You are not alone. I have 9 pages full of apps, and there are only a handfull that I actually play on a regular basis. I don't blame the outpouring of games here lately, instead I blame myself for not being diligent when it comes to trying a game and then deciding if it really deserves a place on my IPod. You see, I can take advantage of the Itunes library and just let it sit, loaded on there, and not checkmark the sync for that game. That lets me download, then hold on to a game until I feel like giving it a glance. The real problem comes, when I have to decide to dump a game altogether, as it holds no value at all. My rule of thumb has been, if I don't see myself playing it at least once over the next 3 or 4 weeks, then it doesn't belong. Games like Let's Golf, and UniWar get played alot. They are go-to games that I play whenever I get stuck waiting in the doctors office, or just need to pass the time while in the reading room (when I don't have a must read book handy). Don't look at me like that. You know what I'm talking about.
After the update to 3.0, I stopped stuffing games onto my devices. I'm either beta testing unreleased games or love just 2 or 3. Syncing isn't difficult so why keep it filled?
Good point. I dunno though. There was only a few games that I really put time into enough to make me wait to update. Would be nice to be able to back them up with your sync
You could restore from a backup and not reinstall the games you don't play, that would still keep the save game files i think. It would be somewhat annoying
Sort of a weird sub-genre of this, at least to me, is how one starts editing their apps (in my case 99% games) once they've filled their 11 pages. I often find myself keeping apps I've never even really played more than once or twice over game I had played and enjoyed somewhat (nor came anywhere close to really beating/mastering in any sense). So how can a game that was never even worth playing (yet) be valued over some tried and true one? (and why am I asking you all about my own weird judgment calls?) My most recent, oh I HAVE to snag that ASAP but have yet to touch was Kolonists (that diceless Settlers of Catan like game). I was interested when I first heard about it but put on the brakes as soon as I heard it didn't save your game and had some crash issues. Since these issues were resolved in v1.1 and some cool statistics were added I HAD to jump on it...but I still have yet to fire it up as I just haven't yet been in a "Settlers of Catan Playing Mood".
Reading through this thread makes me want to delete all my games that I don't play so I wn't have to bother with so much junk...but I can't...
Organization! I initially tried to organize my apps by genre. On the front page was webpages/daily visiting pages like email, scorecenter, ABC News, calendar, Weather.com, PhD comics, etc. The next page was supposed to be games that I would play a lot if given a few minutes. Uniwar, Peggle, Quiz Show, Gold Rush, Let's Golf, Word Play online, globall, etc. The next page was supposed to be longer full games that included the likes of Hero of Sparta, Zenonia, Defender Chronicles, Car Jack City, etc. The next page was for multiplayer 'casual' games like Dots free, Triplets, Don't Square, Go, 3D checkers, Touch 4, etc. The casino page including slots, craps, blackjack, poker. The lite page including Heavy Mach, Star Hogs LT, Space Ninja Lite, Taxiball Lite, etc. This worked out for a while until, well, games got really cheap, and it really is a pain in the bum to organize apps. Can't they add an option that pops up an explorer window on your pc/mac where you can organize the apps by page? That would also influence my decision to pay 10 bucks for an OS update.
My favorite is the classic, "Enh, I rarely play this and have the backup on iTunes so, delete." only then to remember, "Ohhhh crap, it would take me hours to re-unlock all of the cool extra content if I DID ever want to play it again!"
I had a developer friend who made an app so you could actually have folders in your dock, then move your app icons to those folders. Essentially having an organizer for your apps to free up dock space and pages. Apple rejected the app without giving a reason. There is a thread about it, was quite some time ago. Call your first attempt a dry run.
I hope apple will fix this problem soon. The search has solved part of the problem I just wish all the apps had a search parameter in common or you could rename them or add tags. Another possibility is to create a database app that will use search to launch programs.
Search and launch would be good, but you still wouldn't be able to display your 'trophy room' of apps to make yourself feel better
Challenge yourself. Tell yourself not to buy anymore games until you've beaten all the ones you have.
Yeah, like that will happen. With all these 99cent specials, I grab em up and sit on em till I have time to play em.
That would be good for the deep, engaging, epic type games, but sometimes you buy games for the sheer gameplay. Perhaps one could limit themselves to only 1 of these type games (one with a clear linear beginning and end) before moving on. Of course, that wouldn't prevent from grabbing a great deal!
