darkSpyro

This is a very simple process, and you do not need much to do it. Here is what is necessary to accomplish the trick:

1) You need to have beaten the game.
2) Hopefully you can back up your save data somehow (like a USB flash drive), otherwise be careful

Now, as anyone who has beaten the game likely knows, the crane area has approximately 6-8,000 gold on it after defeating Kaos. If you pick up the gold and leave the arena, of course the game auto-saves you having had the gold, and it won't be back when you log in--all you'll see at the crane is a single stack. In game terms, this is very easy to trick, because autosaves are triggered by swapping zones in Skylanders, and the game will never know you had all that gold if you do a hard exit before re-entering the ship. That being said, here is the method.

1) Enter crane area, grab gold. Since gold is obviously saved to the figure, you will retain it after exiting the game.

2) Do a hard exit. On PS3, this means selecting "Quit Game" from the PS menu, accessible by pressing the PS button on your controller. On Xbox 360, same thing, but with the X-Media Bar and Xbox button respectively. If you're on the Wii, press the Home button in the center of the Wiimote and exit the game.

3) Re-load Skylanders Giants and your save. All 6-8,000 gold will be back at the crane, for a new character to grab.

4) Repeat steps 1-3. Infinite, quick money.

Now, remember the part where I said it might be nice to back up your saved game? If you have a USB, or cloud storage on your system, send a copy of your Giants save file there. The reason why is, even knowing that it's strictly off limits for the purpose of the trick, it is still easy to accidentally leave the crane area and cause the game to save the fact that you were just up there looting all that gold. It's happened to me, it's happened to Vhraina; it can happen to anyone.

EDIT: Oh, and one final tip. Make sure your +Treasure Luck-O-Tron wheels are active, because they make a big difference. You'll get far more 8,000+ gold runs with them than without.

Thank you! The other way is really annoyingly long.

I thought so too. This works FAR faster.

Good! Now to get some gold on LC eruptor

Haha, it took one run to purchase every ability for LC Eruptor here. Be sure to swap in the +Treasure Luck-O-Trons before doing this, they make a big difference.

Imagine that.....

What happens if I already beat him and got the gold? Can I beat him again and the gold will be there again, for me to do this?

Sadly GM, I think you'll have to start a new save. But with powered-up characters, that should be more brisk than taking the slow way with upgrades. I haven't found a way to make the gold renew itself after that first cache, but I'm not ruling out there being one either. I hope someone can discover and contribute that, actually...

Well, luckily my kids save file is at the end of the game. I can beat their save file and do it, then they can go back through the chapters they need to complete.

Awesome! Have fun upgrading. This trick really did away with a lot of the tedium of re-leveling characters I had already capped just because now they have Wow Pows.

I'm not really sure what triggered it, but after beating Kaos, I grabbed almost all of the piles up there. After leaving the game and coming back, it had all respawned in full from what I remember. Currently, one pile seems to regenerate after you beat a level, so it might be that after each level, one comes back?

I'll be playing some more later to see.

Cool! I'll try it when I beat the game, or course when I get my POP

Hey tashiji, great find!
I beat the game but not sure i saw a crane area; is it on the ship? (Sorry I it's common knowledge, just wanted to make sure & I'm not @ home to check the game)

Crud... I beat the game and got the Crane Gold, but then I went adventuring for Story Scrolls.... Hope mine is still there to abuse!! *probably not*

^ I made the same mistake. I cried for an hour when I learned that I missed this cheat.

So I grabed the pile after I beat the game.So after reading this I went and beat Kaos again.Sadly the big pile of money does not return.I guess when I get for skylanders I will so the game again or just go through it on easy AGAIN

The crane area is immediately above the bank vault/shop/Skystones room, if anyone is having trouble locating it.

Yea, I missed the cheat... I might have to play through the game again so i can use it....

Activision in the next game: Everytime you pick up a piece of gold it saves!

Quote: terrafan

Activision in the next game: Everytime you pick up a piece of gold it saves!

FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU --

I wish I had remembered changing the Luck O Tron wheels before I made my children grind the vault (near Auric on the ship) for hours to get me 65K gold for an achievement - sorry kids!

What do you mean by 'crane'?

So the save that I copy is after I take the gold pile and do the hard exit?

Can't wait to try this! Once, I get my game and beat it i'll try it!

Hey, does anyone know at what point the money amount stops?

65,000 still.

Since what you guys are proposing is essentially cheating anyway, why not just use the editor to give your figures tons of gold?

Because not everyone has the 'Editor'....I don't.

Oh, I never noticed the max amount of money on one skylander was 65,000! I thought it would have been a lot more than that!

So when you say, "You need to have beaten the game" you mean just beat Kaos and not finished the game, correct?

i tryed and it didnt work :/ is it because i didnt get the winged crystal before hand so it saved once i did?

Here is what I'MA gonna do:
1.Create a new save for money-making purposes
2.Get far enough to do the cheat
3.DO THE CHEAT AS MANY TIMES I WANT!

That's absolutely right. Just beat Kaos, no need to 100% things. ... Unless there's a higher gold tier for it, or it replenishes after 100%-ing the game. I honestly don't know the effect of full completion; there's a lot still to be discovered.

just beat the game, and there was no extra money anywhere.

What crane area are you guys refering?

-M