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 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 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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'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.