I'm not ashamed to admit that I collect trophies. I find them an enjoyable additional incentive for playing those games that I was already going to play to begin with. Often, trophies encourage me to play a game longer, or on a higher difficulty setting, or in a different game mode than I probably would have played without them. So it's great. For me, trophies extend a game's playlife.

And I always make sure, while I am collecting trophies, that I am having fun. If it ever turns out that I'm just grinding for a trophy and not actually enjoying the process, I make a point of stopping.

Recently, I got Super Street Fighter IV. I did a double-take when I looked at the trophy list and figured out what needed doing in order to get them all. In order to get all of the trophies in Super Street Fighter IV, you have to, at minimum:

1. Beat Arcade mode on Hardest* with all 35 characters (* The trophy says to do it on Medium with all characters, but you need to beat the game on Hardest with each character to get all the titles, which are required for another trophy)
2. Clear every character's trials (again, there are 35 characters, and each character has about 25 trials)
3. Rank every character up to C by fighting online (ONCE MORE, THERE ARE 35 FREAKIN' CHARACTERS to do this with!)
4. Fight 300 online matches, and win 100 matches online
5. Win 10 ranked matches in a row (which took me more than 500 matches to complete in SFIV)
6. Win 10 Endless Battle fights in a row (which is like doing 10 ranked matches in a row all over again)
7. Win 10 Team Battles
8. Create 30 Endless Battle lobbies
9. Create 30 Team Battle lobbies
10. Fight 30 Fight Request matches
11. Watch 30 Replays
12. Execute 365 Ultra or Super Combo Finishes (which I already did in SFIV)
13. Unlock all colors, taunts, titles, and icons
14. Plus a pile of other, less complicated tasks you may or may not accomplish in the process of doing all this other stuff

Numbers 1 to 3 are the hardest and most time-consuming tasks, and immediately I am doubting that chasing trophies in SSFIV will be worth it, especially considering the fact that I never even finished the hard trials in the original SFIV. I might have to give these trophies a miss.

I find that trophies work well enough in adventure games like God or War, or in racing games like WipEout (although the WipEout HD trophy set is even harder than SFIV). I'm not sure how well I think trophies work in fighting games. Invariably, you have to beat the game with every character, and these days fighting games have tons. It gets too repetitive. Too onerous.