Atrophment Whore

Urban dictionary defines a trophy whore as: "When nerds repeatedly suck the living fun and essence out of playstation 3 games for the sole purpose of collecting trophies."


I found myself playing through a terrific game this past week. You may be familiar with it, it's, Majin and The Forsaken Kingdom. I found myself doing something that I hadn't done in my 4 years of owning a PS3: trophy hunting. I sadly gave up on going for the coveted platinum trophy, and in that, realized why I don't trophy hunt and what might drive me to become a trophy hunter.

Playing through Majin I was able to pick up the very easy, completionist trophies. There was something very rewarding about the pleasant chime of earning a trophy. So, I made a point of getting as many trophies as I could've. Until I was faced with three trophies that were beyond my willpower. One was beating the game after obtaining every collectible in the game. One was killing 50 enemies via traps, in order to do that one I would've needed to start a new file. And finally, one that required me to collect all the "memory shards" in the game(memory shards only appear at night, half the time they're unavailable). Now, these aren't exactly challenging trophies to obtain, they're just mind-numbingly tedious. As far as trophy hunting goes, Majin is a very easy platinum.


Majin is an easy platinum, just imagine what another game would be. There are games that ask you to play through the game on 5 different difficulty settings. Others that ask you to bowl a turkey in the absolute worst bowling mini game of all time.Some that ask you to make $1,000,000 when you don't even need money to progress in the game. To me, this all seems menial and boring. I get that it adds incentive to the game, but at least include trophies that have relevance to what you're playing. Offering trophies for playing a game twice isn't replay value, it's just another reason to dislike the game. It seems to me as though trophies are a way of condescension. It's the developer saying, "You haven't enjoyed the game unless you've done all the things we've asked you to do". Or perhaps it's an excuse to say, I haven't fully enjoyed a game, because I haven't done all the nonsense I'm told to. Or perhaps I'm over-analyzing a "fun" reward system.

After reading the previous paragraph, you may have already deduced what draws me to trophies. Trophies handed out for completion. Trophies for obtaining all the power ups, playing through the story, doing sidequests, etc. Trophies that hold substance, things that give me reason to complete them. So what if it makes getting all the trophies/cheevos a lot easier, is the developer going to lose any of it's reputation for rewarding it's fans? Heck, I'd like a game even more if it gave me a ton of virtual rewards just for playing it. It'd seem like a way of thanking me for giving the game a shot. Plus, I wouldn't have to spend double the game's length trying to boost my digital ego.


There are some games I would trophy hunt, but sadly they don't have that capability. Those games are Nintendo games. I have 100% completion on every Mario platformer since Super Mario 64. I have 100% completion on every Zelda since ALttP. I would love yo be rewarded for this. These are games I love to log 50+ hours into looking for every nook and cranny in the game(animal crossing achievements? Yes please!). It's platformers and action/adventure games that make me want to play until I've gotten everything, something that is sadly almost non-existent on the PS3 and 360. Hopefully Project coco beans will bring in this capability, and I'll finally see the light.



I hope my rambling weren't too appalling.

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ZephyrGamgee   

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