The Best Way to Build a Comprehensive Arcade Collection?

[ferociousfilmfreak]

Dear Launchbox Community! First off, warm greetings from Germany. I have a question for you that requires you to be a little “open-minded,” because I’m looking for a solution for myself that might not actually involve Launchbox after all. Nevertheless, I do have a Launchbox license and would like to learn how to use it. So far, I’ve “unpacked” LB every now and then and played around with it - but for various reasons, I keep coming back to Retrobat (maybe also because it was simply the first frontend I used on Windows, and Launchbox’s philosophy is a bit different in some ways).
My goal: To bring together as many arcade systems as possible, organized by hardware. I have very little interest in home consoles and the like. So, for example, all titles released on Cave hardware, well-known systems like CPS-1 through 3, Sega’s Model series… and ultimately even modern machines like SEGA Alls and Nu, etc. There’s a modification for Retrobat by Team Pixel Nostalgia that gives you access to significantly more systems (by adding custom CFGs) - and thus also the rarer system logos, etc. But here, too, I’m once again at the mercy of the Pixel Nostalgia team.
My question: How flexible is Launchbox when it comes to arcade gaming? I get the feeling that the Launchbox community is better organized, especially when it comes to media collections? And generally speaking: Is there a Launchbox user here who might have already set something up like this? I’m wondering how to organize things beyond the standard systems. As I mentioned, I could imagine sticking pretty strictly to hardware (my main reference for this is the System16 website). Capcom and the like are still pretty straightforward… but then there are the more exotic and modern systems that can only be handled through Teknoparrot (I have the license), for example, etc. And what I’m really struggling with is maintaining consistency in the metadata and media.

[JoeViking245]

Sounds like you have an affinity for the different arcade systems.  

As you may know, you can add any "platform" you want and can name it anything you want.  So how you break things down really comes to personal preference and how you are organized.  "Arcade" as a whole is a unique animal compared to consoles.  So to, e.g. throw everything into one Arcade platform then create playlists from that can be pretty cluttered. Especially when trying to manage different emulators in the one platform. Though, that could be handled on the playlist level with a little finessing. 

It might be just as well to, instead of dealing with playlists, put the different systems into their own platforms.  Or create the platforms based on the system emulators (which for the most part, coincide).

Thrown together as a crude mock-up (don't judge me ), it could be along the lines of: 

Side note, I recently got into lightgun games, so this example has "Arcade Lightgun" which is all MAME emulated lightgun games.  "Arcade Lightgun Other" has ones using Demul, Flycast, LinuxLoader, PCSX2x6 and the sort.

"Arcade" is games using MAME.  "Sega Model 3", games using Supermodel.  and so on.  Though MAME can now emulate Model 2, in the spirit of system segregation, it'd stay out there.  Also, my old cab PC still prefers the ol' emulator.exe.

Any missing platform image icons can be created and added for any platform.

Even with the segregated platforms, you could still create playlists for further breakdown (or 'collections') if you wanted to.

 

Some but not all arcade systems have their own entry in the LaunchBox Games Database.  So getting metadata and media is pretty straight forward.  For systems that aren't in the database, just set their Scrape-As value to Arcade and you should be good.

[Suhrvivor]

Hey Welcome to Launchbox! For what you want to do I think Launchbox it's a good fit.

You can put all games into the arcade platform and separate them with a playlist for each sub-system or you could put every sub-system as a different platform. The Launchbox database has a lot of media for arcade games and you can get even more here on the Launchbox forums (Theme videos, custom boxarts, artwork, etc). Paired with Emumovies you'll get video snaps, Yheme videos, manuals and music and more.