an unlimited mode? Too much work. Far easier to throw them into the arcade but with limited graphics and resolution, and just sue whoever cameup with something better.

[@DoomFinger511]

There were so many games I gave up on because they got so hard. I only went back and enjoyed all the levels because game genie (and later game shark) let me have those few extra lives I needed, or get past that one ridiculously hard boss that popped up way too early in the game. To think about all those last levels programmers spent time working on that so few people saw cause the game was too hard to reach it. On that same note I get why they made it hard. A game that took longer then a day to beat was considered a long game. Due to limited sized and lack of a save feature (for earlier games) making it harder was the only way to stretch it out.

[@pauldavis5665]

Yeah, some games were just frustratingly difficult. It was nice to have a game genie on hand so you know you could dial back the difficulty on any game if you wanted and add to the enjoyment of the game. It was better than pulling the game out of the system in frustration and smashing it to pieces with a hammer. lol

[@DeRockMedia]

@@pauldavis5665 i always aggressively try to break the NES romote in half with my hands when i got frustrated....luckily my 5-8 year old me was weak af

[@DoomRater]

The explanation at 6:23 isn't.. quite right. At least not in most Game Genie codes. Typically what happens is that the game's code that takes something away from the lives counter is modified so that it doesn't do anything. The behavior described in the video would mean if the player GAINED an extra life, the Game Genie wouldn't count that either. But in the case of Super Mario Bros, it does. So it's not freezing the number of lives in this case, it's just overriding the code that takes away a life when you die. By the days of Game Shark, it was much easier to find the number of lives in code within just the Game Shark Pro's tools itself, meaning that most Game Shark codes just froze the variables instead of finding the parts of code that modified its value- though that wouldn't be too hard to discover with a disassembler built in as well.

[@HopUpOutDaBed]

all game genie is is a hex editor. All you're doing when you put in a code is replacing one line of code with another, so you're right it doesn't actively do anything, it simply says "replace this code with something else." If you enter enough codes you could theoretically get the game to do whatever you want (though there's a limit to how much game genie can actually modify)

[@DoomRater]

HopUpOutDaBed right, the example given though was that Game Genie would freeze the variables in memory by always writing the same value to them, which also gives the intended effect but has the side effect that your lives or energy won't go up either- and that's demonstratably not what happens with must Game Genie codes I've seen. Game Shark codes often do this and it's easy to find said variables in memory. Triggering an interrupt when a value is accessed in memory from a Game Shark to rewrite the code being used to modify it is a bit beyond what the Pro version was capable of doing though. So people just modified variables and froze them at a value instead to get the intended effect.

[@DoomRater]

HopUpOutDaBed right, the example given though was that Game Genie would freeze the variables in memory by always writing the same value to them, which also gives the intended effect but has the side effect that your lives or energy won't go up either- and that's demonstratably not what happens with must Game Genie codes I've seen. Game Shark codes often do this and it's easy to find said variables in memory. Triggering an interrupt when a value is accessed in memory from a Game Shark to rewrite the code being used to modify it is a bit beyond what the Pro version was capable of doing though. So people just modified variables and froze them at a value instead to get the intended effect.

[@MiketheratguyMultimedia]

Got the Game Genie and the Super NES for Christmas of 1991 (yes, it was the best Christmas of my entire childhood). The first game I tested on it was Ninja Gaiden II. I couldn't believe that it really worked, that I could make myself invincible. I was so excited for this awesome little device.

[@Nixsy924]

i cheat to experience a new way to play after i beat the game a couple of times

[@PrekiFromPoland]

***** Everyone does. Most players are curious beings and will try to meddle with the game after beating it. That's why developers must think like a player and think of many design details. A classic example - Deus Ex: "OK, I've already beaten the game! Now let's go to that woman's bathroom and find out what happens! :D"

[@CoalTrain22]

PrekiFromPoland What happened when you went to the Woman's bathroom in Deus Ex.

[@PrekiFromPoland]

Oh c'mon :P Manderley, the chief of UNACTO will chew you out for doing that. Now talk about immersion.

[@kwc0435]

Nixsy924 like how you play gta 5 and want to make your punches explosive to destroy los santos

[@markh8189]

I like to cheat not because of a hard game. I like to cheat because it can make a game extremely fun. For example, moon graivty in Mario 64

[@Sly88Frye]

Hold on. Gameshark is still around? I only remember ever using that on PS1 and N64. Once again, another great video here.

[@JASpiring]

The video dates from 2011, which is nine years ago. You commented four years ago, and well, a lot can change in five years. And sure enough, no new Gamesharks in that time - the most recent were for the Nintendo DS and Playstation Portable, both current systems at the time of this video but later replaced by the 3DS and Vita.

[@erikadunne6855]

Many memories of going to my friends house and plugging the game genie into super Mario 3 and beating the game in a course of an afternoon! Who cares if it was cheating or not. We were a bunch of kids and had a blast.

[@Discern4]

I had the Game Genie for the original Gameboy. I didn't need it to beat any games, I just loved trying out all the different codes and punching in my own codes to see what would happen. I had a lot of fun with it.

[@NothingButAshs]

I used to work for Galoob on the GG. Testing and creating codes and some editing on the manuals. One of my first video game gigs when i was in highschool...writing some of those blurbs describing the games got tedious sometimes...trying to dude-ify everything. But there are some great stories from those days.

[@85Zeroangel]

Thanks, I needed a subject to write about in my immateriel law class, and now I have one about gaming and fair use. And I was only watching this video because I didn't know what a Game Geini was. How the world works.

[@BlindLibrary]

these are the best things to write about: Especially when curiosity has you pondering.

[@Justin-Hill-1987]

I would love to see a video about the history of the early online video gaming devices, including, but not limited to, Sega Meganet, Sega Channel, The Satellaview BS-X, and X-Band.

[@spiv]

galoob v nintendo is something every gamer should study

[@BlindLibrary]

Without Nintendo, no modern console would be here today. Nintendo was the very God of the games in the 80s. It was a perverbial 'book of genesis' that laid a foundation quietly built upon even now.

[@triffton1]

ok you have the music from shining force in the background. That is simply outstanding

[@giusepperesponte8077]

My first introduction to the Game Genie was a friend of mine who had the Gameboy version. When he told me what it did, I literally didn’t believe him, it was frankly too good to be true, but when he showed the code screen to me, my mind was blown. It was like someone just put me on with some ancient secret knowledge. I needed to have one, BAD. Then he told me there was other cheating devices for tons of consoles, like the game shark. I never even knew you could use cheat codes in games besides GTA, I was so excited to try things like infinite lives/health in all my favorite games. My family didn’t have much money growing up so I had to wait for a while, the whole time obsessing and waiting to get my own. When I eventually got one, I had a lot of fun with it for a while, after not that long though, it got old. I had to use the Game Genie myself to realize that a big part of what makes games enjoyable is overcoming the challenge, at least for me, it’s the most important factor for a game to be good in my eyes. If there’s no challenge or strategy, it’s just not enjoyable to me, period.

[@johnk9707]

Omg you used the song from Guardiana castle in Shining Force! Awesome!

[@cloudbloom]

I used game genie but my favorite was the game shark for ps1. Final fantasy 8 debug menu was unreal

[@kellyandauroru7331]

cloudbloom If you get Crash Bandicoot do the game shark code that gives you Stomy Ascent so hard it was cut from the game.

[@stolensentience]

Final fantasy 7*

[@danielgardiner214]

2:07 Does anyone else see the game genie flipping of the public while having fun with a fiery redhead? Or is that just me?

[@SpuddyWesker]

+Daniel Gardiner i see it

[@billyrigney4455]

+Daniel Gardiner Well spotted.

[@Trekpanther]

+Daniel Gardiner Damnit, now I can't unsee it.

[@StudioInkblot]

Oh.

[@marshallperry2446]

Well, I can never not see that now. thanks.

[@Lynn17]

Oh man, Game Genie. I used that thing for pretty much every game as a kid and got so dependent on it that to this day I still can't beat most of my childhood games without codes. Not sure if I'm ashamed or just amused.

[@giusepperesponte8077]

That game genie screen is a real nostalgia trigger.

[@KhanGarth]

oh man i love 90's commercials.

[@historybuff1986]

Shining force music! good choice

[@HgRoller]

I knew I recognized it! I was trying to figure out what game it was from.

[@freedumb719]

Michael Fiorelli. I heard it and I'm singled someone else recognized the music. I remember that music just like it was 22 years ago.

[@Burn_Angel]

Guardiana Castle.

[@jesusontiveros4860]

Shining force ftw!

[@jc.1191]

And final fantasy 2!

[@JMLRetroRoom]

Did you know that the Gameboy Game Genie works on the SNES inside the Super Gameboy adapter? It doesn't actually fit out of the box. You have to disassemble the Gameboy Game Genie to make it fit. Line up the cart slot and it will actually work. I did this when I was a teenager (14-15 or so, I'm 33 now). I was shocked that it did work. All the codes and everything run as if it was on the Gameboy itself.

[@groenekever]

+jlo138 not shocked it was a gb player... ;) it plays also the camera

[@jmonlive]

Why be shocked silly?

[@DoomFinger511]

Hey dawg, I heard you like game genie so I put a game genie in your super nintendo with a Super game boy with a game genie inside that.

[@ssheeessh]

35 second introduction with no ads. KZbin sure was different back in the day

[@warriorlink8612]

We had a Game Genie for NES. One day while taking the unit out the black plastic handle broke off. So, we then had a Game genie permanently stuck in our NES. Not bad though, because if you didn't want any codes you just pressed start and it would move on and play your game. Interestingly enough, I think the fact that the Game Genie is stuck in my NES is a big reason why it still works flawlessly today. The pins in the back of the NES did not get wore out with constantly changing cartridges, and the pins for the Game Genie were made better than the early NES models.

[@nicholastosoni707]

"It's just like a book. If you want to start at Chapter 11..." * snicker *

[@ky-gp4sz]

you can. If the kid wants to start at World 8, because he's been through all the earlier levels before and doesn't want to spend an hour doing it, why shouldn't he be able to? -Steven Klein

[@nicholastosoni707]

ky Oh, I was just thinking of a very old joke: "If buildings can't have a Floor 13, then why can books have a Chapter 11?" It's a pun on Chapter 11 bankruptcy, I think.

[@lunayoshi]

+Nicholas Tosoni Oh, I thought you were implying one of the companies filed for Chapter 11. XD Close enough.

[@dsandoval9396]

"why can't books have a chapter 11" LOL!

[@BlindLibrary]

Or perhaps; Alter a few concepts; Get more than just 1 thing at a time; 999 lives?; Activate a special reward feature with 1 coin; Lol?

[@bryguysays2948]

Game Genie isn't cheating. When you've played the same level you can get past after dropping 50 bucks on it, the GG comes on handy. Believe me I own one for the NES.

[@k1productions87]

What makes Nintendo's argument fall flat on its head is the fact that the Game Genie doesn't create anything. Anything you do with it is immediately erased every time you turn off the machine, which means the consumer cannot profit off of it in any way other than personal enjoyment of something they already purchased... from Nintendo.

[@thekinginyellow7029]

This series has trained me to just see red whenever I hear the name Howard Lincoln.

[@shawnthegr8]

you are bringing back memories, the gold years i call them

[@sonicmario64]

One thing's for sure, Steven Klein's statement about the Game Genie made absolutely perfect sense, especially if there are some NES games that were too difficult to complete on a single setting. *cough* "Blaster Master"! *cough*

[@DIEKDSE]

It looks like a strapon for game cartridges

[@ronnyclayton194]

Miss the days of altering codes just to see what would happen, the possibilites were endless.

[@isaacshemp901]

Game genie: Mario Maker before Mario Maker.

[@JMLRetroRoom]

Lunar Majic was a true Mario Maker before it came out.

[@brochacho.]

+Isaac Shemp That's a shit comparison.

[@isaacshemp901]

You're a shit comparison.

[@brochacho.]

Isaac Shemp You mad?

[@isaacshemp901]

No, are you?

[@geekguitars]

Oh man, my brother and I got a Galoob Game Genie for Xmas in 1991. Loved it. Not just the cheating, but it was like truly experiencing the game all over again. We still have it with the code book and it still works

[@dongeraci8599]

The Gaming Historian is without a doubt one of the BEST retro gaming channels on KZbin. I confess that I'm a bit snobbish when it comes to my passion, retro games, there's nothing new you can tell me. Except, the Gaming Historian. There are Discovery channel documentaries (etc) that are not as nearly well thought out and RESEARCHED as the content on the GH. Honestly, I don't know how he does it. The man goes well beyond Google for his info. You sir, have my utmost admiration and respect.

[@Thex-W.I.T.C.H.-xMaster]

I wish we still had cheat devices today 😢😭.

[@evanparker]

games a are a WHOLE lot more lenient. much less needed.

[@tristan6509]

it's called mods, everything is in software now, although it is mostly on PC since on a consoles, you have to modify the hardware since everything is locked out nowadays...

[@ImmortalOne-LoLo]

Putting a game in the genie was the only way some of my games would work

[@Richard_Nickerson]

3:30 Fun is subjective, Nintendo. You say it's not fun to have infinite lives or something, others say that's the only way certain games are fun to begin with.

[@Sithsolo]

I used to hack batman and got all kinds of different stuff. Game Genie was my first foray into coding at 8 years old. Also congratulations on how long your channel has been around.

[@pmaes11]

I have the Camerica version of the Game Genie, I was so excited when I got it. I spent many hours in Major Video (pre-BlockBuster) deciding which NES games I wanted to rent that could use the Game Genie.

[@garynordeen4296]

GAME GENIE WAS released in North America. I bought one.

[@akramirez]

So Nintendo sucked at copyright claims back in the day too. Who would have guessed. But in all seriousness, fuck Nintendo. Sorry, I meant, good video.

[@TheModernPainter]

Why is Game Genie from CAMERICA better than one from GALOOB TOYS

[@TheModernPainter]

Quiptipt I mean is the camerica game genie different? Or is it the same as the galoob game genie?

[@Cowboygineer]

***** I got a Camerica Game Genie with a Code book for $5 at a garage sale.

[@muddyduck64]

+L.S.A It is just the trademark. Camerica made the game genie, and galoob bought the rights. The design is the same, just that the Camerica version was the first.

[@TheModernPainter]

Johnnie Reddcloud No The game genie was made by CodeMasters. Camerica and Galoob both licensed them

[@Clay3613]

Galoob manufactured the Game Genie in North America, Galoob only sold it themselves in the US though. The Camerica version has French and English instructions on the cartridge along with the Camerica logo.

[@leejacksondev]

Holy moly. I went down the rabbit hole of your back catalogue. You look so young here 😱

[@DiCasaFilm]

OMG OMG SHINING FORCE CASTLE THEME AT 1:40 ❤️❤️❤️ Gaming Historian I'm a subscriber and fan of yours but now I love you.

[@firstclaims30]

These kids now a days will never know how fun those days were

[@wynterfoxx2517]

Efrain Espinet Unless you're one of the many modern kids who play NES.

[@retrograde889]

Efrain Espinet very very true

[@dwg8084]

Efrain Espinet I'm sure they'll get by between battlefield, darksouls and internet porn.

[@Hendrix67297]

Nope Dope these were for pussies who could not cut the mustard.

[@MatthewCampbell765]

To be fair-there are two modern equivalents of the game genie: Developer Consoles and Mods.

[@cantryss]

Can you imagine a game genie device with the online era of gaming we have now? I know PC deals with cheaters a lot. Consoles to to a extent as well. This product could also be sightly responsible for people's desires to exploit glitches, or bad game designs now to give the individual a "edge".

[@Xorthis]

They exist in some ways. The way it works is by directly changing memory values within the game. On the PC, things like cheat engine have existed as long as x86 gaming, but today thankfully the application of such hex debugger programs is impossible in online play due to server side components. Except on the Wii and DS... The backup flash carts and software have built in hex editors and the developers don't protect the exploitable memory locations due to the fact that you shouldn't have such access in the game. Online play with Nintendo became a cheater's heaven.

[@Darkfa1r]

AR powersaves 3ds

[@Falsechicken]

Andrew Bond Powersaves are not exactly the same though. They can give you 99 lives or similar things by altering the save but cannot directly edit the memory like older Gameshark/Action Replays could. They could add whole new functionality sometimes like key combos triggering cheats and such. Or changing the players speed, refire rate for weapons, etc.

[@MartinX192]

Dreamcast gameshark just about ruined the original Phantasy Star Online way back 2001. So, yes i can imagine

[@SZF123456]

Yeah GameSharks with PS2 online, god damn it was terrible

[@TheMrRuttazzo]

4:28 No matter what, Googly eyes make everything look hilarious... Everything. :D

[@DiCasaFilm]

OMG OMG SHINING FORCE CASTLE THEME AT 1:40 Gaming Historian I'm a subscriber and fan of yours but now I love you.

[@SilverKnight16]

Okay, so I gotta say: Kudos for using the Shining Force castle theme for the background music.

[@FamiliarGecko]

Will there be a Game Genie for the Soulja Game system?

[@KootenaiKing]

Yeah, it's a microtransaction.

[@lincolnnoronha4128]

And, sadly, now we pay for cheating in games.

[@2hrsToChooseThis]

I'm confused. You had to buy or rent these devices. Which cost money.

[@JohnDoe-fi9li]

+2hrsToChooseThis plenty of games had debug modes and cheats coded in them already. Pretty much every game magazine had a section for cheats and codes that didn't require a cheat device.

[@2hrsToChooseThis]

Yeah I remember those days. But his comment made it sound like these devices were free. With the internet and online modding nowadays, cheating IS free. Unless you're paying a modder for an account. (GTA 5)

[@2hrsToChooseThis]

Unless by "pay" he means punished?

[@twincast2005]

@@2hrsToChooseThis Three years late, but... Clearly he meant paying for "time saver" MTX etc.

[@TheRuelas]

What is the name of the game @1:50??? I remember we had that game and it was fun and challenging (well, for my brothers and I) Please let me know!!! Memories man... its all about the memories ha ha ha a ha aha ha ha!!!

[@TimelordR]

Israel Ruelas It's Astyanax from Jaleco.

[@BronchoKyle]

Astyanax. I loved that game.

[@Hellwyck]

You mean the game whose title was on the fecking cartridge!?

[@mechamussolini]

wow that intro is painful in 2021, love it!

[@MicahBuzanANIMATION]

You look like a kid here! You've come a long way. Quality from the start.

[@saderin]

32 people are against game "enhancement"

[@saderin]

These fake youtube accounts need to die.

[@austinharned4954]

262

[@DoomFinger511]

Or they just don't like the production value of the video compared to the 100 other game genie videos out there.

[@BlindLibrary]

Game? Enhancement? Stop right there... Being totally blind, I could never really consider playing a special stage/secret zone in Sonic the hedgehog series. A. Not without sighted assistance, which I usually can't rely to get a moment's notice on, B. In this modern world, I'm probably looked at funny if I tell someone I've played videogames. Some of these codes negated the very need for a special zone in the first place. Others? Let's see, I really liked keeping rings between stages, activating a special form with only one ring/keeping that one ring permanent, (oh wait...), activating an element shield multiple times? And I'm not supposed to be a kid in a candy store for having exactly 0 sight since Day 1? Some of you game devs quietly forget that for a game series like Sonic the Hedgehog, sounds are an absolute must for someone like me, same for the music indicating if I'm normal, in a special form/in a boss fight/just about to clear a stage. Hey, a signpost. I'm just gonna keep hitting this sign while it's still in the air... Free water shield, yummy! Energizer bunny just keeps going - and going? 6 Extra Life songs,... Already at 999, but I'll take them anyway, ROFL.

[@DoomFinger511]

@@BlindLibrary Wait, you're blind? How are you able to read and type in the comment section? You using some sort of text reading software?

[@Brycer345]

I got a Camerica Game Genie. :)

[@ggarzagarcia]

I've used the Game Genie on the Genesis and SNES before. I miss those times. then I got a plug and play for my PSX, which not only allowed me to get cheats in but as well read burnt CDs of games that I didn't have to pay for!!! muahaha 😂😂😂

[@jmonlive]

Ha-ha-ha...PSX owners had it good!

[@MP-nq9ht]

Why does it seem like Norm is trying not to cry in this episode?

[@johnbasedow8973]

I don’t why anyone would dislike this video or any others from gaming historian? The people who dislike them need a hug or something.

[@fcon]

8:49 oh the new nintendo console

[@fryncyaryorvjink2140]

we need current cheat devices!

[@Delta225]

But then everybody would be using them on multiplayer games.

[@fryncyaryorvjink2140]

DeltaDragonoid225 i don't play online, so i don't care

[@Delta225]

Nabre Labre You should, it's a good time. Besides, action replay exists for Nintendo DS, not to mention, with the advent of replaceable storage devices, modding became much easier, removing the need for cheat devices anyway..

[@diorama_dad]

38 second intro??

[@Dargonhuman]

[CinemaSins voice] 38 seconds of opening logos on a 9 minute video! *ding!*

[@jshepard152]

Yeah it's too long.

[@seekerfound9150]

this was the single greatest video game peripheral ever made, by far

[@stonedmelodic7918]

very informative. nice pace. no weird flashing logos or crazy music. thanks for making a quality video man!

[@fuckeverything8168]

1:32 nice touch having a shining force song in your video

[@spillsndebris]

seeing the code entry screen really took me back. it really was like making all your games new again. and the images of the super Nintendo game genie... that was one of the sexiest devices I'd ever seen at that time. I loved the way it clicked into the groove of the SNES cart and had the power switch.

[@Kraigmire]

Battletoads was almost unplayable on its own, but with the Game Genie, it was one of my favourite games for the NES.

[@dominicesquivel3901]

this is some classic 2011 editing I love it

[@nickamenta12]

Definitely digging the background shining force track