Earlier this week Nintendo announced that they weren’t thinking of adding a system similar to the Xbox 360’s Gamerscore, which counts your Achievements, or the PS3’s Trophy set-up. “Nintendo’s designers don’t tell you how to play their game in order to achieve some kind of mythical reward,” said the company’s Bill Trinen.
“Basically, the way the games are designed is they’re designed for you to explore the game yourself and have this sense of discovery.”
Trinen also suggested that the sense of mystery is far preferable than the two points systems, which he pointed out were little more than numbers. “In my mind, that really encourages the sense of exploration rather than the sense of ‘If I do that, I’m going to get some sort of artificial point or score that’s going to make me feel better that I got this,'” he said, “And that, to me, is I think more compelling.”
There’s legions of gamers that would venomously disagree, of course. To some, Trophies and Achievements are serious business – indeed, our very own PS3 Trophy List was not only the first of its kind but it still attracts lots of readers, and we’ve got our very own Skibadee doing a thankless job maintaining it. Gamers like the two systems.
Achievements, the first out of the door, give you a nice round number and a very easy reckoner as to who plays games the most, although it’s unclear at a glance as to that player’s particular skill beyond the total score. Trophies, on the other hand, show the four different levels of silverware, with Platinum badges obviously the hardest to get.
But what do they do in the long term, beyond providing a discussion point and a method of comparing with friends?
The concept of ‘100%ing’ a game has changed over the last few years – previously games that required a fair amount of your time would come with a total percentage somewhere, which showed you how close you were to completing everything the game had to offer. Now it’s just a Platinum or a 1000 points Gamerscore, depending on your choice of platform.
Gamers don’t need to explore so much for themselves, a simple look at the Trophy list (or, of course, a list of Achievements) would show them everything they need to ‘do’ to get that final ping, and even though developers can opt to keep some Trophies hidden, it normally doesn’t take long for a spoiler-heavy list to hit the internet, and usually before the game is launched.
Are the rewards ‘mythical’ as Trinen says? In some respects, yes – neither Sony nor Microsoft has really found a use for these systems beyond what we’ve talked about above – they’re there to show you how many points you’ve got from playing the games in specific, pre-meditated conditions. Is the company right to completely ignore them for the 3DS? No.
Regardless of what an individual might think, or indeed a group of game designers, Trophies and Achievements go a long way to keeping gamers hooked to your system; before Trophies appeared multi-format gamers might have opted to buy games purely for the Xbox 360, for example, and Apple’s Game Center shows that it’s possible to get this absolutely right on a mobile platform.
Nintendo have always been a little internet-wary, preferring to dip their toes in the online water rather than jumping in stark-bollock naked, and that’s their call. Will the 3DS suffer from not having it’s own system of comparing your gaming prowess with mates? Probably not, but would it be better with one?
Almost certainly.
l C0D3 M0NK3Y l
Eh… *yawn*
TURRICAN-808
A while ago i put my idea on the official PS Blos Share Ideas website. Basically you use your sign in ID and you can vote once for the idea you like, i think PS3 trophies we earn should continue over to the unnanounced PS4. Here’s my ideas:
http://share.blog.us.playstation.com/ideas/?s=TURRICAN-808
gideon1451
Definitely. Sony do like their backwards compatibility anyway & I’m sure they know the value of trophies to us gamers.
cc_star
Backwards compatibility? How so?
Deathbrin
Was that a joke comment or something?
DrNate86
Its a very similar comment (read: link) to one he posts on anything that is remotely relevant!
Foxhound_Solid
Each to their own I guess, Trophies/Achievements are pretty cool
gideon1451
Could you imagine Wii Fit with achievements?
waddo_89
LOL. I certainly wouldn’t max that one out.
blackredyellow
Check out EA Sports Active 2, that has Trophies, and I assume Achievements. For me, (an admittedly proud trophy hunter) having trophies makes me want to complete each workout/programme, and so I actually put all the more effort into each session. I would definitely miss this/not enjoy the game as much if they weren’t included. Surely Nintendo are shooting themselves in the foot by excluding this?
StevenHibs
I love my trophies
aphex187
Being a gamer for the last 33 odd years i don’t think that 5 years of having Trophies, Gamercores, Achievements will ever get my juices going, i don’t need and couldn’t care less for them IMHO ;)
jayjay119
What do trophies and Achievements do besides let you show off to your mates in a rather elitist and, forgive me, pointless fashion. I don’t really care if you have the super-duper-amazing-luminous-green-yellow-gold trophy for COD, I just don’t and lack of this function isn’t going to put me off buying something, it was never a part of my gaming life before this generation and it will remain not to be so until they start to give you something cool like 10p on your PSN account for every game you get 100% of trophies for. Games should be challenging and fun regardless of trophy support. Alas, I am not representative of the market as a whole, and to say Nintendo have definitely created a sales barrier by not incorporating them is no exaggeration.
Deathbrin
Not about the Trophy level or something, Trophies/achievements (i was first hooked up on the system as Nokia N-Gage Points – made mobile games really addictive, with comparing to the community you knew, etc – there were also points for participating in special online events) bring new life to the games really, they kinda bring a whole new level to completing the game; some might think completing once on easy is enough, some on hard, some may brag about stuff etc – but Trophies is the ultimate measure.
Also i’d like to note that they allow you to use the awesome Trophy compare system, that way you basically can review your friend’s or rival’s whole game collection, see where he did good, what he liked most, etc – it’s quite a “social network” thing.
Deathbrin
It’s all down to joy/satisfaction you get i guess, if you get your adrenaline boost when aiming for some challenge it’s good; if you don’t want to bother – don’t, you know people don’t blindly aim for every possible trophy in every possible game, they just choose to complete the games they want to the fullest, the games they love the most.
Down to the personal choice, and the system’s not bad or good on it’s own.
blackredyellow
OK so all of the above sit between either having a strong interest in Trophies/Achievements, to not being interested or don’t understand the system. No one (I think…!) has said they really dislike or hate the idea so what good will it do for Nintendo to not make use of them?
However, Nintendo have made some great games over time, especially for the N64, that didn’t have any form of Trophy/Achievement and these have all been massively successful (I’m thinking of Mario Kart/Goldeneye). So maybe I’m wrong.
I personally like the idea of Trophies and the satisfaction of Platinum is great. Good luck to the Nintendo bunch but for me they are shooting themselves in the foot.