RF Generation Message Board

I'm sure alphabetizing is automatic for most of you guys, but I'd been fighting it for a long time. I'm holding around 1,000 pieces, but I've never had a problem knowing what I have. I didn't alphabetize because I liked a kind of randomness to my collection, and I liked throwing new stuff wherever I felt like.

In the past couple nights I've been alphabetizing sections of my library, starting with US Sega Saturn games, of which I have about 15. It looked very nice! Last night I did my PS3 games (about 50 of them) and I liked that even more!

So I do prefer alphabetized now, and I am going to go forward with the rest of my games, system by system. I do have a few concerns, for lack of a better word, and am wondering how you guys handle them if you've gone for total alphabetization:

-Contra and Super C will not be next to eachother

-Disaster Report and Raw Danger will not be next to eachother

-Do FF Anthology, Chronicles, and Origins go after the numbered FF games even though chronologically it doesn't really look right?


(There are many more examples of sequels with totally different names but those were the ones that popped in my head right now.)

Disregarding that it's my crap and at the end of the day I can do whatever I want with it, what are your thoughts?

If two things are part of a series, I put them together. This does lead to a few corner cases, like you mentioned (the PS2 Katamari games are another good example).

In the case of the FF compilations, I'd probably put them alphabetically by name immediately after the numbered releases. That seems like the 'right' thing to do for some reason.

A few of us tend to have conditions on our sorting. A common one is separating release lines, like Platinum Hits and Greatest Hits from their normal releases so that the cases don't stick out. On Nintendo NES, this would be something like Konami Silver Box, Nintendo Black Box, etc.

Another common one is adopting a commonly used practice by book stores, which organize based on series name for alphabetical sorting if there is a set of books written by different authors. Large examples of this in Sci-Fi are Star Wars, Dragonlance, Star Trek, &c which have 40+ books in their settings. In this case, all Final Fantasy titles would go under "Final Fantasy", and organized based on your own set of conditions (e.g. chronological order, release order, &c).

Personally, I find separating them by case design to be more pleasing to the eyes, but it doesn't help people unfamiliar with the releases to find an item.

Good thoughts guys, thank you.

I hadn't thought about separating greatest hits, but I have a ton and many are parts of series that I'd rather keep together.

I also think I will stick with keeping series together. Contra and Super C need to be next to each other! Katamari is indeed another great example.

Here's a gray area for you: right now I have Ico and SOTC next to each other. Absolutely not a direct sequel but I'm sure you can see my mode of thinking. I'm pretty sure I can separate them.......right?

I prefer to sort my games numerically by part number, and alphabetize only when part numbers aren't numerical (Nintendo).

That is awesome but way too technical for my tastes!

I'm a straight up, boring, plain ol' alpha-er.  Maybe its the years of retail organizing, but I just generally alphabetize from the title on the spine, or front label if its spelled out further.  I actually use the RFG DB for discrepancies, like if "Disney's" comes in front "Jungle Book."  Especially since I use this site to manage my collection; just makes sense to alpha accordingly.

Same here

For my Xbox 360 games I have them sorted by Kinect games, LE/SE type games, retail DLC discs, PAL, and NTSC-J games.

I just sort them alphabetically by system.  I like things to be in a logical order, and sorting them alphabetically seems like the most logical way to organize my collection.

Good thread.  Nice to know how everyone presents their games.  For the majority of my collections, which are loose (*cough* *cough* insert things about peeling a banana here), I go alphabetically because it just makes games easier to find for guests and I.  If I had boxed games, such as NES black boxes or Konami silvers, I would put them together, because it looks fantastic.  I tried something a little different with my Atari 2600 collection, because with all of the different labels and cart shapes, it look terrible by alpha.  Instead, I alphabetized them by developer (i.e.  All of my Activision games are alphabetized together, my U.S. Games, IMagic, etc.).  I have been really pleased with this look and so have many of my visitors.

[img width=700 height=393]http://i1029.photobucket.com/albums/y359/necrom99/Game%20Room%202/AtariShelf.jpg[/img]

2600 was the only system I did by publisher.

[img width=477 height=690]http://i795.photobucket.com/albums/yy233/Tynstar/Atari2600.jpg[/img]

[img width=376 height=612]http://i795.photobucket.com/albums/yy233/Tynstar/CIB2600.jpg[/img]

I separate by region and then release line (GH, PH, All-Stars, etc.).  The color difference makes it easier to explain to visitors what I collect and why they're different.  I've even seen people over-separate DC releases by early (white) and late (black spine).  I think it is foolish because it separates just almost every game/sequel pairing on the console.

For my Japanese DC collection I use sort by kana, and keep spine (Japanese end) out.  This is contrary to every other western collection I've seen.  I don't think it is too bad of an idea.  Kana sort is good enough for Wikipedia's DC software list (http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:%E3%83%89%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A0%E3%82%AD%E3%83%A3%E3%82%B9%E3%83%88%E7%94%A8%E3%82%BD%E3%83%95%E3%83%88), and it is good for me because it forces me to practice every time I search for a game.

I do everything alphabetically, except the 2600, which goes by Publisher as well. It used to be alphabetically, but then I saw someone who did it by publisher (probably Scott) and I liked the way it looked a lot more, so I went with that.
I also separate out Best Seller titles from the regular releases in most cases. I think GameCube and PS2 are mixed because I don't have a lot of Best Sellers for either system.
I pretty much always organize based on the title we use here at RFG, its nice for making things consistent.

For me I'm not too picky.

My disc based games are in alphabetical  order because I have the proper storage for them and can easily moved around when I throw another disc based game into my collection.

My cartridge based games are mostly loose and are kept in drawers out of order because I don't want to spent a lot of time moving everything around. Plus some games don' have end labels which pisses me off.

I have quite a large DVD collection of several hundred DVD's. For those I just organize them by genera.

Man I have too many ways I organize things. For me the reason I do it that was is due to space constrictions.

Better yet, how do you properly organize a collection that has 76 games that contain the word Sonic and about 10 spin-off games that belong to the series, all on their own media shelf? That will make your head spin.

I go alphabetical with a few minor tweaks here and there.

Greatest hits get shoved to the side even if it means breaking up sequels. I like the spines to look as uniform as possible on the shelf.

I'll keep some sequels together as long as the name is in the title some where. For example StarTropics and Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics 2,get to go together or Wizards & Warriors beside IronSword: Wizards & Warriors 2. Unfortunately I have my Contra and Contra Force together, but Super C is waaaay on the other side of my NES shelf.

I have my ICO and SotC seperated though since they dont share a title.

When doing a series I often put them Chronologically with spin-offs tacked onto the end. So my PS Final Fantasy games would go something like: FF Origins, FF Chronicles, FFVII, FFVIII, FFIX, FF Tactics.

^same.  Super Contra is in the "S's"

So far I'm going alphabetical in general and making my own judgment calls with sequels and such.

I did PS2 tonight.

Contra: Shattered Soldier and Neo Contra stayed together.

Disaster Report and Raw Danger stayed together (these are two of my favorite games ever. They will always be together. I wish I had a slipcase for them or something).

Ico and SOTC are no longer together. I couldn't justify it. Then I might as well organize by studio.

PS2 was my most philosophically challenging set of games, and my favorite system so I wanted to get it "right." Smooth sailing from here on out.

And when I get to NES Contra and Super C are staying together, just because.

BTW Awesome Atari pics, gentlemen!

None of my games are alphabetized. I more or less know where everything is. Maybe that's because my collection is only small, which I'm quite content with.

I try to sort by the look of the spine. Platinum games go seperately. If I were to spend more time on it, I'd probably sort my games of systems with colorful spines by rainbow colors.

PAL PS1 and PS2 games all have generic looking spines, something I absolutely love, as all the games look uniform and belonging together. Sony decided to drop that for random spines with the PS3. I really wish they didn't. I do not find having a million colors and font sizes/types helpful for me to locate a specific game. Having the same black font and white background makes it much easier to find a game.

N64 and SNES games don't have end labels, so they're a bit of an issue as I have no idea where a game is. But frankly, I rarely play those games, so it's not a pressing matter to me personally.

i work at a library so you could say i'm a professional alphabetizer (or dewey decimaler... :P ).

i separate everything by system of course (i don't mix different systems together just to make a series all in order, unless i'm displaying it somewhere). within each system everything is alphabetical, and some series are grouped together...i'm not very consistent with that, i'll probably go through and fix that at some point. for a series i'll put it under the title of the series, and then within the series have it in release order.

GH/PC/Plat. titles aren't currently separated, but after reading this i think i'll actually do that tomorrow. originally i didn't bother because i didn't care. then when i started to hate them i thought it didn't matter because they'll be gone soon. but it's taken a lot longer than expected to replace them with original release versions, so it would be nice to have them separated.

oh and i separate loose games from boxed. loose n64 games are alphabetical too though because even though i can't see the label, it's much faster to find one when it's in order than not because i know vaguely where to look based on what title i want (if i wanted a mario game i would know to look around the middle, etc.). boxed games usually are shelved before (left of) loose.

one last thing is i make sure all labels are facing the same direction. the odd game will have the spine printed so that to face the box front the same direction as all the rest would have the spine facing a different way. in those cases i always prioritize the spine, even if it means pulling out the game to see the back where you would expect the front. i hate going along a shelf and then having to turn your head the other way to read a backwards title.

Don't you hate that??? My CIB Robowarrior for NES is like, upside down on the shelf so the text faces the right way.

Even better, having some games that DON'T have titles on the spine, like Condemned for X360 or Astal for Saturn.

No spines suck so much. Also NES games that say "Jaleco" on the end label instead of the name of the game.

Trivial fun fact: while the "normal" way for text on a spine is from the top of the spine to the bottom of the spine, in the French-speaking world this is reversed! Pick up a French book (a real one, made by...a Frenchman, not a translation of something English) or a French DVD and if you put it with your other books/DVD's the spine will read from the bottom to the top! Ultra annoying. Unless you only have French books. ::)

EDIT: I added a photo. The books with the arrows above them are French. Look at the spines. And no, they're not upside down.

French people know how to ruin everything ;)

They sure do!!! :nod:

It depends on how they're organized whether or not I alphabetize them. For example, my NES games are stacked vertically with the end labels being horizontally shown (being stacked with the back label down). This would not only be a pain to alphabetize, but to put a game back in its proper place because you'd have to push up all the top games. I just place them on top. Now for games with cases, I place them horizontally with the spines sticking outward, going from A - Z as if you were reading.

Once I get a bookshelf for my NES games, then I'll probably organize them in a hybrid way of how I do them now and how I do the cased-disc based games.

Well I finished. My entire collection (besides N64 because, you know, wgaf?) is alphabetized.

I did NES last and it was the most fun. About 120 carts, and every letter of the alphabet represented except H (never had a Hogans Alley fall into my lap), and Z.

For every system the letter S was most prevalent, and not just because of "Super" in front of a lot of titles.  

One other thing I noticed is I have never wanted so bad to complete series' as the ones that are together look so cool. The only Castlevania game I have on NES is Simon's Quest. It looks so lame all by itself LOL.

Some pics of the Gray Library will be forthcoming.

Looking forward to those pics! And definitely grab youself a copy of Zanac to fill out that Z Spot in your NES collection.

I've decided to put all my James Bond related games together.

Some start with 007, others with James Bond, others with even other stuff.

Any ideas on the best way to handle this?

Book stores organize by Series Name in that case, e.g. Star Wars for all Star Wars-related books. I'd organize it based on James Bond, personally.

Good call, and pretty much what I was thinking. Going by James Bond throws them nicely near the middle of the pile, while going by 007 would have them all first, which I'm not too keen on for some reason.

I like to organize my games by throwing them all in a pile and picking blindly 1 at a time and putting it on the shelf.  That just seems right.

That sounds like my game room!

Mine are all alphabetized by system an title no straying I kind of have an OCD when it comes to that stuff all of my baseball cards except my sets are all alphabetized and I have over a million cards so how's them apples and bananas.

For example:
Nes
10 yard flight
76-in-1
Abbadox
Astyrax
So on and so forth

BB cards are all numbered though.  Shouldn't they be in numbered order??  That's the way I always did it.

In sets yes but my bulk cards like singles are all alphabetized by player last name and then sorted by year for example: Cal Ripken or as it is in my excel document: Ripken Jr., Cal -
1982 Topps
1982 Topps Traded
1982 Donruss
so on and so forth

I really need to organize my collection...

I'd probably organize them chronologically by system then by release.

for something like that i would ideally have it all under "james bond" but then within that have them in release order. not sure if that's what you meant crabmaster.

I'm completely alphabetical by system myself. I used to even keep them together by the console maker (i.e. all Nintendo console games were first/highest on the shelf, followed by Microsoft etc) but that got messy and it left a lot of small open spaces at the end of the shelf. So now they are pretty much up there by a combination of which one gets played the most and which system I have the most for, this way some of the systems I only have a handful of games for can be lumped together at the bottom of the shelf.

oh for the way i do it i meant within the system, i always organize by system above all else

I meant something like put all N64 bond games in chronological order, then all Gamecube bond games in chronological order, then Wii, etc.
Consoles in chronological order as well as the games for those consoles.

I go strictly alphabetically with my stuff, even for 2600 games which look much better seperated by publisher.  I tried organizing everything so that it was most visually appealing and that lasted three days.  By the third day it was bothering me so much that things weren't organized alphabetically that I went down and changed everything back to where it was over the course of 3 hours.

Having said that, I do make an exception for boxed vs. loose games and big box/small box/DVD case PC games.  I tried those together for a while, but the lack of predictability in how many games I could fit on one shelf killed it. 

oh ya, definitely having boxed and loose games separate is a good way to go. it looks so wrong to have the alternating heights and sizes of the carts between the boxes

Is there another way?




I mostly have games separated out by console. Loose NES games are actually alphabetical but they are also my biggest group of games. Everything else is either arranged by size (mostly PC games) or color. A good chunk of games are simply arranged randomly. Doesn't really bother me until there is a group of things bigger than 150 or so.

We have a good sized movie (DVD) collection. Those are mostly arranged by actor, then by box color. I advocate for changing this up sometimes. Like rearranging by director with most awards, or movie with highest gross, or making sure every movie is next to a movie it is connected to even by the most obscure connection. Unfortunately my plans are lost on most, sometimes someone will notice we have "Platoon" next to "The Boondock Saints" because of Willem Dafoe and "Hot Shots" next to "Platoon" because, well, why wouldn't you? But it is rare that anyone takes notice of my hard work and forethought  :-\

Similar to the Bond games question... How would you guys display Star Tropics and Zoda's Revenge: Star Tropics 2? They're part of the same series so would they go side by side? Or is strict alphabetical order of higher importance?

I stick with strictly alphabetical on titles like that. There's a few other NES series like that, Legend of Zelda & Zelda II: The Adventure of Link also comes to mind. I've tried putting them together, but first there's the decision of which one will be "right" and which one won't be. But to me, it just looked wrong to have an out of order title. The Adventures of Lolo also annoys me with its end label that just says "Lolo". Every time I see that I think its in the wrong spot on the shelf.

i hate nes games for their end labels not always matching the full title. also for me i would put the star tropics ones under "Star Tropics", and the zelda ones under "Legend of Zelda" because those are the series names. then within that it would be in release order, so on the shelf in would be Star Tropics, then Zoda's Revenge: Star Tropics 2, in the S section. and for zelda Legend of Zelda, and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link in the L's.

i like having things alphabetical like that so that if i have a specific game in mind i have a good idea where to look for it on the shelf...like if it starts with L, then i'll go straight to about the middle of the collection for example. and keeping the series together just makes it easier to know where they'll be if you have a system like that which is uniform throughout your game room. that being said, my collection isn't properly sorted either XD i have the majority of it that way but the odd game will be out of place, and some series aren't grouped together properly. i really need to fix that.

I like having things mostly alphabetized. I make exceptions for things like Startropics and Zoda's Revenge or Wizard's & Warriors and Ironsword. I didn't make an exception for Contra, Contra Force, Super C though since the word Contra isn't in the title. Kind of bugs me, but it would bug me the other way too. Jaleco on the end of the label though is the worst!!!!

Since I did actually put my NES collection in more or less alphabetical order, I did wonder what others did with certain games. I figured lots of people would put all (both) Legend of Zelda games in the "L" section. To me, those games go in the "Z" section. If some non-gamer were to come to my house and want to play The Legend of Zelda, were would they look for it? Most people, I'm sure, remember playing "Zelda" back in the day. I bet many people here would just say, "I'm going to play Zelda." So, I just put those games at the end of the alphabet.

@Crabmaster - Yeah! What's up with Jaleco? What were they thinking?

I always put Zelda games under L... but it's annoying that the 2nd game is the only one to not have "The Legend of" in front of its title.