Thoughts on Alphabetizing

[GrayGhost81]

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?

[InvadErGII]

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.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

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.

[GrayGhost81]

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?

[aeroc]

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

[GrayGhost81]

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!

[slackur]

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.

[Tynstar]

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.

[blcklblskt]

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.

[singlebanana]

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]

[Tynstar]

[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]

[OatBob]

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, and it is good for me because it forces me to practice every time I search for a game.

[NES_Rules]

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.

[Razor Knuckles]

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.

[Crabmaster2000]

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.