—with Assistant PM Justin J, Associate Producer Andrew S, and Project Manager Mace T.
 

Remember when we’d type in those magic button combinations or discover that perfect glitch that would turn our game upside down? Sometimes a friend whispered the code to us at school, sometimes we found it buried in a game magazine, and sometimes we stumbled onto it by pure luck. Cheat codes and exploits were like secret knowledge that transformed us from ordinary players into unstoppable forces with unlimited everything.

Here are some of our favorites. How many of these do you remember?
 

1. Metal Slug 2 – Boss Freeze Glitch

With precise timing on certain bosses, you could lock them into inaction. One of the most famous examples is the stage 1 camel tank boss, which could be frozen at the right moment, turning a normally dangerous fight into easy target practice. Pure satisfaction.

2. Tengai (Sengoku Blade) – Secret Character Unlock

Hidden characters were gaming gold, and Tengai delivered with characters that actually played differently. Finding these unlock methods felt like discovering buried treasure.

3. King of Fighters Series – Secret Character Methods

Every KOF game had its own crazy unlock sequence. KOF ’95, 2002, NeoWaves – each one made you jump through different hoops to get the secret fighters. Worth every complicated input.

4. Super Street Fighter II Turbo – Playing as Akuma

Hover over Ryu for 3 seconds, then T. Hawk, Guile, Cammy, back to Ryu (3 seconds each), then pick anyone while hitting Start + all punch buttons. That dark silhouette meant you’d unlocked the ultimate boss character.

5. Pokémon Red/Blue – Rare Candy Exploit

The MissingNo. glitch was a game-changer. Hit up Cinnabar Island’s coast after talking to the old man in Viridian, and boom – infinite rare candies. Your Pokémon would be level 100 in no time.

6. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas – Chaos Codes

HESOYAM for health and money. AEZAKMI to stop wanted levels from ever appearing. JUMPJET for instant fighter jet. GTA codes didn’t just help you win – they let you play god.

7. Minecraft – Creative Commands

/gamemode creative was basically becoming a digital god. /give @p diamond 64 and you’re rich. /tp and you’re anywhere instantly. Built right into the game but still felt like cheating.

8. StarCraft – “show me the money”

Blizzard made their cheats memorable. “show me the money” gave you 10,000 minerals and gas. “power overwhelming” made you invincible. Even the cheat codes were fun to type.

9. The Sims 2 – “motherlode”

Nine letters that solved all your virtual financial problems. 50,000 Simoleons instantly appeared, making your Sim richer than you’d ever be in real life.

10. Super Mario Bros. – Infinite Lives

World 3-1, jump on that Koopa shell at just the right spot near the stairs, and watch those 1-UPs pile up. The sound of gaining life after life never got old.

Honorable Mentions

Growlancer let you duplicate equipment, turning hours of grinding into minutes of button pressing.

Mortal Kombat on Genesis had the blood code: A, B, A, C, A, B, B. Nintendo players were stuck with the kid-friendly version while Genesis owners got the real deal.

SimCity (SNES) had the famous secret “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” cheat, activated by holding X, Y, B, A on the title screen to unlock special disaster options, adding chaos or unlimited money for creative city building.

Contra’s iconic Konami Code (Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start) gave players 30 extra lives in the original NES version, making the brutally tough game much more manageable.

Cheat codes were more than shortcuts – they were rebellion against the rules. They created communities where players shared secrets and turned games into personal playgrounds. Sure, modern games have DLC and microtransactions instead, but nothing beat the thrill of entering that special code and watching everything change in an instant.

Those codes made us feel like hackers who had cracked the system and were finally in control of the game. Sometimes the best fun did come from cheating.
Don’t tell Mom…

Thanks for visiting us and reading about some of our favorites!
See you next time!!

We’re back after a short break!
As you may have guessed from the blog title… we were at PAX West 2025!

Wow, what a weekend! It was a amazing.
PAX 2025 was an absolute whirlwind. It was so much fun to be a part of it all. The energy was incredible and seeing so many people excited about games was the best part. Honestly, our booth was buzzing non-stop, and it was awesome to see all of you checking out what our teams have been working on.

At PAX, the indie scene was alive and well. Sure, the big booths for Borderlands 4, Crimson Desert, and Path of Exile II were packed but so many eager attendees spent time checking out what turned out to be a good numbers of indie titles. Very encouraging!

We also had a lot fun showing off our indie titles this year, as well. It was gratifying to see how many of you came by to play Aeruta, a charming Metroidvania with a cool twist. And the reception for WiZman’s World: Re;Try, Twilight Monk, and Light Odyssey was amazing!

Many visitors were excited by the dark and moody card battler, Shambles: Sons of Apocalypse, and the quirky guild attendant game Galvatein: Adventurer’s Guild. Lines also formed at Snow Bros 2 Special for some co-op arcade fun as well as a few other indie gems.

 

Gravity Titles at PAX 

Light Odyssey
The Good Old Days
Final Knight
Snow Bros. 2 Special
Aeruta
Twilight Monk
WiZMans World Re;Try
Shambles: Sons of Apocalypse
Galvatein: Adventurer’s Guild

 

 
Beyond our own booth, we spent some time walking the show floor and found some truly fantastic games. It was wild to see the scale of the booths from the big guys like Larian who demo’d their TTRPG from the Divinity series, and Nintendo, who were showing off Hollow Knight: Silksong and Pokemon Legends: Z-A, as well as Bandai Namco, with demos for Digimon Story Time Stranger and Little Nightmares III.

Even though Square Enix didn’t have the typical booth presence, they still had a huge turn-out with panels and a community night for their upcoming Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles. (already pre-ordered!!)
 

The creativity and passion from other developers was inspiring.

Getting to talk with so many of you face-to-face, getting your feedback, and just sharing our love for games made all the hard work worth it. We can’t thank you enough for visiting our booth and for taking the time to read this.

We’re already counting down the days until next year!

So we headed out to check out the Square Enix pop-up shop in Little Tokyo this weekend, but first things first – had to fuel up! We swung by Hachioji Craft Ramen because, let’s be real, you can’t do proper shopping on an empty stomach. Plus, it’s one of our go-to spots when we’re in the area. This time I switched it up and went with their Hachioji Bun Burgers and gyoza instead of my usual ramen – sometimes you just need something different, you know?

Bellies happy, we made our way over to Little Tokyo Mall where the pop-up is set up. Honestly? There was already a decent line forming, but it moved way faster than expected – maybe 15 minutes tops. The vibe was pretty chill too, everyone seemed genuinely excited to be there.

Walking in was like stepping into a collector’s dream. They had everything spread out beautifully – from those crazy detailed Final Fantasy statues with some serious price tags, to the cutest little plushies that you just want to squeeze. What really got me was seeing stuff from Final Fantasy Tactics right next to the newest FFXVI merchandise, plus they had Dragon Quest and NieR:Automata items too. It’s wild how they manage to keep both the nostalgia and the fresh releases flowing.

Sure, you can browse most of this stuff online at the Square Enix store, but there’s something different about seeing it all in person. The craftsmanship on some of these pieces is insane – details you’d totally miss in photos. And the staff? Super laid back. No hovering, no pressure, just let you wander around and take it all in. They even let us snap photos, which was awesome.

Whether you’re a hardcore collector or just someone who appreciates good design and craftsmanship, this pop-up is definitely worth the trip. Even if you’re just window shopping (no judgment here), it’s cool to see all this stuff up close. Don’t worry, there’s much more to see than in these photos, so enjoy yourself if you can make it there.

Just don’t wait too long – they’re wrapping up on September 7th, 2025. So if you’re thinking about it, now’s the time!

Welcome to our very first top ten list! We sat down with members of the Gravity Interactive team to share some of your favorite trailers in gaming history.
These are the game trailers that completely destroyed us with hype and had us refreshing release date pages obsessively.

From jaw-dropping cinematics to gameplay that seemed too good to be true, these are our personal favorites that reminded us why we love gaming so much.

Today, we are talking with Assistant PM Justin J, Associate Producer Andrew S, and Project Manager Mace T.
Kicking off our list of favorites, in no particular, is Justin!

Justin J, Assistant Project Manager

Written by Mace Trahan, Justin Jeong

Gaming didn’t start on the internet, but the web fundamentally transformed it.
As a game publisher team, we’re actively tracking new patterns in how different generations of players behave, and the results are a total unlock for us.

The numbers tell a wild story. Gen Alpha kids (born after 2010) hit 96% engagement with gaming. Gen Z is right there at 92%. But here’s what’s really compelling for us as publishers. While 86% of Gen Z actually play games, a massive 79% watch gaming content. Gen Alpha is even higher at 80% for viewing. Compare that to Baby Boomers at just 18% viewing, and you see this huge shift. Younger players treat watching gameplay as entertainment in itself, not just something extra.

The pattern is clear across all age groups. The younger you are, the more likely you are to watch gaming content as entertainment. For older players, watching games is rare. For younger ones, it’s almost as common as playing. This tells us that gaming content has become a legitimate form of entertainment, not just something players do to get better at games.

Mobile games now make almost half of all gaming revenue, which tells us everything about where player preferences went. But it’s not really about the platform. What we’re seeing from our publisher perspective is that younger players want completely different things from games.

For Gen Z and Gen Alpha, games are social spaces first. About 69% of Gen Z play on mobile devices compared to 38% on consoles (https://www.blog.udonis.co/mobile-marketing/mobile-games/gen-alpha-gen-z-gamers). But they’re not just playing. They want to build things, modify games, create content, and share everything with their friends. Minecraft and Roblox work so well because they’re basically creative playgrounds where the community drives most of the content.

What really stands out to us is how these players approach spending. Players want great value without huge upfront costs. Freemium models work because players can test everything before committing money. They’re smart about what they spend on and they expect a lot for their money.

The social responsibility angle is huge too. Younger players pay serious attention to how gaming companies treat employees, handle environmental issues, and position themselves on social topics. Make the wrong call and they’ll drop your games completely.

We’re also seeing that these players don’t just consume content. They create it, share it, and expect to be part of shaping the games they play. User-generated content isn’t just a nice feature anymore. For many games targeting younger audiences, it’s essential. Players want tools to build, modify, and express themselves through the games.

While Gravity has not moved into this area yet due to our focus on mobile titles and less demanding PC hardware titles, Cloud gaming is picking up steam because of its low-barrier approach. High-quality games without expensive hardware requirements. Another trend we’re seeing is that AI is helping developers create more varied content faster. Players can see faster content updates and more unique variations of their favorite content.

From our publisher viewpoint, the biggest shift is cultural. Gaming used to be about individual experiences with maybe some multiplayer elements. Now it’s about community, creativity, and connection. Games succeed when they become platforms for social interaction and self-expression. The ones that stay focused on just traditional gameplay often struggle to keep younger audiences engaged.

The internet made gaming accessible to everyone, and now we’re seeing what happens when an entire generation grows up with that accessibility. Today’s gamers expect games to be social, affordable, creative, and aligned with their values. The companies that adapt to this will thrive. The ones that don’t will find themselves talking to smaller and smaller audiences.

Ultimately, the lock-in for the next generation of gamers is a deep sense of belonging and creativity on a budget.

Thanks for reading!

Additional Source: https://room8group.com/news/ugc-ai-and-cloud-gaming-new-report-in-partnership-with-80-level/