Video games in the ‘80s and ‘90s were tough — like really tough. Where modern games are a bit “easier” with more focus on immersive stories and awesome graphics, video games of the ’80s and ’90s were more about honing your lightning fast reflexes. Unlike today’s games that allow players to save progress, continue, and try again from where you lost — when you got the “game over” screen in many ‘80s and ‘90s games, it meant you had to start over… like, from the VERY BEGINNING OF THE GAME start over! Yikes! Imagine playing hours into a game and then dying, having to start over from the beginning — for kids in the ‘80s and ‘90s, the frustration of losing hours of hard gaming work wasn’t something imaginary, it was a reality. So what were ’80s and ’90s kids supposed to do if they wanted to complete a game, but could not get past that one tough level? Nothing….Well, nothing until the Game Genie was released in 1990. Yup, the Game Genie, a magic device that helped players finally finish that tough level, but what was the Game Genie and how did it work? Download the answers and compute the data below to find out!
When the Game Genie was created by British video game developer Codemasters in 1990, the company originally called their new device the Power Pak. Created as a means to game the system, the Game Genie allowed players to input codes that lead to game breaking effects. Need some extra lives? Desperate for unlimited continues? Don’t like that level and want to skip it? The Game Genie was the answer to all these problems and more. Designed as a cartridge-like device that slotted into the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), the player would then slot their game cartridge into the Game Genie, and the Genie would act as a go between device, manipulating data that would be sent from the game cartridge to the NES console. Basically, you plugged the Game Genie into the NES, popped your NES game into the Game Genie and you could hack your game, but — how did it all actually work?
NES game cartridges work by transmitting stored data on the game cartridge to the memory storage onboard the NES console. Various types of data are transmitted and stored between the cartridge and console via this process — how many continues are available, how many lives you have left, or even what level you are on. Since all this data is communicated in numbers — 2 continues remaining, 3 lives left, you are on level 6 — the Game Genie allowed the user to alter the data being sent by the cartridge and stored on the NES console, and would manipulate the numbers on the console’s end. Have a game cartridge that says you only get 3 lives before it’s game over? The Game Genie would fudge that 3 lives number before the cartridge sent it to the console and voila — when the NES received the cartridge data, you could change that 3 to 30 and have 30 lives!
Upon booting up a game using the Game Genie, players were met with a screen that would allow them to input codes that would affect their game in various ways — extra lives, skipping levels, etc, but it was a bit of trial and error to figure out the ways one could manipulate the game data. Most of the time, inputting random codes into a game would just crash it, so Game Genie users relied on books, magazines, and fellow gamers for various codes that could be used with the device. Game Genie enthusiasts would hunt for new usable codes by inputting info that would access the location of the data being stored on the NES’s memory, and then accessing what type of data is being stored (lives, level, character movement). Upon finding the location and type of data being transmitted to the NES console, Game Genie users would discover new ways they could manipulate their games. And, it wasn’t just a way to manipulate the game for more lives or continues or unlimited ammo — sometimes Game Genie users even found hidden levels and other usually inaccessible data that wasn’t meant to be seen outside the development stages of a game.
But while the Game Genie sounds like a wonderful, fantastical, creative device that allowed one to explore their games in new ways, the Game Genie wasn’t without its downfalls. The Game Genie’s connectors were known to slot rather tightly and forcefully into the NES and, over time, would end up damaging the NES’s ability to read game cartridges — yikes! The solution to this problem was to insert the Game Genie and not take it out, but this led to your game cartridges jutting out of the system — not the cleanest look for your home entertainment center.
But it wasn’t only the potential to damage your console by using the Game Genie that was a problem. There was also drama between Nintendo, Codemasters, and the Game Genie’s distributors Camerica and Galoob. Nintendo sued Galoob over their distribution of the device in the US citing the device created “derivative works” and was hence in violation of US copyright law. In the ’90s, Nintendo was really into exerting control over all their products and developed the Nintendo “Seal of Approval” to make sure consumers didn’t experience issues when using Nintendo devices. The Game Genie was basically a hacker-type device, so obviously Nintendo denied the “Seal of Approval” request for the Game Genie. While Nintendo was able to get a court order to stop the Game Genie from being marketed in the US while the lawsuit was ongoing — Nintendo lost their lawsuit in 1991 when the courts decided that the Game Genie “enhanced” games and did not “replace” them in violation of copyright law.
The Game Genie would live on beyond the NES and enjoy success with versions made for the Super NES, Game Boy, Sega Genesis, and Game Gear. In fact, Sega even stuck it to Nintendo by embracing the Game Genie and endorsing it with the Official Sega Seal of Quality. While other companies would go on to steal Game Genie’s thunder by creating similar devices like the Codebreaker and the GameShark, the original Game Genie is still burned into the minds of every frustrated ’90s kid who found salvation in the original device. The Game Genie was truly a salvation for every ’90s kid who spent their hard earned dollars on a game, only to be tormented trying to beat that one impossible level.
Any crazy code you remember from your Game Genie days? Any games that were uber hard that you wish you used the Game Genie for? Leave your stories of victory and defeats in the comments and we’ll all nerd out together with a bit of ’90s video games nostalgia.
- The Game Genie cost about $50 USD at release.
- A Game Genie 2 was developed by Codemasters for the Super NES that would have had additional features like saving high scores, slowing down gameplay, and changing cheat codes while playing, but the device was never released.
- Galoob, the toy company that distributed the Game Genie in the US, is also notable as the creator of Micro Machines.
- Game Geanie’s creator Codemasters would eventually go on to be purchased by Electronic Arts in 2021, while Game Genie’s US distributor Galoob was purchased by Hasbro in 1998.
- The Game Genie branding was revived by the company Hyperkin who used the Game Genie name to sell “cheat devices” for consoles such as the Playstation 3 and Nintendo DS.
- The Game Genie cost about $50 USD at release.
- A Game Genie 2 was developed by Codemasters for the Super NES that would have had additional features like saving high scores, slowing down gameplay, and changing cheat codes while playing, but the device was never released.
- Galoob, the toy company that distributed the Game Genie in the US, is also notable as the creator of Micro Machines.
- Game Geanie’s creator Codemasters would eventually go on to be purchased by Electronic Arts in 2021, while Game Genie’s US distributor Galoob was purchased by Hasbro in 1998.
- The Game Genie branding was revived by the company Hyperkin who used the Game Genie name to sell “cheat devices” for consoles such as the Playstation 3 and Nintendo DS.
