Recently, Sony added the trophies feature to the Playstation Network presumably as a counterpoint to Microsoft's achievements for Xbox Live. Many hardcore gamers have found the achievement system to be quite addicting, even adding to the lifetime of some games. As someone who owns a PS3 but not an Xbox 360, I was very excited at the prospect of joining in on the fun. Now that the trophy system has been released for just under two months I say......where the hell are the trophies?
Now as a programmer, I understand that nothing is as easy as it seems, especially when you're talking about adding features after the fact, but only a handful of developers seem to be interested in this feature, and that doesn't make sense to me. The buzz term of the current generation among developers seems to be "long tail. What better way to stretch that tail even longer than by adding trophy support? Especially when many of the big games are cross platform and already have achievements in their 360 counterparts. GTAIV, Call of Duty 4, Oblivion, Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and on and on. How many people would dust off Heavanly Sword again just to rack up some trophies? The possible effects that retroactively adding trophy support to older games could have on upcoming games is rather significant as well. Throw a few trophies into Resistance: Fall of Man, and imagine how much more the hype machine could get rolling for Resistance 2.
Now there are a few games with trophy support already. Super Stardust HD, and the excellent Pixel Junk Eden to name a couple, but where are the heavy hitters? Criterion says that their next update to Burnout Paradise will include trophy support, but given their recent announcement of launching on the PSN store, it seems obvious that they're getting some incentive from Sony. Bioshock will have trophy support, but it's not due until November.
Come on devs, we're waiting to go back and replay your games, just give us the reason to do it!
