Featured Image Credit: Tamara Bitter, Charles Sims via Unsplash
Topics: PlayStation, PlayStation 5
Online gaming is known for its trash talking. Whether screaming into a mic or hammering a keyboard, we spend a lot of our "fun" time hurling abuse at each other. I often wonder how healthy this is. Does it motivate us, or discourage us from playing with that friend ever again?
PlayStation announced a nice idea during the run up to PlayStation 5's release. Whether its purpose was to combat the maliciousness of online gaming spheres or not, I don't know, but it was a nice idea - one that encouraged acts of good will towards fellow gamers. Now, as we approach the PS5's second birthday, Sony has decided to discontinue this feature because nobody seemed to be using it. We should be ashamed.
Coming soon on the PS5 is The Last of Us Part 1, a remake of Naughty Dog's 2013 classic.
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The Accolades system was added to PlayStation 5 as a means for players to send each other anonymous acknowledgements after an online game. These acknowledgements were in the form of badges, which one player could send to another after a match. These badges described the decent actions of said player, who could then put it on display.
It was a lovely idea. Players are all too reluctant to acknowledge each other's efforts, yet all too ready to trash talk.
And yet, maybe it's not entirely our vindictive nature to blame for the Accolades system's demise. Some players are saying that they didn't even know this system existed. Perhaps, had it been plugged better, we'd be seeing more badges, due to more anonymous acknowledgements.
Either way, PlayStation aren't completely giving up on spreading positive vibes. In the same announcement in which Accolades was cancelled, they said "we encourage the community to continue to send positive messages to one another." We encourage the same thing.