How do you organize your Steam library?
As many of us have, our Steam libraries have grown so much over the years that we have a huge backlog of games to play. It is hard to keep track of which game liked/disliked.
I see options like hide this game or putting games into collections, I'm interested in how do you keep track of the good and bad games? Games you would like to eventually come back to?
I dont.
Same. I dig through my digital stack of games I bought on sale and will probably never play until I find the one I was looking for.
I used to categorize manually, finished games going into beaten-replayable, beaten-100%, beaten-done playing, open-done with, etc.
Dynamic Libraries are helpful for sorting, but not a replacement for manual categories. A major down side of the dynamic library feature is thst it relies on the game page to be accurate to the games feature set. Often there are games that get a tag or feature thst is just false. This does not a good tool make.
I did that. I just make whatever categories make sense to me. All of the Star Wars games are in a category, all Valve games are in one as well. And so on.
I mark the games I really like as favourites and have the option to show only the installed games turned on, that's it. I don't have time, will nor need to put everything into different categories.
Unsorted, favorites, beaten games, and a little category I call "shit games I'll never play again".
That keeps it organized enough and makes sure I remember which games I have played and hated so I don't bother with them again.
I need to add that last section
I just call that category "Meh." I also have a special category for those few games that I bought and never worked properly in Linux, but I hope one day will (mostly old DX9 stuff like Hexen II).
I needed something more strongly worded than meh, lol. I'd consider a meh category too. But these are games that made me actively angry to play :)
I sort by recently played and installed, so whatever I played or bought most recently is at the top, and no uninstalled games show up.
Um, alphabetically?
I split mine into a few categories:
I only keep the playing list expanded and relatively small to avoid choice paralysis.
I have my Steam Library organized by genre. FPS, RPG, RTS, ect. Then I have a backlog category where I put the games I know I want to get around to playing eventually and a Completed category for games that I've finished and am probably not going to go back to.
There's the main 'folder/category/thing' every game is added to by default, one for favorites that's already built into Steam, and two more I added called "meh" and "shit".
The main folder acts as my unsorted/unplayed category, and Favorites/Meh/Shit covers pretty much everything else.
I have 4 main collections. I have favorites, multiplayer games that I play with friends, games that I have yet to finish but do plan on playing, and then games that I've finished. The unsorted stuff are games that I don't plan on playing. Maybe I'll get to the unsorted stuff someday, but not for the near future.
It's simple enough for me to understand and manage.
Favorites, Installed, Completed, Multiplayer, Will not play for a while
I use playnite
I honestly didn't even know you could. With just over 100 games I've never felt the need to though, I can wade through them pretty easily and remember what I have.
I add games I plan to play or might play in the coming year(s) to favorites and then collapse the non-favorites tab.
games beaten, and games not beaten. Simply like that
I have about 1000 games. I have 4 categories:
Developed - games I made for work and need fast access to for debugging and testing.
George's Games - which is my kid's games that is a dynamic category of full controller support, cooperative, local co-op. More George's Games - which again for my kid is a dynamic category of partial controller support with local co-op.
PlayThese - Games I recently bought and I am lying to myself I have time. Only has 4 games in it, most recent purchases end up in uncategorized anyways. These are just 4 immersive sims I bought in the holiday sale in 2022.
Uncategorized - 952 games.
How do I manage all of this? Well, honestly I just hit the little "ready to play games" button which only shows installed or streamable games. If it's not installed, I don't really care about seeing it. If I want to install something then I know exactly what it is. Although multiple times a friend will be talking about a game I should play. I'll be waffling going "I don't really need to buy another game." Then I will check the Steam store page and it will say I already own it. I don't know how, most of the time I've gotten a key from somewhere and it's not something I actively bought.
So really the categorization system is "is it installed?" and if it is, it's important.
Not doing it
In my case, it's even worse due to using other services too. What I end up doing is noting everything on digital sheets like LibreOffice, and trying to organize in a way that makes sense.
I sort by last played. Sometimes by user score if I feel like trying something I've had but haven't played yet.
I sort by the 2 games I play and the a section for all the games I brought, never played or downloaded.
For the most part, I don't. I do have two custom filters tho. One for classic FPS (IE "boomer shooters") and one for Fromsoft games.
I've got about two dozen collections dedicated to various single store tags, or combinations of tags, most of them genres, but a few like "multiplayer" "co-op", etc.
I've never grouped them based on my opinion of them, but I do like that idea, and may start doing it now.
I organize by game release year. Not when it was released on steam or even PC but whenever that game was initially released on any platform. From 1997 to 2023.
I put it in respective collections: