The Bourgeois Practice of Passwords

With the advent of memory cards and huge hard drives it is easy to forget that back in the 1990's games would often come with no storage capacity and the only way to secure your progress would be through the use of passwords.

I even forgot about it until a few days ago when a few of the newfound games I've been playing had the option to put in a password. Then I remembered that while playing Mega Man or Punch out I had books full of written down passwords, this was because, of course, if you didnt write it down and forgot it then you were royally screwed.

So whether it was dots, numbers, letters or characters the passwords had to be kept. The problem with passwords, if you think about it, is that when you use one you are being taken to a default version of the level you have previously reached. That is to say, when you reach a certain level and then quit the game your game is lost forever, when you use the password it becomes impersonal, it removes your labor and turns the higher stage into a commodity which anybody can pay for.

This was, of course, before the time of the internet.

The internet, that most communist of all work tools, has destroyed the foundation of the password. For a time we were forced to work for progress and see the same stage over and over until we passed it, the only alternatives were those who had already passed the game or video game magazines. These alternatives were not accessible, especially to the kids who played video games at the time. Then the internet came along and user-generated content followed.

The Password is now useless. It holds no power against anybody. You need a password? is MR. SANDMAN keeping you down? well google it! and you are very likely to find the answers you seek. Not because the bourgeois video game producers want you to have the password but because we came together as a community and made the information available!

This was a revolution of sorts, we were being held down, having to work for mediocre wages for really long hours since childhood. Sure we admit that the bourgeois game developers have played a consistently revolutionary role but their time of reckoning came and it was by the internet, instead of you know a proletariat revolution, that we were able to finally achieve the classless society that we have striven for. All thanks to our great bearded leader.