Hi,
New to the site but couldn't find an answer to this:
What does each of these fields stand for?

I bought a bunch of games from Humble Bundle - is that the provider?
They mostly activate on Steam - is that the provider?

What is the source then?

Thanks...

Hello, welcome to the site!

So I have always approached it as Provider is where you go to launch/play the game (on PC at least), while Source is where you bought it from. So in this instance, I would do Steam as the Provider and Humble Bundle as the Source.

I could definitely be wrong though, as I see Humble listed as a Provider.

@warringshogun pretty much nailed it, but Humble is also considered a provider since you can download certain games directly from them.

@moho_00, frankly I can't make sense in that. Games cannot be launched by most of the listed providers (Humble is one of them).
In any case, why not make the acquisition source a drop-down list like provider?
I've been using the Provider as the store I bought the game from (since it's easier to choose it from a drop-down list).

I have a couple more suggestions/remarks:
1. If a user selects "Other" (in any field), the site should display a text box for the user to insert what "Other" means.
2. Sometimes I buy a title as part of a pack/bundle (Humble bundle is a great example) so I end up dividing the price I paid for the entire bundle by the number of games it included to calculate the price of a single game. I guess this could be improved/auto-calculated by the site itself somehow.
3. Maybe the field where you activate the game on (the client you launch the game from) should be named accordingly.
4. The site has great filtering options, but I fail to understand why I would want to filter games by store they were purchased. Users should have better reasons to log the store they bought games from.

@roizentner - The wording of some of the fields can definitely come across as occasionally obtuse due to some intentional vagueness. That's because some of these fields are meant to be more of a catch-all for a variety of situations as everyone has different ideas of what information they want to track.

For instance. Acquisition Source can be any source from which you acquired your game. Whether it was a physical store purchase, a digital storefront purchase, given to you by a friend (maybe you want to track how many games a specific friend gave you?), a key you won as a prize, trades, etc... the number of potential sources can't be represented by a set drop-down list.

I also use that field to help further categorize my bundle purchases, where I specify the source and the name of the bundle. ie: Acquisition Source: Humble Choice - April 2020

This helps me in a number of ways. I can filter my collection to only show the games from that particular bundle if I want to. I can also clearly see if I search for a game I have multiple copies of for whatever reason why I ended up with more than one copy so I'm not questioning my intelligence as to why I'd buy two copies of something on the same platform.

Regarding #2 - I think it would be pretty great to have some kind of option for Bulk Import where you could specify a common Source for bundles and maybe a total price that would auto-divide between the number of games added to the list.

Regarding #3 - The provider field isn't meant specifically for clients you launch games from. Provider represents any source from which you can acquire your game files. Whether it's a launching platform like Steam, Origin, PSN, etc... or a place where you download your install files from directly like Humble, JAST, itch.io, etc...

Regarding #4 - Just because you don't see value in a particular feature, doesn't mean someone else doesn't.

Basically ditto everything dhobo said.

One thing to add: once you start regularly using Acquisition Sources, it recalls your sources. For example, I created 'Humble Bundle - Yogscast Jingle Jam' because of how I wanted to organize it. Immediately, it started showing that on the second or third game I was entering, so I could just select that instead of typing the whole thing every time. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure if this is a function of the site, or of Chrome, but it works better than a dropdown.

And as dhobo also said, there are intentional vague fields to let the user decide how they want to use them. Use the fields and filters you want how you want to, and ignore the ones you don't. Flexibility is better than narrowing everything down based on one or two people's views of how it should work. I for one use the filter by Acquisition Source regularly. And if I'm not mistaken, I requested it.

Thanks guys, I agree that flexibility can help users build their collections the way they want to.
I guess I was looking for some guidance on some fields and ended up making suggestions/remarks that might harm that flexibility. I had no ill intentions :)

Feedback is always appreciated Flexibility is critical for sure as everyone has their own methods to tracking their collection / backlog, BUT I can certainly understand where confusion could come in on some of the fields available. I've long wanted to beef up the "help" portion of the site, even if it's just tooltips scattered around to inform users about less-than-obvious fields.

I'll definitely take your additional feedback items into consideration. Unfortunately, #2 is a deceptively difficult task when you factor in the ability to remove games from your collection or when one of the games is actually a compilation game. I've considered doing this in the past as I have purchased bundles as well and just split the paid amount across each of the titles.