Well, you can turn off the Steam overlay and a recent PS3 update allows you to turn off Trophy popups. Plus: the developers are partially to blame for implementing the trophies in a bad manner.

David Cage didn't want the popups to kill the atmosphere in Heavy Rain so he made them appear between scenes even if the conditions are met during gameplay (at least so I've read, haven't played the game myself yet). Maybe MS and Sony demand achievements/trophies but I don't think that they demand a game to include achievements/trophies for trivial tasks or dozens of times during gameplay (which is the only bad side effect I really can think of), I guess the developers are to blame for being so unimaginative that the only implementation they can think of breaks the immersion or atmosphere. So neither would I criticize the very idea of that stuff nor would I blame MS and Sony for demanding it to be implemented. I think that these features can have positive effects, even boosting sales (and good sales are good for the industry and us, the gamers) and sometimes adding replay value to a game or making you try fun stuff you normally wouldn't.

Trophies? What? Like, achievements that look like trophies, or...?

Modern gaming trends baffle me. But I guess paying for trophies in any circumstance sounds pretty silly to me? Like, I can buy someone's swimming trophy at a lawn sale, but I'm still not much of a swimmer.

God, Silent Hill Homecoming on the Xbox. There may have been a way to turn them off, but I couldn't figure it out. Yeh these stupid achievements popups don't ruin the horror atmosphere at all!

What would be the point of that? They're already pointless, buying one for yourself would be like buying one for yourself in real life. Sure, you can reward yourself, but you'll look as the most vain person ever.

I don't know whether you can really call that a side-effect. I mean, what's the purpose of achievements and trophies? Sure, it's about getting people addicted to games and buying them but it is tied to the social experience, you are meant to compare your skills and gaming experience with others so I think knowing how far your friends have gotten and thus what you can talk about is totally one of the social aspects of achievements/trophies that MS/Sony had envisioned.
At least Homecoming's developers designed that shit themselves, from what I've heard the most moronic implementation of achievements/trophies was in the HD collection of SH2 and 3. Those games weren't designed with that shit in mind and the company behind the port made the implementation EVEN WORSE than anyone would have imagined, it seems (and yeah, the port was done at least by some people who were involved in Homecoming).
True, but now STEALING trophies, that's impressive both in real life and gaming.

Edit: Anyway, this discussion reminds me of a thought I had years ago. I don't get why MS and Sony don't at least allow game developers to customize the Live/PSN overlay for their game, the sound that plays when an achievement/ trophy is unlocked etc.. That would make things SO much better, IMHO (and I apologize for my ignorance if that's actually already possible on some platform - haven't observed it myself yet, however). If that stuff has to be present, no matter what kind of game someone's making then at least they should be allowed to adjust it somewhat to their game.

Forgive a stupid question, but can you do anything with these trophies? I mean, can you trade them in for games or t-shirts or add-ons? Do you get prize money for winning a bunch of them?

On a different note, I learned at a young age not to put in any stock in awards. I'd like to say that is because of my dignity but the fact is I realized at an early age I was never going to win ANYTHING so there was no point is giving a shit about them. Apart from the I think the Ancient Greeks had the right idea. At the Olympics when you won you got a little wreath (I forget the term) and the reason they gave you that is because it died almost immediately going to show that glory is fleeting and living off of past accomplishments is selfish and pointless.

Normally you can't but as OP stated, there was this weird initiative called "Bid for Greatness" where you could use your trophies to get some items (I don't know, however, how that really worked - I presume you didn't really loose trophies by bidding, I guess it's just that every trophy counted only once for the whole initiative).

Why? Trophies/Achievements in general (in-game or through some service like Steam or Xbox Live) are just pointless where you can do <insert thing here> that really don't serve a purpose in any way besides telling people you can actually play a game. If the trophies/achievements actually give you rewards (minor or major) then I could see them being more desirable (to a degree).

Examples:
-Kid Icarus Uprising: (Treasure Hunt) Do a thing (like clear a level with a certain weapon, clear a level on a certain difficulty, kill X amount of enemies, etc.) and you'll get an item, perks, parts of the soundtrack to listen to in the game, or something else.
-Smash Bros Brawl: Same thing as above, do <insert thing here> and get stuff for the game (stages, stickers...which do have an effect on characters, music, and other stuff.

But buying them? That's kind of destroying whatever purpose they were trying to go for to begin with. I don't really mind trophies/achievements in general (hell, I sometimes go for them when replaying a game), but the whole buying them thing sounds incredibly stupid.

Maybe the ones I've listed weren't the best examples (they were the only ones I could think of that actually did give you something for doing a task), but the general idea wouldn't be a bad thing if they were all made optional. I guess I should've added that some rewards can be obtained outside of those achievements, not all of them, but some of them. But I like your idea to.

I actually really dislike when games try to implement something like that. It feels like I'm locked out of certain content unless I achieve a completely arbitrary goals. As far as I'm concerned, skill-based ahcievements should serve a completely different purpose, and that I do like - house rules suggested by the dev. Have you ever tried to finish Doom only using the chainsaw? I know I have. Well that's what achievements do in a nutshell - you browse the descriptions and think "Oh that's cool, next time I'm playing the game, I'm totally going to do that!" - and on top of that you get a proof next to your bragging rights.

The specific achievements he's mentioning aren't exactly arbitrary, though. They're all highly challenging. The ones that are mostly arbitrary just give you Hearts (currency), and the truly arbitrary ones are just completed.

Whatever happened to all difficulty levels and game modes simply being part of the feature set, rather than arbitrarily locked away? When did something like the idiotically massive board of unlocks as seen in games like Smash Bros Brawl and Kid Icarus Uprising become the norm?

If I were a game developer or in a position above the developers, I'd lay out some ground rules.

● Core content (Characters, modes, music, etc) is not to be held in a glass box. Personally, I'd prefer things to be unlocked as the primary game mode progresses, or as new content is encountered.

● Escort Missions will be held under heavy scrutiny, if not outright contempt. If they reveal that its of the dreaded 'single mistake' variety, punishment would be administered.

● Stealth missions/sections where the PC is rendered 'helpless' by means of disarmament are open to free nonnegotiable veto. Even when Snake is caught without a gun doesn't mean he can't get himself out of the situation. And I realize you might say, 'But say Link in Wind Waker was facing enemies much larger and better armed than he was!', and I'd tell you that's outright tripe as Link lived next to a master of the combat arts, and is smaller and much more nimble than the enemies he was facing.

...Hmm, perhaps I should stop ranting...

If someone wants to spend the money to inflate a virtual score, I say let them. Before this console generation you could do the same thing with cheat codes. Or for the more dedicated, buy a Game Genie or Action Replay for better results.

Now it's the same thing just turned into a way for companies to monetize it.

Trophies are meaningless unless they unlock something ingame. If it nets me 50% extra health I'll go for it and would care if it was locked behind DLC. If it's just to measure my ePeen then they can do whatever they want with it.

Trophies and achievements are not welcome in my gaming. They get in the way of an enjoyable game. So, if there is no way to turn them off, I will most likely abandon it. I can understand the achievements for racing games where you upgrade your car, sports games where you're competing, but not for FPS or RPG games.

Somehow that update managed to screw up a number of systems so bad they stopped booting. And then they fixed that with another broken patch, they don't give a damn about http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-3-Support/4-46-Community/m-p/40879607

Oddly enough I didn't encounter any of the issues. Some friends scared me with those news, especially since the reports said that the issue especially concerns people "who recently swapped the hard disk drive", which I had done just two days before the update or something. Haven't run into any technical difficulties besides a handshake error which I also got before the update (but oddly enough not the first time I set up the console).

Edit: Although, I'm starting to wonder whether I didn't manage to skip that update. I DO recall getting the update that allows to deactivate trophy updates, though (read the changelog after some system update, that's how I learned about that feature in the first place).