Veteran Trophy Hunter Hakoom Quits PlayStation Over Alleged Account Suspension Storm

Oh well, who cares, move on. He hasn't even collected trophies for 3 years. Sony investigated, as they should, found no issue, reinstated the account. Talk about a non-story 🙄

"As Hakoom correctly points out, “auto-pop” Trophies are fairly common on the PS5, where you can effectively earn a Platinum instantly by importing a previously completed PS4 save."

As is PS4 save hacking it should be noted. You can hack a ps4 save, then import that into your PS5 game to unlock the trophies. This is not an accusation, merely a statement of fact that there are two sides to this coin.

But yeah, feeling it difficult to care about "professional" trophy hunting. These people certainly shouldn't be getting review code.

He won't quit because of the trophy hunter count. It is difficult to deal with Playstation's customer service. Thankfully I live in HK so when my account was hacked 2-3 years ago during the pandemic I found the phone number and had a polite human immediately fix it.

PSA Always activate 2FA. Use Paypal or Playstation wallet cards but never have your CC/DC on file for any store or service.

@riceNpea yeah even when I contacted Sony when I got hacked they asked for the last game I purchased, method of purchase and some other stuff to confirm it was accurate.

With all the shovelware on the system, trophy-hunting is just a matter of time and money spent on them, nothing more really, so quite uninteresting nowadays unfortunately.

Do top-leaderboard players even play games they enjoy?

The guy is a bit of a legend (certainly amongst trophy hunters), seems a bit weird but hopefully he moves onto better things if that is how he has been treated!

@riceNpea how who cares when 5 times Guinness World Record holder (for PSN trophy collecting) is being treated like that, then how Sony is going to treat you and me, trophy hunting might not be of a value to some but this should be respected by Sony, the guy started collecting trophies since 09 if he had unusual behaviour he would be caught by now.
It’s pitiful how Sony is treating their loyal fans.

A Guinness world record has absolutely no value.

People pay Guinness a ton of money, they register the record and that's it. There's very little investigation on the veracity of the records and even known cheaters have records.

Tommy Talarico has Guinness world records, that's how accurate they are.

Fs in chat for our fallen gamer. 🫡

Where's the "Yes. Very sad. Anyway" Loki meme when you need it?

@xHHHx his account showed irregularities, Sony investigated and reinstated the account. What's the problem? Sounds perfectly reasonable, if inconvenient. Should Sony just not do anything when an account flags up? And trophy hunters shouldn't get any preferential treatment so you bringing that up is irrelevant.

Got 2 questions. 1) Who? 2) who cares?

@breakneck which is fair enough 👍

The news published here lately are about nothing so I think I'll retire from this site until some actual news arrive

@Czar_Khastik hope you have a great life, we may never see you again 😭

@Czar_Khastik What if they add trophies to the site for reading articles about nothing?

Ohnoanyway.gif

I've just had a cup of Yorkshire Tea and a piece of toast with Anchor butter. I also read this article.

i remember years ago there was an analysis done on this guys trophy count....at the time they worked out he had to have been playing over 20 hours a day or something ridiculous like that for the games he had platinumed over a period.....pretty obvious that he was account sharing and had multiple people getting trophies for him as no way that can be done over an extended period

@themightyant To clarify, when I say it has no value, I meant it has no value as a real record.

It can add value to the person who was "judged" by Guinness, highlighting even more that it is a payment to be promoted, and not a record in itself.

@slayernz I remember a pushsquare article from a few years ago about the n1 trophy hunter. He gave an interview saying he has a regular job and a girlfriend. He even made an account here and commented (don't recall what he said). I found the whole thing hilarious.

Like, dude, I'm sorry but math ain't mathing.

@riceNpea you will need to check his video, he was reinstated coz nothing clear was found against him and he already explained the auto pop trophies which are available for select games.
After reinstating his account, they froze his sony partner ship account cause he violated there terms ( which he did not ).
To save face they reinstated but removed him from Sony partnership program which does not seem right.
I believe no one is his place will find it acceptable to be treated like that when you are a loyal fan, as you know PSN trophies does not provide any benefit or value to Gamers financially (other than bragging rights). Thus it should be appreciated by Sony not otherwise.

bro could use some extra vitamin d ffs

Oh no... Yeah, so anyway.

"Well-known Trophy hunter Hakoom" Never heard of him.

Also these people with the highest ranks are playing rubbish games, children's games, auto popping ps4 to ps5, and buying those click for trophy games. Not impressive at all.

@Matroska @riceNpea I think we all need a break. PushSquare from me and I from PushSquare.

I'll return when:

• Hakoom gets this sorted out
• We get some news here
• All games get PS5 Pro enhanced
• Concord gets a remake

@themightyant Good luck getting the full story from Sony then.

No one should be lauded for helping to finance the surge of trash games on the PSN store that offer five minute platinums. If he truly is quitting, hopefully he can get his dopamine fix somewhere that isn't so creatively bankrupt.

The hidden warning in this article. Don't value digital things it can go "poof and away" like that.

@ApostateMage Did you drink the tea at a steady 60fps?

@Czar_Khastik Sounds more like a permanent break-up. Why should anyone here read such articles when there’s no more comment from you?

@xHHHx you mean he made himself a victim? I'm so surprised! That never happens in this day and age!!

@Czar_Khastik at least stay here for the Americanisms and focus on the American audience from a UK website.

@riceNpea Yeah it is a good thing for them to double check and verify the account is actually yours.

@Czar_Khastik NOOOO! Your sarcasm/jokes are a breath of fresh air in the sometimes insane comment section here!

Less of the Hackoom jibes guys 👀 justice shall prevail!

@ApostateMage Yorkshire tea and anchor butter on toast!

You are a personage of excellent taste 👍🏻

@breakneck @riceNpea @Max_the_German

Jokes aside, there were no news lately but the only thing that kept me coming back here was interacting with the nice community. So no, I will not retire as long as there are good people here and neither should anyone stop visiting the site. Maybe we should visit it a bit less until all the PS5 Pro enhancement dust settles down a bit or there are more important things than Hakoom regarding our unimportant but necessary and relaxing hobby that is gaming.

Also, just a little thought: maybe it would be a nice touch if someone from the community would write an article now and then. Maybe in the Forum section we could have a weekly thing where people could write a summary of their thoughts regarding something and then the community chooses the one article that should be expanded upon and published. I think there are enough people here that could write something entertaining and meaningful even if it's on the shorter side.

@Czar_Khastik i'll write an article, im very anal about games so could easily get something to come out...

Why do I get the feeling this was more of a political ban than anything else?
Auto-pops do not generate a ban, I know that because I poped a couple of games when I first got my PS5, and if they found nothing was amiss then why remove the guy from the partnership program?

@code45709 There you go! But no Hakoom please

Yay, Honkai Star Rail. Fun game, tons of unlocks.

@CielloArc here comes the crazy conspiracy 🤣

@code45709 I look forward to getting to the bottom of your article. I'm sure it will be deep and provocative.

@CielloArc he was removed because he said he didn't like Madame Webb.

@riceNpea i just hope i don't leave any gaping mistakes

i don’t see anything wrong with having a world record for most psn trophies, but of course ppl gotta hate on everything

@code45709 I there are any gaping holes, you need only but plug it.

@Czar_Khastik Okay. Bye. But how are you going to know "some actual news arrive" if you "retire from site"? You have to come back every day so see if "some actual news arrive". LOL! You know you're not going anywhere.

@Almost_Ghostly You can literally get a RSS feed with all the updates at the end of the day and just browse the headings. It takes 20 seconds and if there are no news, there are no clicks, there is no wasting time. Simple, no?

I never of him until now. But that’s amazing getting all those trophies like that. I couldn’t do it.

@riceNpea i just need it to be a grade A tight one i put out

I auto popped one plat. Dragon Ball kakarot. God that was the most soulcrushing empty experience in my trophy hunting career.
Never again.

He's always been a cheater though, doing account sharing and having multiple people playing at the same time. There's tons of instances of him unlocking trophies in two different games at the same time, because there's at least two people earning the trophies on that account

The way trophies and achievements are handled by all platform holders is garbage. There needs to be industry wide standardization as to what is acceptable trophy criteria, and what is not.

We need the option to PERMANENTLY DELETE GAMES WITH PARTIALLY COMPLETED TROPHY PERCENTAGES FEOM OUR ACCOUNTS. Not merely ‘hiding’ them, permanent erasure. This is one switch that needs flipping on the backend, and to anyone whining ‘they use that data for metrics regarding sales, progression etc’ too bad. Get that data by another means.

Developers need strict guidelines as to acceptable criteria—no forced multiplayer trophies in ostensibly single player games. How many games out there have unobtainable platinums/100%’s because of server shutdowns? Build in backup methods of obtaining online trophies in single player games .

No additional trophies attached to game mode types not part of the original experience. I would never have played God of War Ragnarok, TLoU Part 2 Remastered, Resident Evil 2 Remake, Days Gone or Ghostwire Tokyo if I had known some garbage, low effort tacked on rogue lite/wave survival/challenge mode crap would be shoehorned in post-release with trophies unavoidably attached. Go ahead—add the modes, just do not add trophies.

Difficulty related trophies need to cater to people of all skill types. What’s the point of creating an accessibility controller for people with various disabilities if a trophy is attached to a time trial in a racing game with a margin of error in the tens of thousandths of a split second? How can the majority of these unfortunate souls hope to beat a given game on turbo ultra hardcore nightmare sadist difficulty in one life, under two hours, on a Tuesday when Jupiter is in the eastern hemisphere? This is the kind of filth scummy developers include as restrictive criteria in trophy lists time and time again.

In the end, trophies and achievements do not function like real world trophies. Only one person or team ever wins the gold in a given event, whereas trophies and achievements were designed from the start so that anyone who buys the game can obtain them. At least they would be able to, if platform holders outlined clear rules and developers put gamers first.

@Czar_Khastik I fear you'll be waiting a long time for each and every point there

There are other trophy hunters who will replace him in battle lol.

I can't think of a sadder, or more bleak, existence than someone who is a "trophy hunter"

Didn’t this guy develop Abandoned?

I have one question.. Has he gone to the proper authorities?

I never got why so many fawned over this guy. Most of his games were shovelware crap. As mentioned above, Sony investigated, found no wrongdoing, gave him his account back. But agree with some...this site lately has been more non-news and clickbait than anything. I get this is a slow time of year for gaming news, but still.

@Hitoshura25
From what I've seen of the community, no.They even get upset when games have difficult or time consuming trophies, instead going out of their way to play stuff like Cars or Hannah Montana just for the gongs.

@Czar_Khastik I think I can speak to at least one of those points. Dataminers recently discovered in upcoming patch notes that Hakoom is getting PS5 Pro enhanced at some point in early 2025.

I never understood trophy hunting, really…

I did understand @Czar_Khastik though. Please don’t go.

The real issue here is neither the trophies nor the banned account, but the fact that Hakoom claims that someone that has access to PlayStation customer information is leaking (and selling?) them (with some screenshots that seem coming from PlayStation customer portal with its data and data from another trophy hunter).