How do you keep track of your collection?

Ron DMC

Ok, so I recently decided to tot up all the games I have, need, and want. Will be much handier to have a list I can glance at rather than rack my brains to remember if I have a game, only to buy it again and end up with unnecessary duplicates.

Initially, the plan was to just create a massive spreadsheet with different sheets for each console, but as soon as I started looking through the games, I noticed that the boxed ones all have barcodes on them (no duh). I know apps exist for making libraries of your books by scanning them, so why not games?

Some quick googling led me to a few hopeful efforts on the playstore, but unfortunately, they're mostly rubbish.

Video Games Manager Collector seemed like a decent option: It does pull down good info on each game you scan, and the cover view thing with box art is a nice touch, it also syncs online etc.
But the app looks a bit clunky and you've to pay extra for some of the features, and the fact that every game I've scanned so far appears in the list twice is enough to make it unusable.

So instead, I'm using Libib: Much neater looking app by far and lets you set up different collections to categorise things in (NES collection, PS2 collection etc all separate).
It also tracks books, films and music, but unfortunately it's still in early stages of development and the database consists of nothing more than game titles and cover art at the moment (the cover art doesn't even appear in the list). It's biggest flaw however is that you can't manually add games from the app, so loose carts need to be added via the website (libib.com) which is a bit of a pain.

Any other options I'm missing? Has anyone come up with an ultimate solution yet?

Optimus Prime

I just use onenote on my phone with a list of games i have, you can add games you want with tick boxes beside them for when you get them. I think Steve_SI uses an app that you can scan games in with, he mentioned he was looking at it a while ago and it looked good.

CosmicSmash

Backloggery.com Sera told me about it. It's very easy to use and set up, I only got around to listing games but you can track your progress through them also.

o1s1n

I use shelves.

:pac:

I've a bit of a weird memory. Can't remember a lot of things, but one thing I can remember is whether I own a game or not (and could probably recall the price I paid for each one of them too)

Ron DMC

Monkeykube wrote: »

Backloggery.com

Just signed up. Nice website, and I like the fact that you can say if you're playing a game, completed etc, but no cover art or game details and no mobile app means I'll probably never use it.

o1s1n wrote: »

I use shelves.

:pac:

If I'd room for more shelves or units, I'd be all for that, but alas, when lots of things are packed away in boxes, finding if a game is in there or not is a right pain.

Steve X2

I use the CLZ games app on my iPhone and iPad to organise most of my games and hardware(including arcade PCB’s). My collection is spread out over 3 locations so I can always just open a press or look on a shelf to see what I have, so this app/web service/windows program is great for me. The barcode scanning is pretty good but doesn’t always work on the very old stuff.

http://connect.collectorz.com/
http://www.collectorz.com/game/
http://www.clz.com/games/

Ron DMC

Steve SI wrote: »

I use the CLZ games app on my iPhone and iPad to organise most of my games and hardware(including arcade PCB’s). My collection is spread out over 3 locations so I can always just open a press or look on a shelf to see what I have, so this app/web service/windows program is great for me. The barcode scanning is pretty good but doesn’t always work on the very old stuff.

http://connect.collectorz.com/
http://www.collectorz.com/game/
http://www.clz.com/games/

Aside from the yearly subscription cost AND the cost of the apps, that looks like the perfect solution.

Not sure I need anything that fancy though.

I'm half tempted to go back to the spreadsheet idea, at least that way I can add and remove all the info I need.

Tomo.Murphy

It's pretty funny, I can't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, but I could go through all of the books, games, CDs and DVDs that I have and tell you what I paid for them.

I have a list of some of the games that I'd like to pick up, but I've never accidentally bought a double (except for DVDs when I've picked up stand-alone copies before buying it in a cheap box set with other movies I wanted to pick up)

I just look into my dining room and see how many cabs/pinballs are there......
then I look in the garage and see how many are there
simples

DinoRex

o1s1n wrote: »

I use shelves.

:pac:

I've a bit of a weird memory. Can't remember a lot of things, but one thing I can remember is whether I own a game or not (and could probably recall the price I paid for each one of them too)

I'm the same. But can you remember digital titles you own though? Because I'm rubbish at that... have so many of the same games purchased on both Steam and Gog.

o1s1n

DinoRex wrote: »

I'm the same. But can you remember digital titles you own though? Because I'm rubbish at that... have so many of the same games purchased on both Steam and Gog.

Yeah! I wouldn't have a notion what digital titles I have. Don't even have that many.

Myrddin

I'm not really interested in having covers etc available to view, so recently set up a spreadsheet for each system on google sheets. Finally have them all done, & have included a 'wanted' spreadsheet too, each column in that representing a system. Works perfect

Myrddin

Good vid on the topic here from MJR

CosmicSmash

I like the look of RF Generation, don't think I'd be bothered paying a yearly subscription for some of the others. I have less than 500 games so I think it would be an overkill, still can't see the point of a room full of games I may never play. A collection based on good quality games to me will always be better than collections that are full of shovelware, same goes for full libraries on a particular system. Why would you bother? I have my stuff on Backloggery but might try out RF and see how I like it.

Doge

Steve SI wrote: »

I use the CLZ games app on my iPhone and iPad to organise most of my games and hardware(including arcade PCB’s).
http://connect.collectorz.com/

Steve SI's option is the best because it has a Z in the name!

Myrddin wrote: »

Good vid on the topic here from MJR

Perfect for the collector wondering "What Would Jesus Do?"