By now most everyone is aware that the hit PS3 game Uncharted has recieved the trophy treatment adding over 40 trophies for collectors (It even came early!).  Several upcoming games games have been confirmed to have trophies while a few old ones are also going to recieve patches to support the system as well.  While Sony believes that “Gamer Level” in trophies is enough to sway the crowd, I believe the system needs something more to really give it that “umph” over Live’s established and more wide spread gamerscore system.

First off, I recall when I first heard about gamerscore and xbox live points.  I originally thought that your gamerscore is what developed points to be spent in the live system.  This would have been a rental and purchase drive for certain if implemented as gamerscore whores already rent “Easy 1000″ games just to boost scores.   Many others, (Myself included) would have been happy to suffer through games like Avatar or TMNT in order to gain the extra 1000 points if they could actually be used for something (not to mention it would justify having these games linked to your profile if you’re over the age of 16 anyway….yes I played TMNT so I am including myself in this group).  Microsoft did use this once with an Old Spice promotion that encouraged participants to buy games earn rewards (I got Contra free!) for boosting their gamerscores in specified intervals within the contest length.  I played more xbox for gamerscore then than I ever have before during that time, as it gave a purpose to increasing my score other than and without a reason other than showing I have less of a life than my friends bragging rights.

So how can Sony trump gamerscore? Simple, give use a reason to care about level.  Rumors have mentioned that the size of your virtual HOME in the home system will increase with level or that you’ll have access to more features (instead of the rumored microtransaction system that MS…and probably sony will be using).  This would be a great start to trumping gamerscores.  Imagine if you could gain access to exclusive content similar to Qore just because your level is over 10.  That would encourage me to play a few more trophy games (even if they suck) to gain some freebies.  But why stop there?  Sony could implement a point trade systems as well and allow you to earn points from trophies independent from level (meaning each trophy has a point value similar to now, but is shown as a number just like gamerscore in addition to trophies).  Say each broze is one point, silver 2 and gold 3 with the all mighty platinum trophy being worth 5 points.  Then say you can spend these points on PSN content (perhaps PAIN costs 15 points) or HOME items like a Old Snake statue for your virtual living room for 3 points.  Perhaps that Socom beta can be bought from Qore or from 20 or your points.

Get the idea?  The way Sony can trump gamerscore is by giving gamers something for doing what they do anyway, playing the games.  It’ll encourage more dev work into trophies because mroe people will be likely to spend the money for the trophies if not the game and it’ll show others that level is not just a signature of lonliness, but of hard work put in to earn new gaming scwag.  And everyone loves scwag.

Would you play more if your efforts were rewarded?  Comment below!