Key Takeaways
- Hakoom, a record-holding trophy hunter, has quit PlayStation after being banned due to suspicious activity and controversy.
- Sony banned Hakoom for obtaining trophies too rapidly and logging into numerous accounts.
- Despite his account being restored, Hakoom has officially retired from trophy hunting and ended his partnership with Sony.
Hakoom, a Guinness World Record holder for collecting a staggering amount of PlayStation trophies, has announced he’s abandoning Sony’s platform. Hakoom shared his departure amid a controversy involving his account being suspended. According to him, his PlayStation profile was hacked, resulting in a block by Sony, which detected unusual activity.
Since consoles began introducing achievement and trophy systems on their platforms, players have gained an extra incentive to engage with games and tackle challenges set by developers. A whole community is dedicated to hunting and sharing the number of trophies they have on PlayStation, fueling a fierce competition to see who has the most trophies. Although this competition has some controversy, such as overly easy PlayStation trophies or those that auto-pop on the PS5 if a player has already achieved the platinum on PS4, Sony, and Guinness, still consider these legitimate.
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However, that wasn’t exactly the case with Hakoom, a trophy hunter who won a Guinness Gaming World Record in 2018 for having 1,691 platinum trophies. Hakoom posted a video on social media to explain his PSN ban, but since it was AI-translated, some meaning may have been lost. According to him, on September 9 of this year, his PSN account was banned without explanation. While trying to contact support, a hacker approached him and bribed him with his own data. Hakoom provided evidence of the hacking to Sony, but the company justified the ban for various other reasons unrelated to the hack.
Record-Holding Trophy Hunter Explains Why Sony Banned Him
Sony stated that Hakoom’s ban was due to him getting platinum trophies too quickly, completing games with practically no playtime, logging into more than 200 accounts, and using 29 PlayStations. Hakoom explained that he obtained platinum trophies rapidly due to the auto-pop system, and by playing shovelware titles, whose platinums can be earned in a few minutes. As for the numerous account logins, he explained that he shared digital game purchases with other users.
Although his account was restored, Hakoom says his partnership with Sony ended, one that provided him with review codes. As a result, he decided to retire officially from trophy hunting after amassing 207,379 trophies on the platform. Hakoom had already stepped back from maintaining his world record in 2019, citing the flood of shovelware on the PlayStation Store, but he continued to play on the platform.
Even so, some users noticed that Hakoom recently logged into PSN, which suggests he may not have abandoned the platform entirely. In the video, he also blames Sony for ignoring his data leak concerns in favor of banning him, another reason Hakoom decided to step away from the brand.