Playing through video games is its own reward, and it usually involves overcoming challenges that seem impossible at first. With the PS3 era of gaming, trophies were introduced, and they give players new challenges to wrestle with. Trophies are digital awards given to PlayStation players for completing certain tasks in a game or playing in a certain way. Depending on the difficulty of the presented task, players may earn a bronze, silver, gold, or a shiny platinum trophy.
Traditionally, platinum trophies have been highly coveted because PlayStation games in the past have made them painfully difficult to earn. Unlocking platinum trophies requires earning all trophies prior, and sometimes those trophies are tied to ridiculously long grinds or frustratingly difficult tasks. The rewards, however, are some bragging rights. In recent years, there has been a trend of platinum trophies becoming easier to acquire, and there are plenty of reasons to be happy about this.
There Are Fewer Trophies Tied To Online Modes
Many games feature online components that let players test their skills against other players worldwide. It is a fun way to add a social element to games and to allow players to experience a game in a new way. Tying trophies to online gameplay is a problem for various reasons. Most notably, multiplayer gaming is not something that all players are interested in, and there are plenty of gamers that will never touch the online component of the games they play. Having a trophy that requires online play prevents those players from earning a platinum trophy.
Another important factor to consider is that online games do not stay active forever and servers do not remain online indefinitely. Sooner or later, gamers move on to the next game, and the communities of old games thin out. This essentially puts a time limit on certain multiplayer-dependent trophies, leaving gamers of the future unable to earn the platinum trophies of certain games.
There Are Fewer Trophies That Involve Unnatural Play
Trophies can enhance the gaming experience by requiring gamers to play in a certain way. For example, Shadow of the Colossus (2018) has a gold trophy titled "Speed Demon" which is earned by completing the game on hard mode in under 5:41:28 s. This is a good trophy because it requires players to know the ins and outs of every colossus and to be able to implement their knowledge expertly. The same can also be said for most collectibles trophies, as they encourage players to explore the world that developers have created. Hence, Death Stranding's "A Thirst For Knowledge" trophy is a good one that has players roaming all corners of the map.
However, there are games that force games to play in ways that are unnatural to the game, or require skills that are not central to the game. Such trophies may be difficult, but they are often not fun to complete. Such an example can be found in Mafia: To earn the "Supercharged" trophy, players have to win a race. The race tests driving skills that are of no use elsewhere in the game and, on the hardest difficulty, it is notoriously difficult to get right.
The worst offenders are games that have trophies that require no skill or knowledge and instead require nothing but luck. These are the kinds of trophies that can be done in a few minutes or can take days. A painful example of this is in Red Dead Redemption 2, which contains the "Best in the West" trophy awarded to players who obtain 100% completion of the game. To do that, players have to complete all challenges in the game, including gambling challenges. Unfortunately, some gambling games are purely games of chance, and some gambling challenges require players to not just win, but to win in specific ways or multiple times in a row.
Games Are Supposed To Be Fun
Looking at the platinum percentages of recent PlayStation games highlights just how many more players are acquiring platinum trophies. In Sucker Punch's Infamous Second Son, 5.6% of players earned the platinum trophy. With Ghost of Tsushima, which is developed by the same studio, 13.7% of players have earned the platinum trophy. Similarly, Insomniac's Ratchet & Clank (2016) has 2.4% of players earning the platinum trophy while Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart has 17.3% of players getting the platinum trophy.
Earning trophies is never a compulsory aspect of playing video games, and for every player who takes joy in earning them, there are several more who do not care at all. Nevertheless, the recent trend of PlayStation games having easier to acquire platinum trophies has allowed more gamers to feel the joy of hearing that jingle and seeing that notification appear on the screen.
