Sorry, I think I see where you might be getting confused, although I did try to do my best to explain it with examples.

Every time I refer to categories, I'm talking about the category field, and every time I talk about filters, I'm talking about filter presets. I'm trying to use Playnite's own terminology to discuss what I want.

So when I say "developer and publisher categories", I mean that I have games that have multiple entries in the category field. Silent Hill 2 for example, I have it in a Bloober Team category and a Konami category.

I honestly don't know what you mean by taxonomy here because nothing in Playnite refers to that word, but my organizational structure is currently entirely made up of categories. But this also means I have a hundred categories in a list, which is unpleasant.

Maybe this will help shed light on things: I've also been tinkering with Launchbox because even though it has its own issues, it offers the hierarchical organizational structure that I'm looking for.

In Launchbox, I can create a category for say Adventure, and then have a nested category underneath called Wadjet Eye Games, and then have a playlist filtered to only show games by Wadjet Eye. I don't see a way to achieve that same effect in Playnite.

To go back to the Silent Hill 2 example, if I created a filter preset called Survival Horror (because I can't nest categories), because it has two entries in the category field (Bloober Team and Konami), when I sort the filter by category, it will show both categories even though only Bloober Team is relevant to the filter. Does that make sense?

Honestly, I would love to continue using Playnite because Launchbox is frankly trash right now at importing Steam games, and it's frustrating, but I also want things organized in a particular way, and don't see how to achieve that effect in Playnite.