Hey everyone,

I alluded to this in another thread, but due to prior committments, today's update was likely the last one we'll have for 3-4 weeks. Given that, I figured now was a good time to step back and come up with somewhat of a roadmap for the site. As many of you have probably seen, priorites can shift around here pretty quickly as new ideas pop up or feedback is received. So the roadmap below is very tentative and subject to change (which is why I have not included any sort of dates). I wanted to get this in front of you guys since there'll be a few weeks for me to collect any feedback that might be out there so I can adjust my focus accordingly. So here we go...

High Priority

• Revamp Collection page - clean up the filters / buttons, shelf view tweaks, beef up Quick Edit so it has more data elements like tags and such...basically a one-stop shop for edits

• Collection alerts / reports - We have a thread for this, but basically a way to highlight odd things in your collection, but also cool things about it

• Wishlist pricing - Pretty self-explanatory, but I'd like to add the average price or something on the wish list page

• Platform abbreviations - You've probably noticed some of the platform names can be kinda long (SNES, I'm looking at you!!), so I'd like to display abbreviates in certain (or all?) locations to help with wrapping issues

• Platform when adding to the wish list - The platforms that a game is on should bubble up to the top of the list, much like when you're adding a game to your collection

• User stats on Global stats page - This has been on my list for a long time, so I'd at least like to add a few widgets to fill out the page a bit

• New fields on collection - You should be able to enter how much you paid for a game and how many hours you've played it for

• Revamp the Add Completion modal - There are a number of ways users have been entering completions, so I'd like to tweak the modal to standardize the way data is collected a bit

• Friends on Overview - The details of this are in another thread, but basically I'd like to show your friends on the Overview page, along with some activity / stats for them

• Physical (All) format filter - You have to select 3 different physical filters to get to all of your physical games, so I'd like to add another option that would include all three in one

• Game difficulty - This something I've wanted to do for a long time, but it keeps getting pushed back

• Progress quick toggle - This is another one that keeps getting pushed back

• Genres - This just needs to happen!

Medium Priority

• Game Details pricing - Currently, no price data is available on this page and it could pretty easily be added

• Strategy guide filter - This is on hold until I can get the filters under control

• User comments - This is a neat feature and would be fairly simple to implement. Our small community size is really the only thing holding it back.

• Footer cleanup - The footer looks like crap right now, I just need to make it better :P

• Further mobile / tablet optimization - Hopefully the site works better on mobile and tablet devices, but there's even more I can do.

• Excel export enhancements - I'd like to modify the export so it includes all data elements, rather than the small version it currently has.

• Crowd-source game info - This is a BIG item and I don't think I've mentioned it on there before. It's a medium right now, though if there's enough interest, I'd love to make it a high priority. As you all know, the site imports data from Giant Bomb to fill out platforms for games, release dates, etc. The problem is, Giant Bomb doesn't always have the game listed, or some of the info is "incorrect". By that I mean with re-releases and compilation games, it can appear that a game was released on a platform that it sort of was (i.e. within a compilation or as a digital release). That causes a problem if you're trying to find all physical releases for a game. I'm not saying I want to stop pulling data from Giant Bomb, but rather pull it once and then let the community keep it up to date. Additionally, I fall behind on mapping games to GB a lot. I'm even worse about keeping VGPC up to date. I'm not sure we have a big enough community to suppor this yet, but I think it's time I start asking for a little help :P I'm in the very early stages of figuring out how this would work.

• CSV import - This would allow you to import games from other sources (such as Humble) or just from an Excel file or something.

• Achievements - I REALLY want to build this one!! I think it'd be fun and I have lots of cheevo ideas.

• DLC / Amiibo / Skylanders - Ugh, I'm gonna have to tackle this one eventually :P

• Compilations on Game Details - If you're viewing a compilation game on the Game Details page, right now you have no idea it has "child" games. I'd like to at least display this fact and have a link to the children (and some summary stats)

• Pricing fallback logic - Sometimes VGPC doesn't have pricing data for a game in a certain condition, but it might in a lower one, so the site could fallback to it instead of showing nothing

• Backlog toggle on Collection Overview - This would work very similar to the Stats page

• Steam wishlist import - The main thing here is I'm not sure the API wrapper I'm using supports this, so I need to do some research

• Global tags - We've talked about this one before, it's just a matter of getting enough data out there to make it worthwhile

Low Priority

• GOG import tweaks - Honestly, this is a low priority because it's not used very much and it's probably going to suck to build :(

• Game club - I wish this could be a top priority because I really want to build it, but alas, we don't have enough users to make it worthwhile at this point.

• Motivate friends - This is an interesting idea and will latch onto the comment functionality

• Motivation emails - I thought this would be a fun idea to encourage users to revisit the site. The idea here is if you have a game that's been "now playing" / playthrough that hasn't been updated in a while, you'd receive an email reminding you about it. This would be completely optional, though I thought it would be fun to have different "tones" you could select from, like "stern" or "polite".

• "Reply To" on forum posts - Pretty standard functionality, but not really needed until we have more forum activity

• Saved filters - I'd like to be able to save a set of filters to quickly pull them back up (similar to Quick Filters, but you'd have full control).

• Customize the Collection page - This would let you add / remove columns as you see fit and the site would save your own customized view

• Platform on Activity Feed - This is a low priority since it might go away with some other changes on the list

• Forum polls - Pretty basic functionality to let you start a poll on the forum

• Site goals - Having things like "finish 30 games this month" or whatever that could be tracked across the community

• "Load More" everywhere - This already exists on the Collection page, but could be added elsewhere

• Filters update all URLs - Only a couple of pages update the URL as you apply filters, but really all pages should do this

• Enhance emails - The emails sent by the site are very basic and could be cleaned up a bit to be more professional

• Site help - The site does a very poor job of explaining how things work and what all you can do, so I'd like to change that!

• Playthrough timer - Instead of logging your time after you've played a game, you could start / stop a timer (i.e. stopwatch) to capture it while you're playing. Of course, you'd still be able to enter time as you can now.

• Trends - Various reports like your trend for adding games to your collection, completing games, etc

• UPC scanning - This would be a pretty large feature (mainly because of mapping UPCs), but very powerful if you have a lot of physical games. I'd want it to be compatible with mobile phones since most people aren't going to have scanner lying around.

• Forum search - I thought someone was going to build this for me...

• Load playtime from Steam - This would let you import the time you've logged on Steam for games and optionally enter a completion for them. This would be a handy feature, but could also be heavily abused and result in some inaccurate data, so I'm hesitant to build it.

Now, in addition to all of the above development, there's a couple of other tasks that are very important to the site at this point and are arguably the highest priority of all:

• Mapping games - As I mentioned above, I often fall behind on GB and VGPC mappings, but it's something I need to stay on top of (or provide a way to let the community help)
• Add missing games - One of the most requested features is a way for users to add new games to the site. I've been trying to do this manually to keep the database as clean as possible, but I recognize there are TONS of games out there that are missing and probably deter people from trying out / using the site. I've been gradually loading in games platform-by-platform. I should have MOST of the NTSC releases for the following systems: Jaguar, N64, Sega CD, NES, Dreamcast, 32X, Virtual Boy, and Saturn. I'm down to less than 50 for the GameCube and I've made some nice progress on the 3DO. I need to step up my effort here to try and get more of the systems loaded because aside from the current gen (and PC), once they're loaded, they're done.

So that's it. If you read this whole post, I salute you! Keep in mind that this is only about half of what I have rattling around in my head and on my "official" task list! Feel free to comment, "upvote" certain things, throw out new ideas, etc!

I was wondering how long it would be before you brought up getting the community here more involved with doing some of the updating and whatnot, seems like way too big a load to be doing solo! (Though we're all really appreciative that you do it)

Not sure how keen you are to moving towards a moderator/curator approach, but it might be one way to open submissions/edits to the site's public. User submits new content/changes, change gets put in a holding pattern until you or a curator approves it, maybe have the system check how many submissions a user has had approved and once they pass a threshold, they can make them without need for curator/your approval from that point onward? I'm mostly thinking of how Comic Vine handles content updates from the general userbase.

Opening things up sounds like a potential huge can of worms, but it'll be a pretty big time saver. Especially once you implement DLC which will be insanely tedious.

Hopefully I remember and I'll come back when I have more time to re-read this list and give more feedback.

What I would still love to see added:

• Ability to note on a game's entry that you have it in multiple formats, rather than having to put an entry in for each format you have a game in. Those who want achievement tracking can still put in separate entries for each format.

• A way to enter games that Steam (or other services) counts as "DLC" for free core engines, such as SEGA Genesis & Mega Drive Classics, or Pinball FX2 on Steam.

And I will also add my thanks for all the work you do on this site. It took me a while to find a site as good as this one for game cataloging.

Great list with lots of great things! You are really committed to this 'project' and I love the way it develops like it is. Really great job.

Don't have much to say about the roadmap; I think some tweaking can be done when it comes to navigation (return to the right pages. You now often go to the collection page after editing game details.

What I really would like to see is an option to get rid of my multiple game entry's in the collection page. I have quite some games on both Steam and GOG and they are now both listed. If they could somehow be combined in the list, that would be great. I think this is also mentioned by boffo97. Make it a toggle so people can switch to whatever they like. And the collection page is your 'next big thing' so perhaps you could squeeze this one into your schedule and planning ;-)

Also letting your community participate in certain area's would be great; I definitely would devote some of my time to help.

I especially like the idea of being able to add what you paid for games! That would be pretty neat!

• Automatic daily Steam import? That would help me get rid of my daily task :-) Make it optional of course.

Thanks for all of the feedback so far everyone! There should be plenty for me to work on when I'm able to get back to it :)

I'm definitely looking at a moderator approach for enlisting help within the community to manage game data. Addressing the changes on the Collection page is my top priority, but I think this will be second. When I get a little closer to building this out, I'd like to share my thoughts with all of the moderators and make sure everything makes sense and will work. I'm not envisioning anything complex. It's basically going to be a form with all of the metadata for a game that can be edited. Right now, that includes the name, alias names, description, original release date, platforms released on (including region and release date), publisher, and developer. Aside from the names, everything is pulled from Giant Bomb. In addition to the actual data, I'd like to let mods manage the mappings to Giant Bomb and VGPC, since those are the two areas where I tend to fall down. Giant Bomb requires an API call, so there will be a button to refresh the data or something. For VGPC, the data has all been loaded into the database, so it's a matter of relating the appropriate records, which can be tricky since they name things differently and break them out by platform and editions. While VGPC is required since the pricing data has to be loaded in periodically, we don't HAVE to use Giant Bomb. If there was enough activity from moderators, the data could just be curated manually, but I don't think we'll be there just yet :)

I'd also like to provide tools that can make things easier for us all to manage the data. I'm thinking there'll be a separate "admin" game search page that let's you see things that aren't mapped to GB / VGPC, that don't have a publisher, etc. Likewise, some games are digital only and will never have a VGPC mapping, so I'd like to add a flag in the database to track this so that stuff doesn't flood the list. Again, this is why I'm hoping to share all of my thoughts once I have them fully formulated to make sure this all works well :D

Okay, enough about that. Next up is an option to display multiple format games as a single entry on the Collection page. Unfortunately, this is a much larger task than you might think, so I'd like to make sure I understand what you guys are looking for. The main issue is that each entry on the Collection page is an instance of a game, which has properties like now playing, backlogged, etc. If we display a single entry for the games you have multiple copies of, some of the data / buttons would not be available, which could impact the way the screen looks a bit. This gets especially tricky with the shelf view, since there's not a natural way to "drill-down" to the individual formats (at least, not that I've thought of so far, so I'm certainly open to suggestions!)

@boff97 - Regarding the "DLC" items, are you looking to add "Shining Force" to your collection or an actual "SEGA Genesis & Mega Drive Classics" entry? I'll have to do some research on how this comes across on the Steam import as well.

Having a daily Steam import is something I've considered in the past and was actually going to work on a few months ago. The main reason I held off was because user retention / repeat site visits has been the main problem the site has faced and having an automated import means users don't have to log in anymore, which potentially discourages them from entering completions, posting on the forums, etc. On the flip-side, I would definitely like an automated import :P Perhaps it only runs if you've logged in recently or something. And it can be turned off by default. I'm thinking it could email you whenever it found something to import as well. I also like this because it gives me a head-start on adding missing games.

And finally, the "amount paid" field has been added and will be included with the next release...whenever that is!

I was thinking about how the multiple platforms for the same game thing might be handled. How about when you add a game to your database you select a platform to act as the "primary" entry for a game, and you have the option to check off some "alternate" platforms. The alternates would be effectively blank entries with just the game name and platform by default in the database. Editing the details for the additional platforms would be accessible through something akin to tabs when you click edit on the primary entry?

Not sure if possible, but the setup could be similar to how you've implemented game compilations, including the option to explode extra copies from alternate platforms to be displayed when looking at My Collection.

I'll go back to the beginning and try to explain more clearly. :)

I have two "games" on my Steam list that actually aren't games at all, but engines for games, with the actual games acting as DLC.

For example, in Pinball FX2, I have "DLC" like "Captain America table", "Civil War table" etc. Each table I have is DLC, but it's actually its own game. Just not as far as Steam is concerned. (Note: For whatever reason, Pinball FX2 is known as Zen Pinball 2 on PS3.)

Similarly, I have the "game" Sega Genesis & Mega Drive Classics, with DLC like "Sonic the Hedgehog", "Sonic the Hedgehog 2", "Sonic Spinball" etc.

Since, in this case, what's technically DLC is actually games, it'd be nice to track that. Maybe a "sub platform" category added? Such a category could also track games from bundles or programs like PS Plus or Games with Gold.

"Pinball Arcade" also does the same thing for Steam and consoles. The main difference between the two is Pinball Arcade has recreations of real pinball tables, and Pinball FX2/Zen Pinball 2 has tables specifically designed for it.

Zen Pinball 2 has some of it's DLC tables listed as standalone on the ps3, which I suspect is because they were given out as ps+ offerings, but the lack of consistency makes this title a bit of a nightmare to organize it seems, haha.

"Such a category could also track games from bundles or programs like PS Plus or Games with Gold."
Right now I'm using Lists to track my ps+ games and it works great for that. Never considered using them to track bundle purchases, I think I'll go and do that when I have time this weekend.

I do like the idea of having a sub-platform field option though, as I have a ton of psn/steam "classics" that would be nice to have show up if I were to filter on a different platform like sega genesis. Maybe in addition to "platform" you could have an "original platform" field that would be purely optional for people who want that extra level of filtering capability?

Regarding DLC (in general):

When DLC tracking is implemented, if it could be added in a similar way to how games are tracked as part of compilations, where each DLC would have it's own editable entry for completion status/achievements/rating, then would that not work towards solving boffo97's issue above? Only thing I can think of that it wouldn't accomplish would be if say, you wanted to filter your collection by sega genesis games, you wouldn't see these DLC entries pop up since they'd still be listed as a pc (steam) game, but this in addition to the "original platform" field being added would solve that I think.

I'll make a separate post since it's a different subject (and to ramp up dat post count, yo! :P)

Since I have a bit of time right now, I can finally comment on some of these.

New fields on collection:
See posts above regarding sub platform/OG platform. Also, my financial anxiety is going to shoot through the roof if I'm given the option to start tracking how much I've paid for my game collection!

Game difficulty:
This one's tricky due to games generally having a variety of difficulty options already. For instance, if I were to rate Sound Shapes based on the main campaign, I'd give it a 3/10. Beat School mode would be 2/10 and If I were to rate "Death Mode" I'd rate it BurnInHellYouStupidGame/10.
There needs to be some way of presenting context for a rating, I think. A comment field might be a bit too clunky, but if used would be more than adequate. Maybe something like the tag system could be used where you could add a custom "difficulty" tag with the name of whatever difficulty/mode you're rating, and give that a rating? You'd be able to rate multiple difficulties/modes this way for a game.

Genres:
Back to the tagging system, what about listing some pre-made tags for the most common genres that could be quick-toggled when doing a game entry? Would piggyback off an established feature and help bring attention to the fact that people can add tags to things if they haven't noticed the feature already.

DLC / Amiibo / Skylanders:
See post above!

Motivation emails:
I know my friends can be bad about updating their profiles. Every couple of months I get a "What was that site again?"

Site help:
To a new user the amount of features that are available for tracking things can easily get lost or ignored due to a lack of visibility/explanation, so this would be a pretty nice addition. Some of the more "general" features like Lists or Tags could be explained with examples of how different people are using these features to give some direction. Maybe have help broken up into different sections like one geared more towards collectors focusing on the My Collection stuff and another geared towards Completionists with more focus on adding Completions. Might help to break up the information to make it easier to digest.

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Sorry to hear that! Get well soon! :)

That is very sad to hear, I hope whatever it is that plagues you can be cured/fixed in good time.

As for volunteering, count me in. I'd be more than happy to take on some of the load around here and help you out.

Get well soon! And let us know if there's anything we can do!

Thanks everyone! I'm determined to get through this and get back to making this site even better. Speaking of which, I just pushed out those shelf view changes. I fully expect some feedback, so don't hold back! I also added the field for tracking how much you paid for a game.

That looks really great! I like the placement of the buttons in a row below the image, it's a great compromise over the super minimalist mockup I sent you. At this point, I would consider removing the grey background from the game images as it's not really needed any longer to "anchor" side buttons. If it's possible to vertically align the game images so they are at the bottom instead of top, this would be pretty much perfect.

Onto the bugs and whatnot:

• Longer game titles are being cut off in the drop-down menu, might need to set it up so it can span two lines if possible.
• The Notes button doesn't highlight if there is a note added to the game entry. At the same time, if you enable Strategy Guide, the Note button lights up (whether or not you've added a note!)
• Might need some kind of number of tags cutoff, as any entry with a lot of tags or some really long tags extend the panel info display well below the box boundaries. Maybe limit it to the first five tags? You can actually see the game stats button sticking out of the bottom on unflipped games, but not the tags or edit tags button if they stick out when you flip.
• Very minor horizontal alignment issue, if you look at a game image on the bottom left, you'll see how it doesn't line up over the buttons. Same goes for the first row of buttons over the dropdown menu, but the alignment here is only off by a what appears to be maybe a pixel.

@dhobo - Thanks for the feedback! I just pushed out a hotfix that should address most of that stuff. I removed the grey background, fixed the notes / strategy guide bug (copy pasta error, oops!), limited tags to 5 (display only, of course), modified the images so they're bottom and center aligned, and hopefully wrangled those edges to be lined up. Let me know if you see anything else!

You may need to do a hard refresh (CTRL+F5) to see some of the changes.

As for the long names, that's something I haven't quite figured out. I'm using a "button group" thing from the template I'm using and it was giving me fits yesterday when I was trying to get it to look better. For now, I'm just cutting it off intentionally and have a tooltip showing up. I may have to convert it from a button group to a Bootstrap dropdown, but not sure that will solve the issue, so I'll have to do some testing first. For now, hopefully you don't have very many long names :P

So apparently the grey backgrounds were hiding the reverse side information... because now I'm getting this hilarious view where I see everything not covered by the game image written backwards

Also, the rest of the fixes look great, it's super clean now. That grey stuff was really bugging me from an aesthetics point of view before.

Ah! I see what you mean now. I'm using Firefox and it seems to work fine, but Chrome shows the reversed text. And amazingly, IE appears to work fine too.

Was about to comment that the same problem doesn't happen on Chrome for mobile, but then I checked here on my pc again and it seems you pushed a fix already, haha.

Haha I was about to post that I had deployed a new hotfix, but got sidetracked :P So yeah, that weird backwards issue should be fixed. It was more of a hack than a fix, but that's okay :D

hack = put the grey box back, but make it white? ;)