...people are selling platinum trophies now?

[servant]

trophies for Final Fantasy XIII unlocked wallpaper

[Sheleigha]

trophies for Final Fantasy XIII unlocked wallpaper

That, I actually liked and was a pleasant surprise for me. A nice bonus, especially for a game I wasn't planning on platinuming and just got the trophies I happened to earn.

[Clephas]

Also, another thing about trophies, achievements and the like is that - using them as an excuse - a lot of new games can't be played at all without using an online medium like Steam... as an example, the Total War series. Even if you buy the game at the store, it requires you to install steam and be on the net to play it even if you aren't even the least bit interested in the side crap like multiplayer or trophies. However, what if your net is down? What if you don't want to connect to the net while playing? I am one of those people that prefers not to be connected to the net while playing solo, as I don't like to connect my gaming pc to the net if I can possibly avoid it simply because I don't want to expose it to viruses, cookies, spyware, and other crap like that clutters up a pc and makes it run below specs.

Ok, that is more of a complaint on digitalization, but it still more or less outlines my outlook on things... I don't want people - whoever they happen to be, whether they are corporations or individuals who randomly look at steam profiles or psn profiles - to know how or what I play or what I've managed to do with an individual game. I'm not interested in bragging rights or the game-maker's idea of what an achievement is in a game. More importantly, I don't want to be sending information to anyone for any reason without my knowledge. It feels too much like spying and it is a poisonous trend that is rather rapidly encroaching on every bit of privacy we have.

[Ringwraith]

trophies for Final Fantasy XIII unlocked wallpaper

That, I actually liked and was a pleasant surprise for me. A nice bonus, especially for a game I wasn't planning on platinuming and just got the trophies I happened to earn.

There have been games to toy with other ideas too, Mass Effect being a prme example, as most achievements gave you some form of in-game bonus that translated across any character. The first one had the most of these, dueto being a more stat-heavy game, but there's a few in a second, and even less in the third (sadly).

Also, another thing about trophies, achievements and the like is that - using them as an excuse - a lot of new games can't be played at all without using an online medium like Steam... as an example, the Total War series. Even if you buy the game at the store, it requires you to install steam and be on the net to play it even if you aren't even the least bit interested in the side crap like multiplayer or trophies. However, what if your net is down? What if you don't want to connect to the net while playing? I am one of those people that prefers not to be connected to the net while playing solo, as I don't like to connect my gaming pc to the net if I can possibly avoid it simply because I don't want to expose it to viruses, cookies, spyware, and other crap like that clutters up a pc and makes it run below specs.

Steam has an offline mode, thus you only have to connect it to the internet once to get it up-to date before you can play it. This is not always-online DRM (which is laughably unreasonable and oh-so broken, Diablo III being the latest offender), so you can still play it single-player offline, and achievements aren't even enabled in offline mode, so even those won't bother you if dislike them anyway.
You can also make your Steam profile private so no-one can look at it (except Valve themselves obviously).

[AweOfShe]

If only the trophies earned could add something on the game like Catherine did with the Jukebox

Sometimes Trophies will unlock content in PlayStation Home... it's usually just a t-shirt or something lame like that, though. Same goes for Xbox 360 Achievements and Avatars.

Yeah, when I finished reading through Steins;Gate the other day, the final achievement unlocked a Gamer Pic. I guess it's better than nothing, but yeah...