TheSixthAxis had the world’s first list of Trophy enabled games, and still has one of the best with several exclusive lists provided by our wonderful community days before the other sites get their hands on them. Still, when we first started the list we had no idea Trophies would explode into the massively important part of gaming that they’ve become – people look for the Trophies for a game before they even start it in order to streamline their first run through it to bag the most silverware, and our Trophy Leaderboard in our forums shows that people really do care about their Trophy count with nearly a thousand replies.
The problem, though, is that not every game has Trophies, because the system wasn’t in place from the launch of the PlayStation 3 and only actually started with firmware 2.40 on 2nd July 2008. We assumed, wrongly, that every game from that point on would have Trophies – this didn’t turn out to be the case but surely we could rest easy in the knowledge that all PS3 games would eventually get their own Trophies at some point? Right? Well, no, but what about the longtail titles like those on the PSN Store? Again, no, because although some games like Lemmings have recent got a patch to give it some silverware, some of the launch era games still don’t have Trophies.
I can understand the likes of EA not bothering to patch FIFA 2008 because nobody’s ever going to buy it, but PSN games like Dark Mist, 1942 and Elefunk don’t really have such a short shelf life and would no doubt find new sales should a Trophy patch be developed for them. Implementing Trophies isn’t trivial – I’ve heard first hand how tricky they can be to build into a game (especially since the latest firmware) so I’m not suggesting everything on the Store should be updated, but if Lemmings got a boost recently when Trophies were patched in then surely this would be a good sign to Sony to keep at it.
And then there’s stuff like fl0w, which does have a Trophy patch but not here in Europe – and it’s not the only game that appears to have suffered at the hands of the Great SCEE Delay Door Of Despire. Developer ThatGameCompany’s Ar-Pharazon comments that “the glacial pace of QA submissions outside of the US has always frustrated me deeply” so what’s the hold up, Sony Europe – this one can’t be down to localisation, surely? Do you not see the benefit of boosting sales with a Trophy patch? And why the secrecy – let us know if you’re planning on patching some old games and let us know when – Go Puzzle should be your first port of call.