Digital Game Organization

[Xarpho's Return]

Over the years, my games collection on Steam has grown substantially and now I've got a substantial backlog of stuff I'd like to/need to play. I used to really enjoy the old 460x215 Steam banners layout that really shined on bigger monitors, and while LaunchBox (which I tried for a while) did something similar to Steam before they changed it, I was unhappy with its limited customization options (spaced too far apart, rounded off edges) and aggressive anti-consumer mindset (basically an expensive one-year license—I still get spam for it). Steam also no longer seems to have a way to display just the games, they have the "recently played" and the "What's New" tab which I can't fully excise.

I also want to integrate some ROMs into it...there was/is a tool (actually just a series of scripts) that helps add ROMs to Steam as non-Steam games and for a while I integrated them with custom banners, as if Super Metroid was a Steam game (or whatever)

The problem with that is that every "ROM manager" I've seen just dumps every ROM you own onto any system. I had been playing with OpenEmu on Mac for a bit (extremely overrated even by Mac standards; what kind of software dummies out the "Quit" command?) and it instantly downloaded all the box art. While it can look nice (there is something to NES collections, really), the items were spaced too far apart to appreciate anyway.

I think at some point I just got frustrated with what was there and just created a spreadsheet (however, the spreadsheet requires maintenance to add new entries) and put a few of the "current" games in a folder called "Games" in Windows Explorer (which I could do again but that requires a little preparation). Is my only choice just to pirate LaunchBox and/or put up with its bullshit?

Below is my library from 2021 from Launchbox (very out of date, it looks nothing like this now) with some of those gripes in question, some of the stuff I've censored because of one-of-a-kind banners and just to obfuscate my profile in general.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I just arrange by date and installed games. If it's not installed it will never be installed, and if it's over a year old I won't play it in this life.

 

[Calandrino]

Launchbox has an actual free version. I use that and narrow things down with a Favorites list. It does anything I'd want it to do with minimal hassle (the main thing being integrating ROMS and games on various Windows platforms onto one list). idgaf that it autodownloads zillions of media files I'll never look at, but I'm pretty sure that can be easily disabled.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Launchbox has an actual free version. I use that and narrow things down with a Favorites list. It does anything I'd want it to do with minimal hassle (the main thing being integrating ROMS and games on various Windows platforms onto one list). idgaf that it autodownloads zillions of media files I'll never look at, but I'm pretty sure that can be easily disabled.

I was not very happy with the free Launchbox version, citing its lack of customization and rounded-off corners.

 

[Calandrino]

I was not very happy with the free Launchbox version, citing its lack of customization and rounded-off corners.

I stick to List View so mine doesn't look like yours, although it is fugly in its own way. I guess I don't ask for much.

Steam aggravates my autism because it takes me straight to the Store on launch and I have to navigate to my own games, hell with that. That'd be enough to put me on Launcbox (or something else) even if I used it only for Steam games.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Steam aggravates my autism because it takes me straight to the Store on launch and I have to navigate to my own games, hell with that.

That actually can be changed, ironically. Settings > Interface > Start Up Location (change to Library)

 

[peachlover669]

Simple as,

 

[Dan of Steel]

I play a lot of ancient PC games that are abandonware/GOG downloads, and rather than using GOG Galaxy or Steam I just organize everything with Playnite. It's pretty lightweight, and organizes things at least for me in a way that it's not a mess of folders, subfolders, and executable files. I like that it's pretty easy to customize things however you want as well, and is the most convenient way I've found to organize my digital library of ancient shovelware games from the 90s and early 2000s:

 

[Willie B. Hardigan]

Those are porno games you censored, aren't they?

 

[Calandrino]

Those are porno games you censored, aren't they?

They're arranged alphabetically and there are only so many titles between e.g. "Half-Life" and "Hat in Time", so perhaps someone with extensive porno game knowledge can fill in the blanks with some educated guesses.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Those are porno games you censored, aren't they?

No. Mostly I wanted to cover up a custom banner (I'm probably the only person who uses it) for something that I made for a non-Steam game that I added (it was a free source code conversion of a game I used to play when I was younger) but figured that would be too distracting. Most of the others are just random, shitty indies...the one to the right of Evil Genius is Factorio, for instance. If you're THAT much of a sperg you can PM me but prepare to be disappointed.

Also Playnite looks nice, I'll have to check it out, thanks @Dan of Steel

 

[Blue Screen of Death]

I used to have my Steam library categorized by different series or genres, but recently deleted all of those categories because I realized I just search for the game I want 99 times out of 100.
As for anything else, I just do it all through the file directory if there's not some kind of built in frontend.

 

[⋖ cørdion ⋗]

I hide all the games I don't wanna play so at any time I only have like 10-12 choices. Previously I then categorized those into 1-2-3. 1 being shit I'll literally never uninstall like Bloons, 2 for that one 60 hour game I wanna beat and uninstall, and 3 for theHunter type shit; things ill play in the future guaranteed but not as frequent as bloons.

Then I organized them into genres, but I'm tismic so I need to have an equal amount of games visible in each genre, so I basically force myself to consider games I wouldn't otherwise. Sounds smart, until the fact I don't play them. I'll unhide all my games then hide the ones I know I won't play, and if I end up with 3-4 games in 3-4 categories, I'm gucci.