Why Is There No Standard for Save Data on PC?

[Michael McAllister]

I wanted to play Wolfenstein: The New Order again since I had put it down for a while after getting to a location I could not pass.  Typically, when moving to a new operating system, I can easily copy and paste the default folders from an external drive to the typical directories (i.e. My Documents).  My Documents is typically the default save location for the vast majority of PC games.  More games are using cloud services through Uplay, Steam, and Origin which is great.  If Microsoft wants to evolve the Windows platform, they should work with sites like PC Gaming Wiki and use OneDrive as a bridge to save game directories.

As it turns out, this is apparently not the case with TNO.  What gives?  Consoles have figured out this problem a long time ago.  Unlike PC, you can browse for your save file if it's not shown in the default location.  This is quite ironic given that nearly every application on the PC that deals with user created files has some sort of browse system in place.

[Techicolors]

you can use something called game save manager. you can setup a routine to backup save files over the cloud 

[AresKrieger]

It's the developer's fault, however you can change it's save location if you make a symbolic link

[Mira Yurizaki]

Consoles are easy because the manufacturer demands that you must do it their way or the highway. Windows doesn't have this luxury because of the amount of access developers have to the system. You're supposed to put it somewhere in My Documents, but nothing's really stopping you from writing to %APPDATA%, My Music, or even the C:\, because hey, if your account has write access, you may as well abuse it.

 

However, I found most (like 99.999%) save game data resides in the entirety of the C:\Users\[username] folder, except one company whom I swore off for a while: Ubisoft. They save the games where UPlay is installed of all places.

 

Also any games on Steam that use DOSBox will probably save it to where the game is installed because DOS was all over the place at the time and that was usually where the game saves were.

[Michael McAllister]

5 hours ago, AresKrieger said:

It's the developer's fault, however you can change it's save location if you make a symbolic link

Never done that.  You would do that in the game properties I'd imagine—like a shortcut?

[Michael McAllister]

5 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Consoles are easy because the manufacturer demands that you must do it their way or the highway. Windows doesn't have this luxury because of the amount of access developers have to the system. You're supposed to put it somewhere in My Documents, but nothing's really stopping you from writing to %APPDATA%, My Music, or even the C:\, because hey, if your account has write access, you may as well abuse it.

 

However, I found most (like 99.999%) save game data resides in the entirety of the C:\Users\[username] folder, except one company whom I swore off for a while: Ubisoft. They save the games where UPlay is installed of all places.

 

Also any games on Steam that use DOSBox will probably save it to where the game is installed because DOS was all over the place at the time and that was usually where the game saves were.

 

That makes little sense given that a game should have a browse system.  If I save a game file in a custom folder within My Documents, it shouldn't matter if the default directory is buried deep within the file system.  Giving the user a browse function, a feature that has been in existence for as long as I have been alive, would fix that issue entirely.  Every game has some sort of config file.  If the developer adds code to call that directory information and save to it once the user selects it the first time, it would become the new default until the user selects 'Load Game' again and browse.

 

To make it even easier on the developer, Origin, Uplay, and Steam could use their overlay systems to perform this function.  Am I crazy for thinking that a browse function should be relatively simple?  We have photorealistic graphics, superfast storage devices, and pretty affordable music services that enable us to listen to over 30 million songs pretty much anywhere we want.  For some reason, we still can't figure out how to create a cohesive save system?  That just seems crazy to me.

[AresKrieger]

5 hours ago, Michael McAllister said:

Never done that.  You would do that in the game properties I'd imagine—like a shortcut?

No it's a command in windows here's a guide on how they work and how to use the command if your interested.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbolic-links-symlinks-on-windows-or-linux/

[Mira Yurizaki]

On 7/1/2016 at 11:46 PM, Michael McAllister said:

 

That makes little sense given that a game should have a browse system.  If I save a game file in a custom folder within My Documents, it shouldn't matter if the default directory is buried deep within the file system.  Giving the user a browse function, a feature that has been in existence for as long as I have been alive, would fix that issue entirely.  Every game has some sort of config file.  If the developer adds code to call that directory information and save to it once the user selects it the first time, it would become the new default until the user selects 'Load Game' again and browse.

 

To make it even easier on the developer, Origin, Uplay, and Steam could use their overlay systems to perform this function.  Am I crazy for thinking that a browse function should be relatively simple?  We have photorealistic graphics, superfast storage devices, and pretty affordable music services that enable us to listen to over 30 million songs pretty much anywhere we want.  For some reason, we still can't figure out how to create a cohesive save system?  That just seems crazy to me.

The thing with making a file browser is you're going to have to jump through hoops regarding permissions in the file system. Not to mention the game can now access any arbitrary directory. From a security and stability standpoint, a game doesn't need this functionality. It's easier, safer, and more stable to simply look up a known, system-provides directory and do your operations there.

 

Besides, very few people would actually use it. Again, practically all your saves live in your user folder and only really old games or outliers do not. So if your concern is for backing up, copy your user folder once in a while.

[typographie]

It's not that there isn't a "standard" (there's arguably multiple standards), it's that there's no one in a position to force a developer to use a particular standard. I personally wouldn't want a company like Microsoft to step in and try to control how game developers could design their game. The fact that a company can make a poor choice about how save files are managed is unfortunate, but it's a side-effect of having the freedom our platform provides. I like it much better like this.