In reality, a pilot may intentionally choose a firmer landing, for multitude of reasons, but most important ones being braking action and runway length. Brakes will work best with the full weight of the aircraft on the wheels, and in order to get that sooner you usually have to plant the landing gear firmer. As for runway length, well, those aren’t infinite. And depending on how heavy the plane is, how good the braking action is (wet runway will have worse braking, for example), noise constraints (for thrust reverser use), you may have to do a faster/firmer landing too, so you don’t risk overshooting (floating) the landing zone, or running off the end of the runway because you didn’t brake enough. There can also be mechanical constraints, such as wing spoilers requiring certain amount of weight on wheels to pop up, and firmer landing will get them up faster; an so forth.

Source: I watch too much aviation videos on Youtube 😀