The original idea for CheatCodes.com was conceived in 1996, when the domain name was initially registered and a simple home page with a small amount of video game content was put in place.

After selling WinFiles to CNET in 1999,[2] Steve saw that the need for a "filtered" view of this type of content was still unmet, and decided to turn his primary focus to CheatCodes.com.

The re-launch was covered in InfoWorld by contributing editor Brian Livingston, who wrote "A new e-business site will launch today with more than 198,000 subscribers already registered via e-mail.

[5] To handle the extra bandwidth required, they moved hosts from their provider in Albuquerque, New Mexico to Digital Forest just outside Seattle, Washington.

In addition to functionality updates, the site was completely re-designed to be XHTML compliant, and made full use of Cascading Style Sheets.