scoot95

I am not starting this thread to get flamed, I am just curious.

With the great PS3 black-out of 2010, it looks like a lot of people lost their trophies. People are up in arms over this all over the web.

I mean, it is pretty cool when a trophy pops up in the upper right corner, but I forget about it shortly thereafter. As an example, I lost my "Good Father" trophy from Hard Rain, but I would not start the game over just to get the trophy back.

My question is simple, why do some people care so much about these trophies? Maybe there is something I am just not aware of.

Groucho

Because it keeps the 360 people from touting "achievements" as a reason to buy that console.

Decker

Moot point anyway, since the trophies all came back, right?

scoot95

I was just curious as to why there was such an uproar when the possibility of the trophies being wiped out existed.

Rob V

I could personally care less about "trophies" however "achievements" give me a boner

murray731

It's a similar concept to any other tracking or leveling system, at it's most basic level they represent a way for the user to track how much they have accomplished in a game. It's just an e-peen thing and like any other system, some people care about it, some don't.

If you were a person who does care about such a thing, how would you feel if essentially a certain amount of work you had already completed (and maybe spent a lot of time doing so) was wiped out without any trace that you actually did it?

Personally, I don't care, but there are a lot of people that do. I can see how the uproar came about.

MoviePage

I've basically abandoned game-playing on my PS3 in favor of the 360 for now, but for me the drive to obtain achievements/trophies comes from the sense of completion that accompanies finishing a game 100% or as close as possible, and the added challenges and replay value of getting to that point.

Snowmaker

I still don't get the whole "achievements" thing. Everytime I get one, I'm like, "OK, what does that mean?" Is there some XBOX shop you can redeem then for prizes at, like tickets in a arcade?

wedge

I agree to an extent. Achievements/trophies do encourage me to try things I didn't in the past, like playing on harder difficulty levels or attempting side quests I might have ignored. But I also think that's only part of the issue. If the only point is the sense of accomplishment, then once you have completed the task you should have that sense of accomplishment regardless of gamerscore or trophies. The reason a lot of people get pissed about glitches like the PS3 trophy thing this week is because they want OTHER people to be impressed that they finished a game to 100%, or completed a hard task, or whatever. For some of the more extreme among them the purpose of playing games has ceased to be fun in and of itself, and they derive all pleasure from the "game" of having the most trophies/highest gamerscore. Therefore they view time spent playing a game and not having the trophies to show for it a waste of their time, ESPECIALLY if it gets glitched in such a way that they can't re-earn it either.

RocShemp

If there were (and depending on the nature of the prizes) then I'd give a crap.

edstein

This.

actyper

The fact that i'm going to be buying ffxiii for the 360 instead of ps3, does that mean I favour achievements over graphics? Yikes something wrong with that picture.

Hokeyboy

They are used to exploit the obsessive flaws of most hardcore nerdlingers. More trophies/achievements = stronger Geek Fu. If you still don't understand and relate, consider yourself lucky.

chess

As others have said/implied, the best trophies/achievements extend the game in some way by making you do things you wouldn't otherwise do. I have platinums in Burnout Paradise, Fallout 3, Uncharted 2 and Borderlands (almost in InFAMOUS and LBP)...all games that I absolutely adored and wanted to get maximum mileage out of. Trophies gave me extra mileage, and in some cases gave me a completely different perspective of the game.

Also, I have no interest in the "e-peen" aspect of trophies, but I do like to compare mine to other people I know just to see what they've played. As in, hey, you have a bunch of trophies for GAME X...how was that? Or, hey, he got a platinum in GAME Y, so he must've really liked it.

mattysemo247

I could care less about trophies. Don't even know which ones I have. I just wish Sony would give me a new controller. That might spark my interest to play more games (other than exclusives) on their system. 10+ years with no redesign is just plain lazy for any company, especially Sony.

Groucho

The discussion is way off-topic, but they DID redesign the controller and everybody bitched.

Michael Corvin

Which makes Sony look even more foolish for listening to people that never laid their hands on the new design.

RichC2

To that note, their new controller looked like a boomerang sex toy with no actual change to the controls.

I like Achievements more for some reason, but the whole thing works as a "Try to do this in the game!" sort of extends value. Having the higher score though? Kinda lame.

Of course, there is always this old comic describing it (NSFW-ish)

pinata242

I agree with all of this. I've always been a completionist. Trophies/Achievements give me another way to complete a game. Usually they go hand-in-hand with doing everything in a game, but sometimes they're meant for extra challenges (doing things fast, a certain way, a certain number of times, no weapons, etc.... skill-based tasks).

I pride myself on my "completion percentage". Not because I care what other people think of my e-peen, but because I care. I'm a self-professed "Achievement Whore". I get everything I can out of a game. I'm not a "Gamerscore Whore". I don't play games just to get quick points.

Looking back at the PS2, I busted my ass to 100% Kingdom Hearts II to see a special video at the end that I could easily see on youtube. I played through this insane tournament in game and got by by the skin of my teeth. I did it and the only thing I have is a memory. A trophy would be something I can display.

In that regard, as I'm stream-of-conscious here, I guess I don't them as anything other than virtual trophy cases. People earn trophies, medals, ribbons, and plaques in real life for their accomplishments and honors. Why should gaming be excluded? Why is taking pride in what you do and what you play nerdy? Why does it always come down to e-peen? Sure, I'm not saying everyone who plays games should care about this stuff. But I'm also don't think it's appropriate for those that don't care to chastise those that do care.

Both ways of gaming are fun for the player.

extreme2700

Very lucky. I'm one of those who really doesn't care that much. I hate being asked what my gamer score is LOL. To me it's such an arbitrary number. As for trophies, I honestly don't think I could have that many since I haven't done a ton of gaming on the PS3. That'll change when FF13 comes out though =)

fujishig

I think it was brilliant the way Microsoft created achievements to play with the mild-OCD that most gamers have. The ridicule with trophies/achievements doesn't come when someone achieves them while having fun playing a game... it's usually reserved to those who pad their scores with Avatar the Last Airbender, or play through excruciatingly awful games just to get those points. I mean, if you do have a trophy case at home, you display just the trophies you're proud of, right, not your 3rd grade spelling-bee 2nd runner up ribbon, and if you did, we'd make fun of you.

murray731

That's exactly how I use mine... Usually I look at frizby's and say to myself "Man, frizby has a lot of trophies".

This. I've always believed people should take pride in everything they do, whether it's a career, raising a family, playing sports or playing Modern Warfare 2. Why would you take time to do anything if you aren't going to do it to the best of your ability? A digital representation of gaming accomplishments doesn't matter as much as the real life ones in the grand scheme of things, but people can and should still garner pride from them in a positive way.

TheKing

I just consider the trophies to be a part of beating the game. I've beat GTA IV, got 100% complete in the actual game, but I'm still playing it because I'm missing 4 trophies. Three of them are online and of course the Platinum. I really don't care who sees what trophies I have, I do it because I want that platinum trophy in every game I own.

Michael Corvin

The layout may have been the same but some little things could have been different. It could have been more ergonomic than the DS and it could have had real triggers or better analogs for all we know but we won't because Sony decided to listen to internet chatter.

chuckd21

The Hard Rain bluray has trophies?