Thoughts on Alphabetizing

[singlebanana]

^same.  Super Contra is in the "S's"

[GrayGhost81]

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!

[Sirgin]

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.

[techwizard]

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

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.

[GrayGhost81]

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.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

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

[Crabmaster2000]

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.

[Sirgin]

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.

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.

[Crabmaster2000]

French people know how to ruin everything

[Sirgin]

French people know how to ruin everything

They sure do!!!

[Nightowljrm]

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.

[GrayGhost81]

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.

[Crabmaster2000]

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

[GrayGhost81]

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?

[Shadow Kisuragi]

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.