Cheating At Computer Games Using A Loader Or Binary Patch

Field	Computer Games
Went Obsolete	Never went obsolete. New binary patch helpers were released a week ago
Made Obsolete By	Nothing. It is still the only way for some games
Knowledge Assumed	Running the loader or patch file… the real skill was in knowing how to write them
When useful	Cheating at PC games, and also correcting bugs in them, or recovering from crashes

Groups that cracked and distributed computer games often included a loader that would be run before or instead of the actual executable for the game. These loaders often had several functions:

Bypassing in-game copy protection, i.e. “enter the first word on page 6 of the manual”, etc…
Activating in-game cheats, i.e. “type Ctrl-Z to enable cheats, then F1 through F5 to activate specific cheats, such as infinite weapons, infinite health/shields, repair all damage, etc…”
Advertising for the group that cracked and released the game
Implementing bug fixes on rare occasions.

These loaders were often driver programs that would wrap themselves around the executable environment of the game, and would be able to scribble data into specific program registers, intercept system calls and so forth.

There are many notable examples of such loaders, which may be found using Google.