The Pause Button

Admittedly, this post is late due to this very problem. I finally got the time to sit down and play the long anticipated Heavy Rain. And while the game went above and beyond all of my expectations, I nonetheless found myself replaying over and over and OVER to unlock trophies in the game. Within only 20 hours of play, I had unlocked all but 5 (and that’s a pretty difficult deal for me) and completely ignored the other things I needed to do; writing this post for example.

Now this problem has been addressed in thousands of forums on both Playstation and Xbox sites alike, but unlike many other addictions, gamers can’t seem to figure out why they’re addicted.

One poster on the blog “trigger finger” writes about their own achievement addiction and that they bought up cheap and terrible games only to boost up their point scores with easily gained achievements. They even went as far as to invest in junk cars of Forza 2 just to finish out the achievements for the game. They also recognize that while the points have no real-world relevance, there is an odd kind of gratification they get from obtaining them.

Another poster known as MeltTech on the gamespot site writes that they have trophy addiction or “TA” and it is similar to “a computer virus which eats away at all the computers RAM, or random access memory. TA does the same to the human brain. TA begins as just a mere thought. Shortly after being exposed to your first trophy, TA begins to consume the humans every thought…”

I couldn’t agree more.

Evidently this addiction can gain you some sort of real-world recognition, despite what others say. One gamer known as Stallion83 on Xbox Live was awarded in the Guinness Book of World (Gaming) Records for his gamerscore of 317,523–the highest in the world (his updated score is now at 392,685). Stallion83 in his blog states that he wishes to reach a 1 million gamerscore eventually. At this time I do not think there is a record for highest PS3 trophy score, however the highest I have seen is on the UK board with Blighton sitting at a healthy level 27 (5,034 trophies gained).

Even more gamers though, say that trophies and achievements are a non-issue for them. That they don’t care about how much they get in a game and rather play for enjoyment, not for the achievements or trophies. I used to be the same way as many of my games used to not have any trophy support, or my score sat so low that I really didn’t care. Now however, I feel the need to boost this score so gamers can see and RESPECT the gamer behind the score.

So in the end I think that trophies and achievements are a “love it” or “really don’t care about it” issue. If you don’t pay attention to them, then it doesn’t matter to you. If you start boosting it up however, this crazy addiction will grip you until the next thin you know, you’re raiding the $5 bargain bin games and enduring godawful controls, graphics, and stories just to unlock those nonexistent points. So to all gamers out there, game on, but be careful in doing so.

Category: Gamer Issues by Christen