Sort Names for Steam Lirbary

[Tominka]

Steam,

This has been asked before many, many times, and there has been no response or effort to implement this feature yet. I, and many other users, are in extreme need of a custom sorting function for my library. Steam is my primary launcher for my not just my Steam games, but also my 200+ non-steam games.

Request:
A "Sort Name" field on the properties menu for all games (native Steam and non Steam).

Functionality:
We could use this field to custom sort games. For example, take DOOM. It is currently displayed by name and not by the order the games were released.

Current Display Order:
DOOM
DOOM 3
DOOM 64
DOOM II
DOOM II: No Rest of the Living
Final DOOM
Master Levels for DOOM II
The Ultimate DOOM

Desired Display (Sorted) Order:
The Ultimate DOOM
DOOM II
Master Levels for DOOM II
DOOM II: No Rest of the Living
Final DOOM
DOOM 64
DOOM 3
DOOM

I would use the "Sort Name" field as follows to display the games in my preferred order:

"DOOM - 01" for the game The Ultimate DOOM
"DOOM - 02" for the game DOOM II
"DOOM - 03" for the game Master Levels for DOOM II
"DOOM - 04" for the game DOOM II: No Rest of the Living
"DOOM - 05" for the game Final DOOM
"DOOM - 06" for the game DOOM 64
"DOOM - 07" for the game DOOM 3
"DOOM - 08" for the game DOOM

Alternatively, other users may prefer to use the year or some other sorting standard:
"DOOM - 1993" for the game The Ultimate DOOM
"DOOM - 1994" for the game DOOM II
"DOOM - 1995" for the game Master Levels for DOOM II
"DOOM - 1996" for the game Final DOOM
"DOOM - 1997" for the game DOOM 64
"DOOM - 2004" for the game DOOM 3
"DOOM - 2005" for the game DOOM II: No Rest of the Living
"DOOM - 2016" for the game DOOM

Regardless of how an end user utilizes this field, the ability to sort games and display them in the order the customer sees fit would be the polish that the steam library needs, and in my opinion, for larger collections, requires. I want to use Steam for my PC games, but don't want Final DOOM being under F or GTA Vice City being listed after GTA V

Thanks for the consideration Steam and Steam Community!

[Washell]

Originally posted by Wario64:

but don't want Final DOOM being under F or GTA Vice City being listed after GTA V

The category system won't fix this specific issue, but would allow you to group all Doom games together to prevent that. You are aware it exists right?

[Tominka]

1) Categories don't work in Grid View
2) Categories leave big ugly "blocks" in the list to show the category title
3) Categories still don't let me rearrange the games as I want.

[Steve-O]

I would LOVE a "sort name" feature, as I face issues similar to the OP. I like to use categories to divide games by genre, but that still leaves titles within a genre in a mess. For example, in my "P&C Adventure" category, I currently have:

Dreamfall Chapters
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
(other unrelated game)
(other unrelated game)
The Longest Journey

Which is exactly the opposite of chronological order for this series of games (plus there are other games from other franchises in between). I'd very much like to have all the adventure games in a single franchise sorted in the order they were released - in the order they occur plot-wise - and grouped together. I'm OK with them NOT being sorted alphabetically.

I'd rather NOT make categories for every franchise, because then I'd have a million categories in the sidebar, and the games within each franchise would still not be in order. Plus, Adventure franchises would be mixed with non-Adventure franchises (unless I prepended "Adventure" to each, I suppose.) If I could make sub-categories under Adventure for each franchise, that would be an OK compromise, but still not ideal.

Adding a secondary "sort name" field would solve this problem for those of us who care. Those of us who DON'T care could just as easily ignore the fact that it exists. Hide it in the game properties window and you need not even SEE it if you don't want to.

I'd even settle for the plain and simple ability to rename Steam games the way one apparently can for imported external games. It would force me to change the visible title of the game, but I'd still be happy enough doing it that way.

[Nameless Avatar]

Bump. I have over 500 games and the lack of proper sorting is extremely annoying. A Sort Name field, like the one iTunes added over 15 years ago, would solve the issue. I would also like the option to show the Sort Name field instead of the library name.

[Tominka]

Originally posted by Nameless Avatar:

Bump. I have over 500 games and the lack of proper sorting is extremely annoying. A Sort Name field, like the one iTunes added over 15 years ago, would solve the issue. I would also like the option to show the Sort Name field instead of the library name.

It's baffling that they haven't added it this feature to the library yet. Damn, five years since I started this thread, crazy.

[Nx Machina]

Developers, publisher name the games hence why some display out of order, so a sort order option would not help.

Use SteamEdit to put games in the order you want.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

Developers, publisher name the games hence why some display out of order, so a sort irder option woukd not help.

Why would it not help? One can choose custom renaming of the games for display in the Steam client on one's local machine. In fact, it's already possible, but just a giant pain to do it because of the workarounds needed.

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

Use SteamEdit to put games in the order you want.

It would also help for Steam to make this a built-in feature.



Anyway, seems like this is an old thread (particularly since Grid View, mentioned in comment #2, doesn't even exist anymore), but I'll just copypaste my usual version of the suggestion: separate sort and display names, which is how it's done in GOG Galaxy (even for games you buy through GOG, not just games externally added, unlike how on Steam this feature is only for games added as "non-Steam games").

With both of these fields separately editable, one can do the following, for example:

* "FINAL FANTASY VIII" - display as "Final Fantasy VIII", sort as "Final Fantasy 08"
* "FINAL FANTASY IX" - display as "Final Fantasy IX", sort as "Final Fantasy 09"
* "FINAL FANTASY® XIII" - display as "Final Fantasy XIII", sort as "Final Fantasy 13 part 1"
* "LIGHTNING RETURNS™: FINAL FANTASY® XIII" - display as "Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII", sort as "Final Fantasy 13 part 3"
* "FINAL FANTASY XIV Online" - display as "Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn", sort as "Final Fantasy 14"

[Nx Machina]

Blame the developers for THEIR naming of their games as Valve did not name them.

Secondly use SteamEdit if it bothers you so much or do not.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

Blame the developers for THEIR naming of their games as Valve did not name them.

I don't know why you think that asking Valve for a Steam feature to make game names editable equates to blaming game devs for their choices of game names.

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

Secondly use SteamEdit if it bothers you so much or do not.

And there's nothing wrong with asking Valve for a built-in feature rather than needing to rely on a workaround in the form of a third-party tool.

[Nameless Avatar]

I tried SteamEdit last night. It allows you to change the sort name and/or the display name. This is exactly what I was looking for. However, there are two issues with this tool. Steam randomly reverts name changes and second, the changes are only on the local machine. For this reason we need native Steam functionality to allow you to change the sort and/or display names.

Nevertheless, I still recommend SteamEdit. Developers don't care how their games sort, so this is the best workaround right now.

[cinedine]

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

Blame the developers for THEIR naming of their games as Valve did not name them.

And nobody does blame Valve. Or anyone else.
People just ask for a way to sort the games the way they want. Completely independend from what the publisher name their gaames.

It's not rocket science, does not infringe on any rights and has been a staple on iTunes, Kodi/XBMC and even GOG Galaxy by now.

[Nx Machina]

Imagine a world where a developer expresses artistic freedom by using roman numerals attached to their game name, who could relabel them but choose not to.

Imagine a world where end users blame Valve for the choices made by the developer to name THEIR games so.

Imagine a world where you can rename games on Rockstar launcher, Epic, Origin, Battlenet app.... oh! wait but you cannot on those launchers.

And finally imagine a world where end users actually do the sorting by using SteamEdit and have the library sorted NOW as they wish but no, instead blame Valve for developers naming their games so and messing up their libraries.

[Nx Machina]

Originally posted by cinedine:

And nobody does blame Valve. Or anyone else.
People just ask for a way to sort the games the way they want. Completely independend from what the publisher name their gaames.

It's not rocket science, does not infringe on any rights and has been a staple on iTunes, Kodi/XBMC and even GOG Galaxy by now.

Oh! but they do blame Valve for not having the option to rename games when the truth is those games where named by devs, not Valve but hey lets not blame the devs for that very obvious fact.

Secondly you cannot rename games on Rockstar launcher, Epic, Origin, Battlenet app., yet I do not see you complainig about them especially when they are PC game launchers also not having that function.

Ah! yes iTunes, Kodi/XBMC, those famous PC game launchers.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

Imagine a world where a developer expresses artistic freedom by using roman numerals attached to their game name, who could relabel them but choose not to.

Imagine a world where that happens but then consumers after buying a game get to relabel the games in their own collections.

Imagine a world where developers don't even have the intent that their games be sorted by the names they choose.

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

Imagine a world where end users blame Valve for the choices made by the developer to name THEIR games so.

Imagine a world where you've already been told that no one is "blaming" Valve for this but you still continue to think it's what's happening.

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

Imagine a world where you can rename games on Rockstar launcher, Epic, Origin, Battleneg app.... oh! wait but you cannot on those launchers.

Imagine a world where you can rename games on GOG Galaxy.... oh! wait, you already can do that.

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

And finally imagine world where end users actually do the sorting by using SteamEdit and have the library sorted NOW as they wish but no, instead blame Valve for developers naming their games so and messing up their libraries.

again with your "blame Valve" thing...

Originally posted by cinedine:

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

Blame the developers for THEIR naming of their games as Valve did not name them.

And nobody does blame Valve. Or anyone else.
People just ask for a way to sort the games the way they want. Completely independend from what the publisher name their gaames.

It's not rocket science, does not infringe on any rights and has been a staple on iTunes, Kodi/XBMC and even GOG Galaxy by now.

Exactly.

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

You cannot rename games on Rockstar launcher, Epic, Origin, Battlenet app. I do not see you complainig about them especially when there are PC game launchers also not having that function.

Because this is the Suggestions forum for Steam, not Rockstar, Epic, Origin, or Battle.net.

[cinedine]

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

Ah! yes iTunes, Kodi/XBMC, those famous PC game launchers.

Which nobody ever said. They are media centres and also deal with other people's IPs and serve to manage huge libraries of media ...
Funny you completely ignore the one PC game launcher that actually does allow you to. I know it doesn't fit your strawmanning narrative, but hey, don't let that stop you.

Also imagine a world where people make a suggestion on how to improve the Steam client on the Steam Suggestion / Ideas (look for the idiot's whitespace to know you have the real deal) Forum. Without certain people immediately shooting them down and ridicule them because "it's a discussion board and I have the right to post" ...
Hey, we all can dream.