Should Home Have Trophies?
(Editor’s note: this article was originally published in HSM on May 20, 2011. Following the latest announcement of trophy support for PlayStation Home, we are re-running it.)
by Jersquall, as a special guest contribution to HSM
The question will doubtlessly continue for some time: is Home a game, or a social network? It has elements of both in it, after all.
One way, perhaps, to deepen the social experience of Home would be to actually create trophies for unlocking various milestones in Home. The first rule of freakonomics is that people respond to incentives; offering trophies to drive certain behavior in Home might help gamers adapt to Home’s social environment.
We hear, ad nauseam, that gamers like to say “there’s nothing to do in Home.” And this is because they’re entering Home expecting it to be like a game. So, in order to help them make the transition from gamer to social gamer, why not create objectives in Home which provide trophies? Sure, some people will simply complete the task at hand in order to earn the trophy, but it might really help to deepen the Home experience for some users.
One interesting wrinkle to introducing trophies to Home: while Home has a plethora of games to choose from, this would be the first element introduced which would make Home itself more of a game. Not only could this possibly help with new-user retention, but it would also provide a new (and expandable) activity for existing Home users to enjoy.
Keep in mind that, on a smaller scale, Lockwood has already done this in Home. If you go to the Sodium Hub, there are various goals which, once attained, provide Sodium credits. So it’s not like there isn’t an in-Home template to study.
If they ever did happen to have trophies in PlayStation Home, then what should they be for? I want you, the HomeStation audience, to think of really good trophies for Home; any part of Home is yours to add trophies to. Just for this idea.
Here is the catch. Try to scale the value of your Home trophy concept against the toughness required to attain it. And since Home is ongoing, let’s stick to bronze, silver and gold only — no platinums.
(Editor’s note: to me, a Home platinum would only be something truly extraordinary, such as getting a piece of original content into the Home Community Theater. Cubes and HearItWow would qualify!)
Please do NOT make up ideas like (Bronze Trophy for freezing 10 times). Instead, think along the lines of, “Bronze trophy: visit thirty public spaces.” Let’s see how creative you guys and girls can get.
March 11th, 2014 by Jersquall | 20 comments
Jersquall is a retired Home Community Volunteer, co-founder of Club HOMEinformer, and podcast commentator for HomeStation Magazine. His views expressed in HSM are his own.
bronze for getting a perfect score in bowling.
silver for beating the arcade games in the bowling alley.(getting all the free stuff).
Gold for getting a perfect score in bowling… in each lane!
Bowling silver could be for gettin more than one perfect game. Gold for a Perfect series. (3 games in a row, same lane) Would make it seem more like real life bowling then.
Bronze Trophy: Insult an HCV
Bronze Trophy: Capture footage of HCV’s in embarassing situations using the in game camera
This is stupid. We already have incentives for playing in Home, the free rewards. If you want “Hardcore Gamers” (I hate that word so much) in Home there’s really only one way, put original challenging/fun games in Home. Sodium has done it, there needs to be more.
Oh and Jers *trophy!* if you’re gonna have trophies in Home, we’re gonna need that Trophy Room. B)
Gold trophy: having the power to edit Geo’s comment just to frak with his head.
I entirely agree, adding trophies for achievements in Home as it is will not attract gamers. My reaction when I first came on Home was that there needed to be more spaces that have fun games that are like real games, like Salt Shooter. Most of the other games on Homes will not appeal to the gamer. for me there isn’t much appeal. I am not a FPS gamer, but image the Killzone promotion attracted a lot of gamers. Sony and their partner really need to step it up and address the gaming aspect of Home or else they are going to lose a lot of gamers like me on Home. The outage hit it home to me how much Home is lacking. I had no desire to go back and collect orbs. No desire to go back and get my dolphies hsppy again and race them. I am however gaming. Somy please bring real gaming to Home. Trophies without the gaming experience is pointless.
I think there should be trophies for Home itself and trophies for each game in Home. Easy enough to do.
Each personal space could offer some trophies. Max out furniture-bronze. Maxed out friends in space for 30 minutes-silver. Got all the upgrades to locoroco-gold.
Heck you could even give out trophies for all sorts of odd things such as a bronze trophy for returning to a location after NOT visiting it for 6 months. Favoriting a space that isn’t navigable using the menu pad.
Taking 1000/10,000/100,000 photos in Home (bronze/silver/gold). Visited a “special” central plaza (Killzone 3/Canada Day/Independence Day) – bronze. Sony could use trophies to draw people into home for sure!
I think the bulk of the trophies should require that a person be invested in Home not just a trophy hunter so most should take a real dedicated effort to accomplish.
I agree with this. Make a large portion of the trophies “time spent” in Home; making the trophies based around spending a particular amount of time in personal spaces, public spaces, and continually chatting.
I would like to see Home Adopt some type of a game mode -- play at your own pace, vs being a social hub. Maybe something similar to the Sims or a MMO, where the more you play the more you build your avatars status. Then “HOME” just becomes the open world you set your avatar to explore and complete different tasks.
And just like a disc based game, each task could come with trophy.
Exactly. If Home was more like an online RPG, I would definately spend more time there. When they had real poker gaming it attracted a lot of people, but now that is gone. Home to me is one big lounge, places to sit abound everywhere. They need to integrate the game and social aspects together and what better way to do then with an RPG-like experience. Trophies can comes later not first.
lol. I actually suggested in the forums when Home first came up that they work out a way to incorporate leveling and give avatars more advanced features based on that. More dances… more emotes… specific clothes… special locations… all based on “avatar level”
This is an interesting concept. I myself could really care less about trophies, but I can see where the attractions would lie with those who are. I think the idea of having time spent in Home trophies as a valid one, say you reach x amount of hours and u get a bronze, ect. Also how about you complete x amount of personal spaces like if you get 5 and finish (max out furniture)decorating them all you get bronze, 10 would be silver, and gold might be twice as many.
The gaming aspect is a good one as well. Lets say you complete all the challenges in the golf game you get a gold one or you top any leader board on any game available you get one. The possibility is endless really as they add new games all the time.
Idk that you could ever appease straight out gamers with anything other than games.Which is ok i guess if you plan on rolling new games out every month or so because eventually any game gets a little stale after constantly being replayed.On the other hand social gamers are already pretty happy and really only request a few 1 time upgrades for long term happiness.If Home is going to go with turning out new games to attract ppl they had better be good ones or they risk not only not getting gamers but becoming a jk in the gaming industry.It would take just 2 or 3 “Howard the Duck” games before gamers treated Home as the place where you don’t go for high quality,high value games.Customers as a rule don’t take kindly to paying good money for bad games as the long list of game developers that have gone extinct can testify to.As for trophies,why not just don’t expect that to satisfy ppl looking for games.
I believe Home has already done this for the most part in their offering of games. Salt Shooter would be one exception. I am looking for more of that, not Slap Happy or the other lame attempts by Sony at adding pseudo-games to Home. Although I don’t do it much, I would imagine bowling would be success at social gaming. The problem with trophies on Home as it is now would be akin to doing chores. Sodium hub in a way is like that. Doing so many of something that is not real hard or interesting is a chore. Bowling over a certain score is an achievement, stomping on 200 yellow scorpions is not.
While i’d agree with you i’m not so sure most would.Every month the tickets for the midway games sell like hotcakes so some ppl must enjoy these games.But i would agree that salt shooter is 1 of if not the best game currently on Home,i would love to see more levels and enemies added,i’d probably even pay for it.
Here’s a category,go 3 months without a warning or ban.Then at least the trophy hunters will act accordingly.
I totally Agree we need trophies. That would be awesome to see them add that into it.
It’s an intriguing concept to be sure, and Jersquall is absolutely right: Home should never have a platinum attached to it. Platinums represent “endgame” and in so doing, would signal the users of Home -- specifically ones who choose to view it as strictly a game and would likely never return -- that they have achieved all there is to achieve.
Should games such as Sodium (specifically Salt Shooter) offer trophies? Oh hell yes, please.
Should one simply earn a bronze trophy because they endured some knuckle-dragger’s inane and illiterate ramblings for a preset amount of time? That’d probably be a bit difficult to program, unless Sony’s got some sort of equivalent of Santa’s naughty list of repeat offenders, and enduring harassment from one of those individuals would likely end up becoming an inside joke for those well trenched within the community of Home.
An RPG/MMO (complete with trophies) would be a great addition to Home, however I feel making Home become nothing more than that could turn people away too, as they enjoy the free form that Home in its present incarnation provides.
And like most or all DLC content that is available for purchase, why not have the personal spaces that have their own minigames contain a small trophy set as well? It would be interesting to see if it resulted in a spike in sales for the personal spaces that offered games as a result. And to make it fair, while guests can earn the trophies offered in that space’s game(s), only the owner would receive the silver/gold for owning the space, plus an extra one for inviting a friend (or, say five) over.
That is a great idea Terra. There are several minigames within the personal spaces that would work for that. Like solving the mixed puzzles in Neptune under X amount of minutes or high scores on the shooting game there. Also it would lend itself to the newest addition at the Salt Shooter 2 space, (which I even find strangely addicting.) Adding this to achievements in the public games like the original Saucer Bop would attract sales for Sony for those spaces that have games attached, especially older ones like Waterfall Terrace where there is a fishing game.
an obvious gold trophy … getting the alcove at siren . a real pain in the butt , lol . i had to do it twice thanks to the white knight chronicles glitch .