Comment: Why Trophies Have Lost Their Sparkle For Me

Trophies and Achievements have been one of the largest innovations to be implemented in this console generation. Aside from the obvious graphical leaps and vastly superior network capabilities the PS3 and Xbox 360 demonstrated over their predecessors, these machines effectively provide the same function as the earliest home consoles - which is to captivate and entertain their players. But those little to-do lists, those trophy cabinets we crave to fill, have fundamentally altered this; the previously individual single player experience many of us cut our gaming teeth on has now become, irrevocably, competitive. For better or worse, now your every action, choice or decision deemed worthy by developers has become visible to your friends. Moreover, they are used as bragging rights - the proof of hours and hours invested in a game, displayed on your Gamertag for all to see.

[Omar91]

okay

[Omnislash]

I have 15 platinums, and Im pretty much done collecting them since games have dumber and umber trophies to unlock. Some of them are just ridiculous and a total time waster. For instance, getting 100% sync on every single thing on AC3 that is just stupid. Plus not to mention online trophies..

[sithsylar]

Online achievements should just die seriously especially when the community is dead for certain games...

[JD_Shadow]

Not completely. They have extended the life of certain games that are actually good (would you even go play that higher difficulty setting if there wasn't a shiny for you upon completing it?). People enjoy going after them, and they aren't going to die anytime soon. We should just get used to them being there (and really, it's not always a bad thing to have them in there).

[-MD-]

"would you even go play that higher difficulty setting if there wasn't a shiny for you upon completing it?"

Yes, hard modes existed long before trophies and achievements.

[admiralvic]

@ Darkpower

For everything good thing they do, they do another 3 bad things.

Yes they add life to a dying game, but they also...

Turn off potential buyers, I mean who wants to know the platinum / 1,000 is impossible without even turning on the game?
It affects how people play. If there is a trophy for knifing 500 people or killing someone in a plane with a grenade, then you can EXPECT... someone will focus on these tasks throughout the match. This will result in useless team mates, pointless deaths, people who might not defend you with the flag, etc.
Win streaks ruin the community... Typically fighting games force you to go X games without losing online, which is a feat the AVERAGE user just CAN NOT accomplish. Instead of admitting defeat, moving on or getting better... plenty of people will resort to whatever works. Yes these people exist regardless, but trophies support this method of playing.

In the end, no trophy is going to completely save an online... it just becomes nothing more than a boost fest.

[despair]

trophies and achievements are fine, but i have lost a lot of the zeal to platinum many games. That said I still do some crazy shit for trophies and its not like the games are ruined in any way whether i go for them or not.

[LAZL0-Panaflex]

Correct. I hate online achievements. I got 14 platinums, but i hate having the pressure to get them, with achievement points its better imo because if u got a couple impossible or downright stupid ones troubling u u just skip it...no big deal i'll take a 980/1000 any day over busting my ass a couple extra hours for a bronze trophy to get a platinum no one can see unless they compare trophies with mine which takes for ever. I like gamer points because they allow me to be lazy, but i have and will platinum a great game like infamous 1 &2, mafia 2, uncharted 2.

[morganfell]

Achievements and Trophies should outlive juvenile articles spouting bedroom rants. These pretend journalists and angry children are far more harmful to gaming than a mere acknowledgement of action.

[guitarded77]

Online trophies suck because you end up with some douches mining in the middle of a round and wonder why your team is getting their asses kicked.

[iamnsuperman]

I would like trophies to get a bit more obscure. Completing chapter one, two.... on any difficulty is not a challenge. They need to be challenging and also make you play the game differently (i.e. crawl for an entire level, do not kill anyone..... something different and off the beaten track)

[Omnislash]

Trophies should be aimed to make you play through the entirety of the game while challenging you enough to push yourself in that game. I think Dark Souls did that amazingly, other games do too much to where you do pointless things that are usually more luck based than anything else.

[KangarooSam]

I agree; I just got my PS3 and decided to play inFamous. I've beaten the game twice; one time good, the other evil. Finished it on hard last night. I have almost every trophy except finding 350 Blast Shards. EFF THAT lol. Collectibles are way too much effort and that's just a grind once you've finished the game. I honestly don't think I'm gonna go for trophies unless I absolutely love the game or it just happens like with The Walking Dead and probably PSASBR, eventually.

[youndamie]

Lol yea I got stuck at 347 shards :(

[KangarooSam]

@youndamie:

lol exactly what I'm trying to avoid. As long as I finish the story, try out multiplayer, maybe try for some trophies if it means replay value then that's fine. Platinum's aren't gonna happen for me, though.

[BlackTar187]

im stuck at 349. I thought i had found the one i was missing but when i got it i was basically jumping up and down and it read 349/350 i turned the game off right there.

[Y_5150]

I may never plat inFAMOUS...But I'm happy with my inFAMOUS 2 and festival of blood %100. I agree that you should only plat the games that you enjoyed the most because well if you got plat, you should have enjoyed the game atleast except if it was something like Hannah Montana haha.

[LAZL0-Panaflex]

They got maps on youtube, not that bad.

[Donnywho]

Sparkle LOL

[guitarded77]

I like trophies/achievements... I like what they offer in terms of replayability. I don't actively go for them on an initial playthrough of most games, but I often go back to good games and hunt for them. I've been gaming since the beginning of it all, and sure, we didn't have trophies/achievements back in the day, but there are a lot of things we didn't have back in the day which we have now, that are now standard and in some cases, essential. I don't want to go back to no trophies/achievements.

Also, if you haven't signed the Wii U Accomplishment petition, please take a second to do so. For those of us who want to platinum/100% a Zelda or Metroid game one day.

http://originalgamster.com/...

[sithsylar]

Saints row 3 is the perfect example of me going for trophies. I spent like 40 hours on that game loved it. No way i would of spent 40 hours without trophies tbh...

[Soldierone]

I was so sad when I finally got the plat. I was like "dangit, now I need more!" lol

[sithsylar]

hahah. I was the same im really tempted to get the dlc but not sure which ones to get!

[guitarded77]

@ Soldierone

Play it again on Steam and/or XBOX 360. I do that with some games. Playing Saint's Row 3 on Steam right now. Over the top funny.

[DivineAssault]

I think more & more articles like this will continue to appear because of nintendos neglect on the subject with the wii u..

[Tetsujin]

Real gamers don't need Trophies/Achievements.....

[youndamie]

Yea it used to be enough to want to complete the challenges last gen, I don't like show and tell Trophies/Achievements but I understand why some people like it.

[stage88]

@Tetsujin Calm down, hipster

[BlackTar187]

Tetsujin,

So you saying im not a real gamer? what a joke. You are a hipster. Get out of here with your nonsense.

people like you are fools.

[BanBrother]

@Tetsujin

Agree and disagree. I am a trophy hunter (love saying that), but I also love the game regardless of trophies.

I just hate those people who buy easy-to-plat games. Play a game because you like it, the trophies are an extra sweet bonus. Hate how some people will sacrifice enjoying a game to get a stupid trophy. I always leave grinding trophies until after I have beaten the game and enjoyed the heck out of it.

[vlonjati77]

BEn I agree with you.

a week ago my niece slept over and brought with her (i feel bad to just even write it) hanna montana game to play on my ps3.I literaly told her' get that f game away from me ,there is no way that game its going in my ps3.holy Sht.lol

[Theangrybogan]

I agree, except I call myself a trophy whore.

Easy to plat games can create a stigma about certain games "you only got that game coz its easy to plat" well no, sometimes you buy a game and it just happens to be an easy plat, farcry 3 is a good example, great game, peice of piss to plat.

[Tetsujin]

@BanBrother

I've seen countless people buy easy trophy/plat games just to boost their score, then brag because their trophy level is higher than mine or someone elses, yet when I ask certain story/mission related questions they look stupid and don't have the correct answers.

The thing I hate about trophies/Achievements, most gamers use that as an excuse to "judge" a person on how good they are in a game, as well as how much "Free time" someone has. If anything, it's nothing more than an electronic checklist to see how much time you have to complete certain tasks. Someone like me grew up on gaming that relied on replay, fun factor, and local multiplayer without some sort of "electronic candy" to reward us of doing something. There's a lot of games that came out back when I was younger that would be ruined today if they had some sort of achievement/trophy list because instead of playing for story and how fun it is, they would be played just to boost someones score.

And to all these people who go on about "oh if it wasn't for trophies I wouldn't have done this, or seen that" need to play some older games first that didn't have a trophy to tell you what was next; even the hidden ones still kind of tell there's something missing either story or extra mission related.

[BanBrother]

@Tetsujin

Yes. I have so many friends with a high gamer-score or plat count, but what does it mean?

I love 100% completion, just as I went for it in older games like Ratchet and Clank. I just dislike it how some of the gamers I know are using a walkthrough for their FIRST playthrough, just to get silly collectables the artificially increase the games play-time.

This is coming from someone who got 10,000 kills in Resistance 2, and 100,000 kills in Gears of War 2. Both of these never sacrificed my enjoyment of the game.

[BlackTar187]

I've been gaming since card readers. So your post about real gamers is so full of BS is overflowing.

[SAE]

trophies should be about doing extra stuff , hidden things , not collecting feathers or intels or chests or relics or eggs ...etc or complete the game and you get o5 trophies , even completing missions gives you trophies -.-

that would make sense to collect them, to play the game more not the story...

[GhostofHorizon]

I like trophies, because it brings a sense of closure for the games I play. If I feel I haven't done everything after I get all the trophies I continue playing if I still have a bunch to clean out I do that.

The only trophies that aren't good are the grinding ones or multiplayer trophies but other then that it's all good.

[deletingthis34675334]

I like trophies/achievements but some of them are way too generous on certain games. Look at the people that actually played Hannah Montana just because of the easy trophies. Pretty sad if you think, gross basement virgin loser nerds playing a game targeted at 6 year old GIRLS. I don't understand people sometimes.

[Williamson]

I used to be a trophy whore but since i got a couple of platinum trophies they arent a big deal as they used to be for me, but i do go through the trophy lists for games to see if any trophy can extend the game for me.

[Y_5150]

Your picture comes with that statement of yours; "trophy lists for games to see if any trophy can extend the game for me."
Gravety Rush has costume packs that comes with extra trophies, which is why I think that I'm getting those packs soon. :P

[Williamson]

Well I did buy the spy and military packs to extend the game, and did get a platinum trophy in the game since the trophies werent hard/annoying to get and just plain fun. The dlc packs are pretty fun so its good that your getting them.

[Y_5150]

Your picture comes with that statement of yours; "trophy lists for games to see if any trophy can extend the game for me."
Gravity Rush has costume packs that comes with extra trophies, which is why I think that I'm getting those packs soon. :P

[TXIDarkAvenger]

Used to be an achievement whore for games but tbh I don't really care that much either now days.

[ufo8mycat]

They are OPTIONAL - you don't HAVE to do them.

If it really worries on how you look to your PSN or XBL friends, in regards to trophies/achievements, then you are taking gaming too seriously.

I love trophies/achievements - some of them are just stupid.
I usually get them all for games I really really enjoyed, as I respect to the game. Other games I don't bother.

[Fatty]

At first I loved getting Achievements and Trophies, but now I don't even pay attention to them (except when one unlocks). I think my issue with them is that because I wanted them, I started playing the game with an eye toward the achievements, rather than the game itself. However over time I just got tired of it and played just for fun.

I'm happier gaming now, though it's still fun to get that little sound and notification. It's like dessert rather than a main course.

[Rettom]

Well said, my brotha.