The following is a transcription and paraphrased interview with Todd Hays. We talk about the upcoming launch of the GameShark Compendium. This has been approved by Todd and his team.
Ryan:
Today I am here with Todd Hayes, former CEO of InterAct. You’re currently looking at launching your GameShark Now, and your RetroShark product, and the GameShark Compendium here that’s coming out. You guys got some great stuff lined up. I’m happy that GameShark can potentially make a comeback. I mean, I’ve had the GameShark since the Game Boy Color, I think is my first introduction to the product line.
Todd:
We’ve got two books, The GameShark Compendium and a personal book that I wrote of my personal experiences and some behind the scenes stuff that’s not contained in the Compendium. Anyone who buys either a compendium or, which is, you know, the coffee table book, or the digital upgrade, which is the coffee table book, plus also, like another 400 games worth of codes and hacks and mods and sheets and information and an entire searchable database, so a digital archive that that is anyone who buys that, or even if they just buy a t shirt, whatever, we’re going to give them both of these books.
So anyone that buys the book by backing the Kickstarter, or any other item during this project, they will get both the Compendium as well as my book of personal stories,the second book of which will be your free gift for helping support us and our efforts to revive the brand.
We are offering the personal book of stories just for those that are buying stuff from us and backing this project have something immediately. right?
So this free book are my personal memories of all these crazy things that happened in the video game business with all of our publisher interactions, our retailer interactions, all of our developer interactions, and all kinds of just fun stories that nobody’s ever heard. The beginning of GameShark, the beginning of InterAct and, and all that cool stuff.
We’re super excited for the Kickstarter to start tomorrow. I’m, you know, I’m scared, like, like, everybody probably feels at this point. Like, oh my gosh, you know, is anybody gonna show up? We need the young gamers, but we also need to sort of, you know, tickle the fancy of the old guys like me too, you know, because we’re the ones who sort of remember, you know, played with GameShark. We’re probably not playing too many games right now, so we’re having the internal struggle of like, who do we advertise to? Do we reach out to the 48 year old, you know, who’s got a kid who games? Or do we reach out to the kids and say, hey, you know what you missed out on? So, we think when we launch RetroShark, which is going to be the first GameShark, you know that we’ve done in 20 years; that’s going to bridge the gap.
This is because it’s going to work with this Steam Deck, it’s going to work with every PC. It’s going to work with all of these classic games and it will be able to access the entire searchable archive that’s part ofthe Kickstarter tomorrow. It’s all embedded inside of the RetroShark. So all 500 cheats, mods, hacks, strategy guides, walk throughs, cheats, everything will be embedded inside of the RetroShark. This is so that when you’re playing those games, they’re immediately call up-able.
But the RetroShark Kickstarter is going to start in March. Tomorrow is all about the GameShark Compendium. Let’s get the book out in everybody’s hands; let’s create some magic.
Ryan:
I mean, you know, we want things to work out. You want things to go well and be successful.
Todd:
Yeah, totally. I want to sell enough books, enough T shirts, and I want to sell enough digital versions of all this to be able to complete the funding that we need for the development; the rest of the development of the actual hardware for the RetroShark. Because I don’t want this to release with, you know, GameStop or Best Buy first, you know, they’ll get the product. But I want all the people, all the old affiliates, and all the old timers, all the people who loved GameShark over the ages, I want them to have the RetroShark first.
Ryan:
So there will be the book and a digital archive that’s going to be a companion to the book, is my understanding. So I know that you guys, at one point, I’m not sure if it was directly affiliated with you, like you guys actually did it, or if it was, like some affiliation, but there was a GameShark magazine at one point.
Todd:
Yes, it’s actually being included in in the digital archive. Well, I think we only did like 11 issues and they will be in the digital archive. Speaking of magazines, we’re in discussions with the owners of GamePro magazine. GamePro used to be owned by IDG, which a good friend of mine was their president, and he is one of our top contributors. His name is John Rousseau.
John Rousseau has joined our team, and he’s joined our efforts to create and add all of GamePro internal archives on all old classic games. To get them added to both the Compendium and the RetroShark. So, so I we do not have a contract yet, but we are in deep discussions about making game pro magazine our official content partner now we have also we’re in we are GameSharks old content partner was IGN, and We are also in discussions with IGN about being a publisher, but they’re so big right now that I think game Pro is probably going to end up jumping them in line. Because we’re finding it more difficult because no one at the current IGN even remembers who we are. You know, that’s kind of the problem.
Ryan:
Yeah, that would be a problem, for sure.
Todd:
Yeah, yeah. But, you know, we’re in discussions with their Co-Founder, a man named Pierre Schneider, and we’d love to be partners again. But, you know, he’s like, the second in command, you know? And so he remembers me, and he answers my emails. But I’m having trouble, like getting connected to them. They got people everywhere, because they are a big fish now.
Ryan:
Okay, so is the GameShark Compendium going to have every single code for GameShark ever across every platform, or is there a limit?
Todd:
It will for the top 100 games. This is because we don’t, you know, we only have 200 and some pages to deal with and it’s not just going to include GameShark codes. It’s going to include mods, hacks, cheat information, whether it was created through GameShark or Game Genie or code breaker or action replay, it’s going to be a collection of all of those. There will also be information about all the super cool controller moves that that used to be able to pull off.
The compendium will be a definitive guide of every cheat code that we’re calling it the cheat code Compendium, because it goes far beyond GameShark. Then the digital version is going to also have what I talked about before, which is a searchable database so that you don’t have to go jump on YouTube anymore. It’s going to be fine, a searchable database of video game walkthroughs and all of the old strategy guides, you know, for all of those top 100 games. Should you choose to purchase the extended issue, it’s going to add the next best 400 games.
Ryan:
Okay, and now, of these top games, how many platforms are you guys targeting?
Todd:
The platforms we’re targeting are all of them eventually. We will start from the Atari and then probably cut it off at the PlayStation 2.
Ryan:
You mentioned that there’s gonna be walkthroughs and such. So is it going to be more in line with like, GameFAQs with the text based walkthroughs, or something similar to what we had with the old Prima guides?
Todd:
It’s going to be both. It’s going to be both and then, and then in the book, there will be QR codes that you can hold your phone over, and then we’ll bring you to some interactive content online. So it’s not just going to be static. It’s gonna look like a video game magazine, like straight out of the past. It’s gonna look like a GamePro magazine. Because hell, I’m hoping that GamePro and Cyril write it for us.
If you and your audience want to jump in, then please do. We will cover whatever stories you guys want told. Let’s do it, because that’s the whole idea. We want an interactive book that’s not only a history, but an interactive experience for the players and those that are fond of the GameShark and what we had created all those years ago.
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.