With such a large amount of “easy platinum trophies” search queries in Google each month, there has to be reasons why trophy hunting is so popular. Is trophy hunting only a waste of time? Are trophies or achievements a useless feature that shouldn’t exist? And most importantly: What turns a gamer into a trophy junkie?
Google Insights shows the likelihood of users in a particular area to search for a term on a relative basis. When we take a look at “easy platinum trophies” we can see that it has a lot queries each month. If we think about the search phrase itself, it actually tells us something: These are people who actually want easy trophies and not necessarily a good game to go play.
Google "Google Insights" if you want to learn more
Now, before you shout out that trophy hunting a) brings no value to games b) are distraction to gaming c) makes you look stupid, allow me to explain the fundamental truth about trophies or achievements: Trophies are made to feed the addictive tendencies in gamers. How? Here is how:
Raise a hand if you enjoy competition?
trophies are actually just one way of fueling our need for competition
We, especially men, are competitive beings. We’re almost always competitive on some level be it athletic ability, weight, money, status, p…. you name it. Video games are a perfect platform for that competition because everyone involved will start with the exact same situation: in our case it means zero trophies.
So trophies are actually just one way of fueling our need for competition where our trophy level shows us where we stand in the world of trophies and among our gamer friends. To some people, that is a badge of honor.
Maybe that will explain why some people only want trophies regardless the game!
Challenge accepted
Many people enjoy challenges. In many cases, trophies reflect the amount of skill particular gamer has in particular titles. I’m not talking about Hannah Montana The Movie -style of trophies, but ones that actually are very difficult to get. While games vary with difficulty level, it feels really good when you see that platinum unlock on the top right corner of your TV screen.
I’ve even heard people using trophy unlock -sounds in their mobiles!
Guide: How to get the most out of your game
Trophies can also show when you’ve got the most out of the game.
Trophies can also show when you’ve got the most out of the game. My experience, is that when the platinum trophy unlocks, you have pretty much done what you can in that particular title. This is not 100% true, but acts as a very good guideline within games.
Few days ago I saw a tweet which stated that once a fellow had the platinum trophy in Skyrim, he had lost his interest in the game. Achieving a platinum trophy in Skyrim is not a small task. After hundreds of hours of playing that awesome game, doing a LOT of different things, it is not too difficult to relate to that feeling. Well, you can’t 100% complete Skyrim, but that fellow had basically done all that could be done.
It kills time
Video games have become more complicated than just running that one little Italian man through castles consisting of molten lava and different kind of turtles. Most of the games we nowadays play have huge landscapes; massive amount of things that you can do and very complex and complicated missions that can be dealt with.
Trophies not only show you what possibly can be done, it may also require some time investment in it. Spending time to gain trophies is a hobby for some people and simply put: it is a way to enjoy wasting time-in-between work.
People enjoy it
there are even sites who pay you around 50$ per trophy guide
We only do things that are fun right? Especially when it comes to video games. People continue hoarding trophies because they enjoy it. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea but it can help a lot of gamers to get the most out of their gaming experiences.
There are reasons why people enjoy trophies or achievements and I hope that I’ve lightened up at least few of those reasons. One thing remains: Forums are still full of people who request trophy patches for older games such as Heavenly Sword or Metal Gear Solid 4 and we will see trophy-related gaming sites to grow bigger and bigger all the time. Did you know that there are even sites who pay you around 50$ per trophy guide?
Yes it is business for some gaming sites, and yes, people will always hate or love trophies as long as they exist.
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Marko Kari
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