i do steam version - whatever it says in store

When I do tables in the forums I mostly copy the Steam store page. Sometimes I shorten the title though, for example Stealth Inc 2: A Game of Clones just becomes Stealth Inc 2 instead because who cares about the full title in that instance?

I would go with: Candle in the Wind.

It looks more natural for me that way.

Candle in the Wind is correct as a title

I don't have a convention, but I like to keep it close enough to the Steam title so that when you search for it, it displays the correct result.
Capitalise important words, I'll usually remove caps for preps, etc.
Some games have ™ or ® or other random rubbish - I tend to remove these - Some Japanese games like using stupid;punctuation in their titles as well, I sometimes remove that.. And like spooky says, I tend to shorten the name if it's convoluted.
If a game title is ALL-CAPS, I will only take Caps off if I feel it's overkill.

I follow these two guides, as they summarize what I recall from school:
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/capitalization-in-the-titles/
http://www.superheronation.com/2011/08/16/words-that-should-not-be-capitalized-in-titles/
See also https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/capitalization/rules-for-capitalization-in-titles.html

If steam's title is wildly different from the correct capitalization etc, I might go with the steam version, but so long as my version comes up with the correct result inside the steam search, I will correct it in my personal files.

I will also, as spooky said above, shorten titles in my own files at times.

I hope this helps!

I generally do what most people seem to do here, but sometimes I just have to change the name. For example, Total War: Warhammer is listed as TOTAL WARHAMMER in my files because it’s clearly a better name.

I shudder at the idea of doing this but I'll probably have to soon, the other day I was searching for some of the DRM-free games I saved from my Desura account before they went defunct and found out that my files are a complete mess with no organization whatsoever (they seem to even be spread across two or three partitions of the HDD), making finding the game I wanted a bit of a headache.
I'd go with Candle in the Wind cos it looks nicer BTW.

I'm just curious where you're using these lists!

I have file/folder naming conventions for audio files, movies, shows, etc, but don't really have one specifically for games.

Also, in case you haven't resolved it for yourself yet, "A [Game Title]" and "The [Game Title]" is another thing to consider. (For my music, I would always use the "[Music Title], The" form.)

How do you mean where? As to what purpose when you can just see in the client what games you got? Yeah i guess, the only time i opened it up so far was always for myself and when i put in new games. :p
In the past i did swap games through mail atleast it was necessary to show lists.

I use Excel, one time when i had about 2000 games or so there was this website that showed what games you had and with some easy copy and pasting i could put it in an excel tab without doing any extra manual work to (can't remember the site and don't think it still worked anyway) from there on i put in every game i received, if it's software, DLC i give that a coloured field.
It's ordered: A:Gamename, B:Steam (for the combined version), C: type (Game,DLC etc) and D: ✓ if the game is played 100%, so that way i can also order by DLC if i wanted or which games i 100% finished

I have another tab for GOG (even though i barely get new games and can put it with the "other stores tab" like Epic, Desura (yes i had 1100+ games there), and then a combined tab, where i just copy and pasted everything together then you can easily see where you got something double.

And then that's only pc games, i should put in consoles too, music is so much i am not even gonna try touching that, there is so much "hell" in that like genre, pretty much why i also won't touch genre on games.

I find it's a lot easier to not get hung up on this stuff when I don't have 10,000 games to organize.

In any case, veebles is correct:

I use whatever the dev called the thing, it's thier work of art, even if they are an illiterat git, fool or tool :)

Title case (Candle in the Wind) unless I know the actual store page title capitalization, then I go for that.
One argument why, well... "Superhot" just doesn't look as recognizable as "SUPERHOT". Nuff said. :P

C4NDL-31N7H-3W1ND

Mine are as the steam api returns them. I add the subtype to the name for easy reference if its not a main appid.

If the steam store page is open and active, my script will look at the URL and get via the api the name and other info to add to my excel sheet.

As for as identification of a particular game I have the name and the appid.
Name and URL col would be populated as follows.

Tales from Candlekeep: Tomb of Annihilation
/app/663380/

Tales from Candlekeep - Asharra's Diplomat Pack (DLC)
/app/750340/

Nullysun Soundtrack (Music)
/app/734810/

Note I add the (DLC) or other subtyps as needed to the name for my spreadsheet. The steam api lists them without that in the name but does have the type as one of the fields.

I have a note col for those case where a game name may be part of a series but not obvious where it fits.
This also contains other special cases or other data as needed that I don't have a dedicated spot for.

Names do sometimes change, but since I have the appid as a col I know if its a case of the game page being renamed.
There are a few cases of more then one game having the same name. diff appids and completely different games.

not everything is "app" so I keep that part as well. a number alone may not define exactly what I want.
/bundle/12029/
/sub/337102/
are both valid steam entries.

Other tabs contain other stores and other purposes.

Now for a tangent if your using a spreadsheet with critical data.

A good spreadsheet is essential. Mine is also synced between home and work in an encrypted drive. I almost had a heart attack when I noticed them not in sync and did not know what was missing or modified. I had many backups but trying to spot difference between them is impossible for a spreadsheet that can have data changed anywhere within the file, let alone trying to find the differences going forward in time from copy to copy since a single line may have been changed multiple times.

I bought this to compare sheets a couple years ago.
https://www.scootersoftware.com/index.php

It took time to learn how to used it properly and then many hours to work forward though the various backup copies but I was able to fix everything. I've since used it at work to fix issues as well.

The encrypted file does have an indicator if there was an issue (I was unaware it did that) so I autocheck that every time I open the file so If there are any issues I only need to compare two files and can fix anything before it becomes a problem.

... Well, that got longer then expected.

🤷‍♂️

I don't gather lists, but for these forums and trading I will just use whatever that specific site uses.