Displaying a shelf full of shiny golden and platinum trophies is certainly a way to impress people with your advancements in real life. Terribly often these same trophies can be later found in the flea markets for anyone to purchase without the initial effort of achieving the victory. Indeed, you too can be a champion if you just buy a gold medal! What if I told you that people are willing to pay for a fictional, entirely digital trophy to display on their imaginary shelf?

What are video game achievements?

First, let’s look at a typical video game: your purpose as the player is to reach a goal and possibly win or complete the game. Sometimes you are offered various paths to eventually end up at the goal, or perhaps there is no specified ending to the game. Whatever the case may be, you finish the game… and is it time to move on? NO! Did you collect all the items? Did you finish the game on hardest difficulty? Did you complete 200 fishing quests?

Developers have come up with a way of adding more “content” or re-playability to their games by incorporating so called achievements or trophies. S Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console is considered to have started the trend by launching a service called Gamerscore in 2005. It tracks the player’s digital “achievements” via a point accumulation system displayed on the user’s profile. After seeing the competitor’s success with the achievement system, Sony had to respond by launching a similar “trophy” service on the PlayStation 3 console in 2008.  Both services are still active today and completion tracking has since been introduced to video game platforms beyond the console families.

Achievements are granted for various tasks within the game, some of which can be quite obnoxious or time consuming. Often the progress is measured in percentages, and it is rare to be able to unlock everything during the first playthrough. Therefore, fully completing all trophies or achievements is often seen as the only way to experience the game in its entirety. Commonly, the percentage of global players who have reached the achievements is also displayed. By judging the percentage of players in possession of said achievements, one can deduce their rarity or difficulty. Some achievements are also hidden, meaning that the conditions for unlocking it are not visible to the player. In such cases, the player may stumble upon them by accident, or, especially with older titles, resort to sourcing information from online guides.

But why on earth would anyone bother with the trophy completion if they feel that just playing through the game is not enough? The extra unlockables can serve as “meta-goals” that extend gameplay beyond the core objective, in short, things that exist outside the primary gameplay. Trophies or achievements also have a social aspect, since usually the game progression is tied to the user’s account which in turn is visible to other players on the platform. At this point trophies are turned into a form of social currency. They can serve as a demonstration extreme commitment and skill in the game. Of course, some players chase full completion purely because they love the game. For them, achievements are a reason to stay in a world they don’t want to leave. After all, some achievements force the player to change their ways of playing the game; complete the level without using weapon X or save all the characters and so on.

Pay to Win?

Even the metagame of trophies can become pay to win. There are dedicated websites which offer various achievement progress or “grinding” services to those looking bypass a significant effort. A shortcut to success, one might say, but it comes at a cost. Sometimes the cost can be the safety of the user’s account, as obtaining the trophies requires one to share their credentials for someone else to play as them. In addition to existing websites dedicated for buying achievements, these services can also be purchased on eBay where the provider ratings are visible to everyone on the platform.

Purchasing trophies or achievements are not the only thing attracting an audience. Often, online multiplayer games include mechanics that make the player character more powerful based on its level, competitive performance or rare items obtained. Again, all aspects tend to require a significant time investment. But of course, there is a solution: boosting services! They work similarly to the achievement hunting services, by letting someone log in to your account and do the dirty work for you. The customer can also choose to have someone highly skilled to play with them and help with the progress if sharing the account doesn’t feel safe. In addition to websites, many services seem to also host Discord servers where it is easier to get in touch with other players or the service providers.

As shown, achieving 100% completion on a single-player title or reaching a high level in an online game is a serious feat, the kind that only few pursue and even fewer reach. Clearly, there is demand for paid services to help with that.

Now that you are aware of what money can do to boost your gamer ego: Wouldn’t it be tempting if you just have someone else do all the work for you… You get to look cool and skilled, maybe making your friends a bit jealous of just how good you are. Surely no-one will ever find out —

Entrepreneur and billionaire, Elon Musk, was caught using a character levelling service in the online game Path of Exile 2 in January of 2025. Understandably, revealing the use of such services tends to lead to public ridicule in the gaming community. After all, there are players with genuine 100% achievements and serious talent in the titles they have spent thousands of hours in. Just buying the awards or ranks doesn’t buy you the skill.

General information

Image Sources:

Cover image of trophies rendered by the author

Screenshot of multiple eBay listings related to Trophy grinding services captured by the author on 20 January 2026

Screenshot of the https://mmonster.co homepage, captured by the author on 20 January 2026

Screenshot of a Rolling Stone news headline, captured by the author on 20 January 2026

Other sources:

Musk, E. [@elonmusk]. (2025, January 15). I love my Chinese alter-ego 😂 [Post]. X. https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1879587561213206744

Klee, M. (2025, January 21). Musk confesses to letting other gamers boost his stats. Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/elon-musk-gaming-boost-stats-confess-1235242729/