Passwords to Promos. Gaming’s Oldest Invention Revisited.

Codes of numbers, letters, or even symbols have been part of gaming for almost as long as the pixel. 

For saving progress or even security purposes (like many other Amiga games at the time, Team17’s original Worms came with a booklet of passwords that let the owner through copy protection) gaming made notebooks the accessory to have. 

Back then, there wasn’t much to save. Restrictions on lives, especially in the arcade, meant very little got carried from one session to the next. Then, Midway’s arcade game Sea Wolf started keeping (and saving) high scores in 1976, introducing competition to the hobby.

We’ll come to that soon. 

A Crowded Marketplace

Promo codes, which give players things for completing a task, aren’t a new invention. They’ve just got more visible since the internet made it easier to pass them around. The practice is just another form of couponing, a true art form in the right hands.

One of the biggest users of promo codes is casino gaming, which uses these offers to attract new players. In a crowded marketplace, a niche of websites has appeared to list and sort relevant promo codes. It’s like Groupon – but for casino pages. 

The PromotionalBonusCode site recently listed a Jackpotjoy Promo Code, for instance. Often, players don’t need to do anything to redeem the code other than sign up from an affiliate link, although, there may be a toggle on the registration page for whether they want the bonus applied to their account 

Promo codes let the merely curious test the experience without committing too much. In video gaming, these modern passwords serve the same purpose, albeit with some inexplicable drawbacks. 

Xbox Game Pass

When it comes to games, couponing is an inexplicable tango between developers and snack companies, Doritos, Mountain Dew, and Xbox, in particular. This unholy alliance has gained traction as a meme, seemingly defining the 21st-century gamer as an unhealthy snack-fiend. 

Doritos ran with the ball on this by launching a series of Gamer Therapy ads outlining exercises players could do to ease the pain of over-flexing fingers and wrists.

It’s a light-hearted take on a potentially serious issue but reinforces the crisp brand’s association with gaming. Last year, Doritos and Xbox teamed up with Bethesda’s Starfield title to offer free Xbox Game Pass trials.

Yet, in a short-sighted, even silly, move, codes were printed on the outside of packs, so lots were used long before they ended up on shelves.

Genshin Impact

Mobile gaming has its own take on promo codes. As evolving, ongoing experiences, apps tend to run regular marketing campaigns, each of which comes with an offer. These promotions have much in common with the casino companies above, often forming welcome offers.

Games like Genshin Impact provide players with codes for free ‘draws’ or ‘wishes’, as the title calls them. This mechanic pulls items and characters from a pool of them, keeping the rarer ones down in the doldrums of luck, but providing the beginner with a headstart in the popular RPG.

Genshin Impact has earned more than $5 billion pulling this trick.

Once upon a time, passwords were used for secrets, cheats, and saving progress. Apart from the latter, which is now a trivial part of development, not much has changed over the years.