I was just reorganizing my game shelf and wondered if I shouldn't change it up a bit; thought I would ask. Mine right now is sorted by platform, then alphabetically.
You can make categories in Steam and place games into them, which can then be viewed separately. I did it a while ago for all my steam games and now I just make sure to sort a game when I buy it, it's easy to maintain. e: Before steam, my order was: on a shelf roughly in order of what I played last, with games that don't need CDs to play them or that haven't been played in a while all jumbled in some drawers. And most of my game CDs were all packed into a couple of those CD binder things that used to be relevant.
In an excel spreadsheet, sorted alphabetically, including columns for the platform, the location (i.e. Steam, GamersGate, Disk) and keys, if need be. It's helped prevent me from accidentally buying a game twice a few times. ;) The disks are all in separate cases depending on platform. 1 huge case for PC, a fairly big one for PS1/2/3 games, and a small one for Dreamcast games.
In Steam, I have 4 categories, and several hundred games: Never: This is where I put all the games I'll never install or play again. Uninstalled: Games I returned to the backlog for whatever reason, games I'll play again but don't have installed. New: Games I've never installed or played, they sit in my backlog. Games: This is the default Steam category, it has all my installed games; some of which I play the crap out of, many I don't play so often. The games themselves are sorted alphabetically within the categories. I've also created a Steam-shortcut for every non-Steam game I have installed, and just toss the desktop icons for those games in a hidden file folder. Also, now that I'm buying actual software packages (and not just games) in Steam, I've started changing my display preferences to only show installed items, which means 3 of my 4 categories disappear from view, and a different one shows up, called Software, that displays those types of programs; in addition to the default Games category. Physical media: PC: I threw out all my physical game CDs and DVDs five years ago, except for one game: SimCity 4. I tossed SC4 out a couple weeks ago when I picked up the Steam version for $5. I have no more physical media for PC games. 360: I have about ten physical games. They sit on their own shelf on one of my book cases. I don't bother alphabetizing or sorting beyond this. Wii: I have about fifteen physical games. They sit on their own shelf on one of my book cases. I don't bother alphabetizing or sorting beyond this. 3DSXL: I have five physical games. They sit in an unsorted stack on my desk, with the 3DSXL resting on top of them. Board Games: I have them stacked on the top of my book shelves, with the largest & heaviest boxes (like Descent: Journeys in the Dark) at the bottom of the stacks, and the smallest and lightest boxes at the top. No extra sorting or thought goes in beyond this, except for games like Carcassonne and Race for the Galaxy, which have like a billion expansions, I keep those more or less grouped together.
I like kerzain's system in theory but I'm committed to my system from the time I put into doing it, and it also sounds like more of an actively managed system than I'd want.
Right click on the game title in the library list, click on Set Category. You'll be asked to name a category, then it's created once you set it. The next game you go to Set Category it'll show your previously made categories, or you make another. I don't see any way to drag and drop, or do a multiple selection, so I'm probably never going to go through all my games just to do that. Showing only Installed games is good enough for me.
Like this https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtEdPGdi2UjMdE9NVVJOOVpQRkNzTlBLYV9FTmpsOWc#gid=0 And my Steam Categories, although I've since added Now Playing, Use Gamepad, and Roguelike as additional categories.
There's nothing to manage, really. I'm basically just in maintenance mode since I've been pre-sorting my library this way from very early on (many, many Steam-sales ago). When I buy a game I just install it, and it goes into Games by default anyway. If I don't plan to install, I just set the category to New. When I uninstall a game I just set the category to Uninstalled or Never accordingly, just takes a couple clicks. If I had to go through all my current games and manually assign categories because it had never been done before... well, that's a lot more clicking I'd have to get through.
I have two binders of PC games sorted alphabetically. I threw away the boxes a few years back. The binders collect dust as I'm pretty near 100% digital these days. My Steam collection is sorted into categories similar to kerzain's: Favorites Expansions Mac versions (for dual-format games) Played Uninstalled Unlikely Games (this is the category for anything that doesn't fit in the others) I don't have enough games on other services to need to figure out how to sort them.
Thanks, I'm doing this right now! I'm organizing them by genre, as well as adding a category "Unlikely to Play". Also separating Space Games out as well. :)
I just categorise by genre with new games and games I'm actively playing placed in favourites. I wish Steam had a better categorisation of games and then just did this automatically for me, but meh. I prefer to keep the Games category clear so that I can see when free weekends, demos, etc. come through.
It's dumb because steam actually does have set genres (as well as other properties) for games and it would probably be a super simple addition of code to make the games library list sortable by different factors, they just decided not to do it.
I have an ATX tower box with about 125 PC games packed inside (small boxes and jewel cases), and probably fifteen or so big box games stored in a tote. So I wouldn't call it organized so much as contained at the moment... DD wise I've got about 50 or so mostly from GOG and Humble Bundle, and apart from four lonely Gamecube titles, I have nothing from the console world (though I used to have a few dozen Genesis games that I've since sold). Come to think of it I do have a cartridge case with probably a dozen Odyssey carts somewhere. Pickaxe Pete anyone?
They might be afraid that the common idiot will contact technical support thinking they "lost" one of their games because it got sorted into a library they didn't expect.
Old video game boxes are in various scattered piles & squeezed in on random bookshelves here and there that or they were traded away for a handful of gold long ago. Steam is haphazardly categorized by genre and 'haven't got around to sorting' groupings. Boardgames are in a piles; mostly on the dining room table. Meanwhile, Warhammer has an entire meticulously neat cupboard with miniatures sorted on shelves by army and within shelves by unit (as well as occupying a windowsill, much of my computer desk and large areas of the side-table next to the sofa).
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, especially since I learned there is no good alternative to Delicious Library on Windows. I've thought about Excel spreadsheets, but that is a bit too time consuming. There a are a few free web sites that let you catalog your games and pull from various databases, but there is no flexibility there. Does anyone know of any good Access templates for cataloging games and media?
Until this thread came along the concept of "organising" my game collection never occurred to me. I generally just do a search on steam when I want to find a game and be pleasantly surprised when it says I already own it. Think of how much innocent pleasure you are missing with this organisational thing.. Before steam; I bought something. Installed it and then played it. Forget about it until I find the CD case in the bottom of some box and have a burst of nostalgia. Reinstall it. Swear when I can't find the manual with the serial key.
Half my games are in a bookshelf above my computer and the other half is in boxes on a shelf in my closet. I have some that I should just trash but for some reason it is real hard to throw away a game you enjoyed. Like tossing a book just seems wrong.
