Does anyone else suffer from Platinum pop syndrome?

[You]

This happens to me with a lot of games recently, even games that I thoroughly enjoyed.

 

Kinda goes something like this:-

 

-> Platinum pops

-> Sync trophies to the server ( arguably the most important part psychologically, a message to my mind the game is "finished" )

-> Delete game (Definitely has to be after syncing)

-> Probably never playing this game again in my lifetime. Even though I liked it..

 

Mainly because I have so many other games to play / things to do in my life as a middle age adult.

 

I kinda hate the way trophies might make me play a game more than I want too and then afterwards make me never want to play it again.

Once I've witnessed the sync to the Playstation Network, it feels like I can move on from that game. (unless surprise DLC comes along I guess)

Edited September 7, 2020 by enaysoft

[Largof]

This is interesting, because I think about this a lot. Since the pandemic started, I've actually had trouble finding things to interest me. I have a hard time arranging my free time in terms of how I want to spend it, and what I want to prioritize. I've just discovered this site and have somewhat gotten interested in going back through some of my hastily finished games and plat'n them. Doing so has given me a solid "goal" which is really nice and fun to have. I was having "less" fun beforehand because I kept game-hopping and was so unfocused. I was telling myself that I would only stick to a game if I wanted to continue playing it "moment-to-moment". In the end, I kept starting games and dropping them, over and over again, which led me to kinda spending more money on random games I thought would interest me, trying Game Pass for PC so I could channel surf games.

 

I slowly began to realize I get a bit more enjoyment out of my games when I've seen (at least most of) what they have to offer. Even if it means dropping them before platting them, at least the trophy list gives me a solid goal. I think my gaming goals now will be to try and platinum if I know I like the game, but if I'm getting sick of it, and not looking forward to the grind, to not feel guilty and move on to the next. This will allow me to not be so flighty with my free time.

 

In the end, it's all for fun, and that's the basic metric you gotta measure it by. 

 

I also do like the feeling, actually, of being "done" with a game, too. It has its own worth. When you've 100%d a game, you can for sure say that you know what it has to offer and that you never have to revisit it. 

 

Gaming going mainstream has very much changed how gamers approach their free time with them. It used to just be so easy to know what to spend your time on, both because there were so few choices, and everyone was kinda playing the same thing all the time anyway. And it was so new, it was still mysterious. I'm going off on a tangent, but all this is to say... find the fun, and find out what you value in how you spend your time. There's an upside to never wanting to play a game again! 

 

 

[Dauersack]

I used to play games for many years before I even got into trophy hunting, so a platinum still being unearned is not required for me to play a game. I replayed so many games on PS1, PS2 or old Nintendo consoles over the years without any virtual bling getting earned, I replayed some PS4 games that I already completed because I simply felt like it. I get the importance of trophies as a sort of metagame, and there is this nagging feeling that playing a game for 50 hours without getting anything to show for it is somehow wasted time, but you should not let trophies dictate you when to stop playing a game you are still having fun with.

[Wild-Arms-R]

24 minutes ago, Largof said:

This is interesting, because I think about this a lot. Since the pandemic started, I've actually had trouble finding things to interest me. I have a hard time arranging my free time in terms of how I want to spend it, and what I want to prioritize. I've just discovered this site and have somewhat gotten interested in going back through some of my hastily finished games and plat'n them. Doing so has given me a solid "goal" which is really nice and fun to have. I was having "less" fun beforehand because I kept game-hopping and was so unfocused. I was telling myself that I would only stick to a game if I wanted to continue playing it "moment-to-moment". In the end, I kept starting games and dropping them, over and over again, which led me to kinda spending more money on random games I thought would interest me, trying Game Pass for PC so I could channel surf games.

 

I slowly began to realize I get a bit more enjoyment out of my games when I've seen (at least most of) what they have to offer. Even if it means dropping them before platting them, at least the trophy list gives me a solid goal. I think my gaming goals now will be to try and platinum if I know I like the game, but if I'm getting sick of it, and not looking forward to the grind, to not feel guilty and move on to the next. This will allow me to not be so flighty with my free time.

 

In the end, it's all for fun, and that's the basic metric you gotta measure it by. 

 

I also do like the feeling, actually, of being "done" with a game, too. It has its own worth. When you've 100%d a game, you can for sure say that you know what it has to offer and that you never have to revisit it. 

 

Gaming going mainstream has very much changed how gamers approach their free time with them. It used to just be so easy to know what to spend your time on, both because there were so few choices, and everyone was kinda playing the same thing all the time anyway. And it was so new, it was still mysterious. I'm going off on a tangent, but all this is to say... find the fun, and find out what you value in how you spend your time. There's an upside to never wanting to play a game again! 

 

 

I think its more about finding your own passion.

Too many ppl playing games for the wrong reasons.

Trophies seem to just farther empsise this issuse.

Gaming is spousse to be fun, that fun can be challenge, exporeing huge worlds, seeing epic stories, etc.

But if you miss the point of enjoying yourself then your gonna pretty much hate it...along with yourself.

Edited September 7, 2020 by Wild-Arms-R

[Desmuria]

Long story short: Yes. Yes, I do.

[BlackSabre500]

Yeah, my PPS was so bad i had to go see a doctor. Luckily he gave me a prescription to help my symptom. 

[You]

I forgot to mention that when I was young, I was pretty poor. And games were expensive too so before trophies came along, I had to choose a game, a good game like it was an investment since I would likely be playing it for a month or two and have no new games. So my OCD of getting games to 100% stems from there and maybe trophies has made that worse.

If I know I have a game with stuff left unfinished I don't want to start too many other new games at once, like maybe only 2 or 3 on the go.

 

I don't think it is the 100% completion so to speak (all that is an issue) The duty of getting value for money like I did when I was 12 years old, that still remains. It feels like a waste getting a new game when I haven't properly finished the current one, and now I have a marker of platinum percentage as an added bonus/curse for if I am done with that game yet.

[LoveInHell]

Same. Once I get the platinum for a game I will never return to it unless one of my friends wants to shareplay it or play it together. Its for the same reason: I have A LOT of games yet to play.

 

I have to add this in: I always enjoy playing the games, I don’t check trophy guides, I don’t check collectibles etc. I enjoy the game while keeping some trophies in mind (example: complete all side quests to get the true ending). After I played and explored as much as I could (examples: Subnautica, The Forest, Uncharted, Tomb Raider, Horizon Zero Dawn, ...) then I fully go for the plat (getting all collectibles, choices that matter for a trophy, unlocking all skills, going max level etc.)

Edited September 7, 2020 by LoveInHell

[StraightVege]

Huh, I do have a very similar ritual after completing a game, funnily enough. I think it has less to do with trophies for me, but more because of the fact that I overprioritize catching up on my large backlog. I'm always thinking about the next game I "have to" play, which might be an unhealthy way to view this hobby—turning it into work, really. I find that modern games aren't as digestible as they used to be, with so many AAA titles being lengthy open-world odysseys, which likely exacerbates the problem.

[DesmaBR]

I do that. Getting the game plat is like a closure to that game to me.

 

I can always just pick the game on Switch or PC if I really wanna go back to it. Those are way easier for to me start playing than playing on Playstation.

[AJ_Radio]

27 minutes ago, enaysoft said:

I forgot to mention that when I was young, I was pretty poor. And games were expensive too so before trophies came along, I had to choose a game, a good game like it was an investment since I would likely be playing it for a month or two and have no new games. So my OCD of getting games to 100% stems from there and maybe trophies has made that worse.

If I know I have a game with stuff left unfinished I don't want to start too many other new games at once, like maybe only 2 or 3 on the go.

 

I don't think it is the 100% completion so to speak (all that is an issue) The duty of getting value for money like I did when I was 12 years old, that still remains. It feels like a waste getting a new game when I haven't properly finished the current one, and now I have a marker of platinum percentage as an added bonus/curse for if I am done with that game yet.

 

I never had that mindset. I couldn't finish a lot the games I borrowed/rented because a number of games from the Sega Genesis/Super Nintendo era were hard as fuck. I had to go down to Blockbuster to rent the games and sometimes the games were so shitty I couldn't be bothered to play for even a hour. Had to wait a few weeks to get another game.

 

With the Nintendo 64/PlayStation 2 eras things changed a lot... still you have to contend with memory packs and save packs that helped save your games.

 

Everything is just handed out nowadays. Stuff is so fucking easy, you don't have to put nearly as much effort into AAA games as you used to back in the day. Indie games seem to still border on outright challenging.

 

10 minutes ago, ScarecrowsFate said:

I find that modern games aren't as digestible as they used to be, with so many AAA titles being lengthy open-world odysseys, which likely exacerbates the problem.

 

One reason why I prefer Vanquish, Dante's Inferno, God of War 3 and those other linear AA/AAA games over today's stuff. They just cram whatever they can in modern open world games.... to the point where I'm getting fed up with them.

 

Not everything needs to be the length of Assassin's Creed Odyssey (hence the name) or Ghosts of Tsushima.

 

The giant corporations and their publishing companies are treating games purely as a business, rather than an art form like they used to be. As great as Red Dead Redemption 2 might look, having to play 100 - 200+ hours worth of content in it's giant world just to do a big checklist just sounds like torture.

[Rias Gremory]

A Good Question. My answer is yes. Once I play a new game and platinum it, I don't play a game anymore unless I felt bored and wanted to do it again. I won't be deleting Cyberpunk 2077 once it releases because it's not just about the platinum trophy it's simply a true masterpiece it will be with story mode, consequences choices, choices whether you choose Nomad, Street Kid and Corpo etc.

[Raveniteh]

Yeah this is exactly what I do. But not because I did get the platinum itself, but because there's just too many games to play that I rarely bother with replaying the game. Unless it's some real gem I want to experience again.

[stargate1995]

Find it funny that this is exactly what I do, and it seems we are not alone. The only thing I do differently is sync saves to cloud if I remember to. When I was younger there was a select few games I would go back and play regularly even after 100% completion, things like Jak & Daxter and Ratchet. Often I would start games like that to just explore the world or mess around in free roam. Now though I find it really hard to stay interested in a game I have completed, I get bored playing aimlessly in free roam very quickly. I'm not entirely sure why I no longer enjoy just messing around anymore but having a lot of games I want to play probably has a part. I do find it hard to put myself into the shoes of others that spend months on single player games like GOW etc, I felt like I had really seen everything the game had to offer just playing through once to completion, the only other thing there was harder difficulties. 

 

Closest I get to replaying things these days is remasters, which I enjoy because it gives me a good reason to go back to a game without feeling like I'm wasting my time.

[BlackSabre500]

1 hour ago, BlackSabre500 said:

Yeah, my PPS was so bad i had to go see a doctor. Luckily he gave me a prescription to help my symptom. 

But in all seriousness i have this problem too but with some games having the exception. I normally take my time to get the platinums (except for games that are really quick to platinum) but the consequence of it is the backlog.

1 hour ago, enaysoft said:

I forgot to mention that when I was young, I was pretty poor. And games were expensive too so before trophies came along, I had to choose a game, a good game like it was an investment since I would likely be playing it for a month or two and have no new games.

I understand that problem, i missed out in a lot of classics because of fear of not liking the game so i sticked with genre/series of games that i recognized .

[black__bunny]

Playing games pre-trophies, I always liked trying to finish everything in a game. Even more if there was an in-game checklist of things to do. I feel like that way I’ve explored and done everything there is to do in the game and only then does it actually feel finished to me 

[A_Tennis_Giraffe]

This pretty much sums up how I tend to feel, but I actually like the satisfaction I feel when I can put a game back on the shelf (or delete it from my HDD) and know that it's forever done and that I never need to return. It kind of gives me a feeling of closure and I feel good that it's another one crossed off my very large backlog.

[Infected Elite]

No. While i still occasionally get plats, most games i play just to enjoy them. Or try them out, yes i have a growing backlog but i never had much time to play let alone plat all my games. If anything the pandemic helped my work as we are busier than ever and ive been working steady 12hr days for a couple weeks now and doing half shifts on Saturdays. I unno. I enjoy getting plats sometimes though. I just got trials of mana, however i didn't feel any sense of accomplishment or anything. Its just a "meh" kinda feeling. Basically killin time until ps5 is out.

 

[ShahinMiah]

4 hours ago, enaysoft said:

This happens to me with a lot of games recently, even games that I thoroughly enjoyed.

 

Kinda goes something like this:-

 

-> Platinum pops

-> Sync trophies to the server ( arguably the most important part psychologically, a message to my mind the game is "finished" )

-> Delete game (Definitely has to be after syncing)

-> Probably never playing this game again in my lifetime. Even though I liked it..

 

Mainly because I have so many other games to play / things to do in my life as a middle age adult.

 

I kinda hate the way trophies might make me play a game more than I want too and then afterwards make me never want to play it again.

Once I've witnessed the sync to the Playstation Network, it feels like I can move on from that game. (unless surprise DLC comes along I guess)

This is so me. Complete the Platinum, sync it, delete it and never play again ? like you I’m working a lot and have plenty of other games to platinum so I don’t have time to return to titles i want not that i ever want to 

[PraiseTheFluppi]

This reminds me of an interesting text from @Artty44:

Quote

 

'I don't really see that much of a difference between the olden days of completing games 100% vs getting platinums. Most proper trophy lists require you to do pretty much everything in the game anyway and grinding existed before trophies did.

 

I remember playing FFs VII,VIII,IX,X & XII (amongst others) in the late 90's to early noughties and spending untold hours completing everything the game had to offer including ridiculous amounts of grinding to beat the Dark Aeons in X. FF XII especially had the Sky Pirates' Den which was basically a trophy cabinet for completing everything in the game. I see trophies as a natural extension of that and confirmation that you've completed all the different things in the main game. So if you've always been a completionist type of player then trophies is just an evolution of that. When these games were re-released with trophy support I took great pleasure in completing them all again and having the plats to show it.'

 

This is exactly what I think. 20 years ago or even before that, you didn't really have an achievement list or internet to help you with collectibles, secret endings etc. There are guide books for a lot of games and some games had an 'achievement list' like ff12, but the main difference to today is the fact that there wasn't a visible 'ending', not even in the books. You play a game for 100+ hours and could not say for sure that you did everything in the game. I remember going for the Pirates Den in ff12, but unlike a trophy list, you didnt' see the requirements for them. You simply didn't know if you were completely finished. And if you came back later to the game with a new character, you experienced something else that never happened before, even if it was just a unique dialogue, a new weapon or something similar. Still, people weren't as addicted as they are today to completion. Why though? You could have gone for 100% if you wanted to.

The trophy list is a checklist, it tells you the possibilities of the game. (Not all possibilities!)  Everyone could make their own checklist for games without it, or even extend them with certain 'achievements'. Some games don't have the reqiurement to get all equipement, so you could just add it in your mind. You want to kill a boss in a certain time limit, but there isn't a trophy? Just add it in your mind, make a video of it, then you can still show it off like a trophy. They are basically nothing special. A shopping list istn's exciting, right? Even though you checked everything off of it. So why is a trophy list addicting all of a sudden? Because it's online and everyone sees it? You could show off your finished shopping list and still it's nothing special. ?
People make it more special than it actually is. Trophies are like a tiny guide book for me, they show me if there is still a secret boss, or a special weapon I don't have, or a unique dialogue with an NPC etc. After I got that, I get a trophy, like a crossed out headword on a checklist. And even after crossing everything off, there are still things in a game to do. Always.

Completing games today is just so easy compared to the past mainly because of the internet. And that's a big problem of it all. Some make it even ridiculously easy for them and get a list of everything before they even started the game. In the end, these people complain that a game is too short or too easy or not interesting enough even though they spoilered themselves, and I don't get it. Play the game and enjoy it.

If your mindset is like 'I have everything in a game, I won't play it ever again' then you shouldn't feel pressured for your next game, right? Your value for achievements is higher than the value for the game. I'm not good at explaining, but if you forget a game after finishing it, why does it matter so much to rush through all other games you have? You don't value the gameplay of your current game, that won't change with the next. You will never finish every game that exists, it's impossible, so naturally you will miss out on some games. So why not enjoy games slower and without a checklist in mind from the start? Nobody but yourself pressures you into rushing everything!

[Carol]

Getting the platinum doesn’t always mean I’ll be saying goodbye to the game. I always keep my favorite games installed. I love revisiting my favorite story modes from time to time and I also like to keep playing some MP/Co-op games to complete in-game challenges, doing prestige or just to have fun.

[felemiah]

I feel like trophy hunting made gaming more into a chore for me than an actual hobby for my free time. Trophies (and especially platinums) turned into one of the main reasons for me to play some games at all, like my mind requires some sort of literal achievement in order to agree to play a certain game.

 

When there's a trophy for completing 50 levels in a game then I don't really have fun for 49 of those levels. I'm usually rushing them and feel annoyed by how far away I am from the next trophy, and how long it's gonna take to plat that game. 

 

First and foremost I blame three things for that:

1) games aren't as difficult anymore. On consoles like the SNES, games used to be a lot harder to prolong your playtime by putting up obstacles that took you ages to get past (like the mine cart levels in Donkey Kong Country). Even if there are still difficult games out there, the vast majority of games is made to be accessible to everyone, may it be by including adjustable difficulties. 

 

2) games don't require you to be creative anymore. Back then, when you faced an obstacle that didn't have an obvious solution to get past, you were forced to get creative. You had to try every possible solution you could think of until you actually figured it out. Nowadays, there's dozens of guides to every semi-popular game. If a game in the modern age is hard and you're meant to practice and observe, then people turn away to other games instead - myself included. 

 

3) I have access to more games than I did when I was a child. As a child I had to wait for my allowance or my birthday or Christmas to get new videogames. By then, I had replayed every game I owned a dozen times because I just didn't have a huge backlog of new untouched games. Just thinking about my current backlog stresses me out for some reason, so basically my mind wants me to finish games as fast as possible to get rid all of those untouched tasks one at a time. 

 

Sometimes I wish I didn't care about trophies as much. But then I actually wonder if I'd even be a gamer at all anymore if it wasn't for some sort of achievement that gives me the feeling of not just having wasted 25 hours of my free time on yet another platinum. 

 

 

[HuntingFever]

Unless a game is exceptionally good, I normally don't bother replaying any I've finished so will uninstall it to make way for something else.

Edited September 7, 2020 by HuntingFever
Update.

[scemopagliaccioh]

I definitely  play the games again, only on another account, I need dem pops and progression bar.

[Super_Mep]

I follow your procedure to a T. Once it's 100% or platinum I delete it and move on to the next game on the list. 

 

Also I find I can't focus on playing on my Switch because there are no achievements/trophies. Only game that held my interest was Untitled Goose Game because it had tasks to do that were kinda like trophies. And then I regretted getting it on Switch instead of PS4 haha.