4 replies to this topic

[Marcus Estrada]

For the longest time I searched for a site like GoodReads/Shelfari for video games. Finally I found it (Backloggery) but that wasn't quite enough. Since then I've been searching for a good site to track movies I've watched but have found it hard to settle on any one site.

I've checked out Movielens, Jinni, Criticker, AllMovie, IMDB, iCheckMovies, FilmCrave and others but none quite meet my needs. A lot of focus for these sites is to track ratings though more than when you watched something, if you own it, or whatever else (not to mention every site is missing out on some films). As of late there seems to have been a renaissance in movie sites though which made me think to make this post. If you look at any of the sites I mentioned they're not the prettiest things out there.

However, now with things like FilmBuffet and Letterboxd out I'm starting to realize movie listing/rating/etc sites can be a lot better than they currently are. I'm especially interested in getting to try out SeenTh.at once it gets out of beta or I get into the beta or something.

Anyway, I just want to know how you folks record your movie watching (assuming you do - otherwise why read this?). Do you use any particular site? Do you blog about every movie? Something else?


PS: If you are interested in ways to track your collection I have found (for me) the best solution and that is the DVD Profiler program. There are many free software solutions and web ones but I preferred what it offered. MediaMan was a close second.

[Ludono]

I feel you man, I've been looking for just such a site as well. I attempted to use IMDB but despite having such an extensive database it's list features suck. I use DVD afficionado to track my DVD and BD collection, currently I just have my anime stuff entered but I plan on putting more stuff in eventually.
http://ludono.dvdaf.com/owned
I've also used Bluray.com, its not bad, could be better though.
http://www.blu-ray.com/

As for videogames, I used to use IGN's list feature until they broke it and never fixed it. Tried several other sites including Backloggery but none of them are really quite right. So I took it upon myself to create my own site to do just that. Problem is, It's a lot more difficult that I imagined and frankly, I suck at web coding.
I have the domain registered and I've started putting a homepage together but I have no idea how to create custom databases and stuff...
http://myvideogamelist.net/
(Nothing there yet, but thats the domain)
A site that I really like is
http://myanimelist.net/panel.php
It tracks your anime via easy to orgainze lists and such, I'm trying to create somthing similar but for videogames.

[Marcus Estrada]

Yeah, IMDB has a massive database but they need to do more with their lists. Still, they're the most useful to me for grabbing pertinent movie information to then put into DVD Profiler, lol. Thanks for reminding me that DVD Aficionado exists though! Used it in 2010 I think (just going from the sign up date) but then trailed off onto experimenting with other sites and software. Probably gonna spend some time this weekend updating the list now .

For me, the first gaming list I used was through GameSpot. They were kind of cool because they had achievements for using the site and things like "retro collector" or something if you reached a certain amount of classic titles. It was neat but has the failure of basically any online database - not everything is there! And it never will be because there's just too much stuff from too many regions. At the very least sites now can mostly keep track of every modern release (minus some indie stuff). IGN was also useful for a bit and I liked the collection price feature but it's not very accurate. Glyde seems better at pricing things realistically but unfortunately their database is small and not really meant to be a collection tool.

I wish you luck with your own site! I think it's awesome you got that URL, considering it is so close to MAL. Recently I came across Myvideogamelist.COM which I guess was also trying to leap off the well-known AnimeList site. However, it really is no comparison and also has a quite small database (as well as an apparently super small userbase).

In regards to database I have recently fallen in love with them, creating them, etc. Even though I have a game database software solution already (Collectorz.com Game Collector) it's still hugely fun for me to make my own on the side. Unfortunately, don't know the slightest thing about how to integrate them with the web or whatever. Also don't know how to create plugins to auto fetch game data from sites. That would definitely be a big help though for you for sure!

[Ludono]

I wish you luck with your own site! I think it's awesome you got that URL, considering it is so close to MAL. Recently I came across Myvideogamelist.COM which I guess was also trying to leap off the well-known AnimeList site. However, it really is no comparison and also has a quite small database (as well as an apparently super small userbase).

Yeah, Before buying the domain I check to see if someone was already working on a site like that. I've checked it out but it seems pretty inefficient not to mention hasn't really seen any updates for a while so I assume its a dead project now? I'm mostly doing this for myself, both to learn more about web design and to create a site exactly how I want it. If others end up using it that's cool too but that's not really my goal.

And you're right, I kinda need to learn how to do those things before going farther.

[Marcus Estrada]

Making sites for yourself is a lot of fun . I've started up some here and again (all about games). Never really finish but they are helpful to learn and just play around with! Yeah the VGL.com site is soooo unfortunately put together. I like the changes and updates I'm seeing to the site howlongtobeat.com but that's not really focused around the same thing. Still, it's useful to check out these kinds of places to observe how they handle databases (if they do at all).

You'll learn a lot by working on a site so have fun .