Rock, Paper, Shotgun

START IT: The Place To Put Save Games

By John Walker on January 24th, 2012 at 11:25 am.

Tally ho!

Yesterday I let out a clarion call to all developers and publishers to STOP IT when it came to confetti-scattering save games around our computers, and to keep them all in one sensible place. What I didn’t add, it’s been pointed out to me by a few developers since, was what that sensible place is. So I’ve picked one.

Clearly whatever you choose is going to lead to massive, world-changing controversy, and not everyone would be happy with any choice. But this, I think, is the best all-round.

C:\Users\[user]\Documents\My Games\[game name]\Saves\

No, it’s not especially catchy, and yes, it looks at first like it’s in that awkward \Users\ folder. But of course My Documents is something familiar to most users of a Windows PC, and certainly easily accessible thanks to Microsoft’s belief that everyone will be compelled to use it to store all their everythings. (I’ve never used it for anything in my life, always preferring to store such files on a hard drive separate from my Windows install, but this is not what the majority does.)

Also, and correct me if I’m wrong, and I probably am, but I believe \Documents\ is one of the folders Windows is able to conflate with its XP counterpart, \My Documents\, which would perhaps get around the issues with having to support the two structurally different operating systems. And if I’m wrong, well, um.

At the same time, with this tidy system, things like .ini files that games just feel compelled not to store in their own installation folders can also be all sensibly put in the same place. If it’s not where I installed it, then I know it’s going to be in My Games.

So, there it is. The decision’s made. RPS has declared it, and it shall be so. Every publisher and developer, indie to AAA, get on board with this, and just think about how much better the world will be. 0.0047% better. That’s how much. So I say,

__________________

« | »

, , .

260 Comments »

  1. 24/01/2012 at 11:29 Yargh says:

    This has the whiff of Holy Righteousness. John has laid down The Word. Now we must hope the legions of developers see fit to listen so all can be saved.

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:54 El_MUERkO says:

      Are you questioning his word?

      Blasphemer!!!!

      BUUUUURRRRNNNN HIM!!!!

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:05 roryok says:

      Since we still can’t all agree, lets put it to a vote

      http://polldaddy.com/poll/5871853/

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:07 InsaneJ says:

      No wait, that’s terrible for 2 very good reasons.
      1. Don’t use hardcoded pathnames.
      2. Don’t put crap in our ‘Documents’ folders.

      It should be somehting like: %USERPROFILE%\My Games\[game name]

      This way it’s always stored in the profile of the user that is currently logged in to the computer. It’s out of the way but easy to find and thus easy to back-up/modify/whatever.

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:12 Cinek says:

      Gash, people, you really have something to argue about, don’t you?

      Let it be John’s way. Just as long as we, the people, support it, and developers will hear – something that MUST be done WILL be done and finally we’ll finish this confetti festival.

      Ps. Anyone made a phone to EU parliament? You know, they forced all these idiots to finally start using USB for cellphone chargers so maybe than can force other pack of people to start using one saves directory???? ;)

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:17 max pain says:

      Better yet, have it configurable from the settings file (bonus to make a setting in the game menu).
      That way those 5% of games that will actually have to know where their savegames are can change it to their liking (they can even put it on an usb and transfer it).

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:47 The Tupper says:

      Roryok – that seems to be a very well considered, comprehensive poll. Well done.

    • 24/01/2012 at 13:05 step21 says:

      What InsaneJ said. Games also could just create a My Games on XP, like they now create their own folder.

    • 24/01/2012 at 13:13 daf says:

      @roryok your pool doesn’t include the built in location in Vista/7 and the one Microsoft would like developers to use which is the “Saved Games” folder. So I feel the pool is flawed, when the imo correct option would need to be written in, something most people wouldn’t be informed on how to do.

    • 24/01/2012 at 13:22 neolith says:

      InsaneJ has it right – hardcoded paths stink!

      The one and only place I never want to have any save files is my C: drive!

    • 24/01/2012 at 13:43 roryok says:

      @TheTupper uh… thanks? I’m sensing a trap…

    • 24/01/2012 at 13:46 roryok says:

      @daf There’s an ‘Other’ option for everything not on the poll, and actually only 2 people out of 195 (so far) suggested that folder

      Edit: Actually there were four or five, so I added it. still trying to figure out how to merge in all those votes!

    • 24/01/2012 at 13:49 roryok says:

      My fav answer so far
      “Where should Saves go?”
      “they should go up yours!”

    • 24/01/2012 at 14:04 daf says:

      @roryok The other option would imply people knew about it, but unless they’re technically inclined I very much doubt it.

      I mean, how many people ever noticed Saved Games directory on their “home” dir?, then how many of those noticed that they could rename the folder to anything they wanted? And even more how many noticed that just like My documents they could change “Saved Games” location to any one they chose to?

      If I so wanted I could have “Saved Games” in “C:/Users/[ID]/Documents/My Games/” and as long as the games used the API to get the path it would work.

      That’s why I’m so “militant” about “Saved Games”, because it’s the closest we can get to were ever we want to put it without having game developers write a “pick were you want to save” option for every game.

      But like you said, I’m the minority…

    • 24/01/2012 at 14:05 The Tupper says:

      Roryok hehe. No trap intended – was just being nice is all. I promise it’ll never happen again! (inane smiley face)

    • 24/01/2012 at 14:08 roryok says:

      @TheTupper thanks then! Guess I’m just paranoid

    • 24/01/2012 at 14:10 The Tupper says:

      No worries – the internet can be a harsh place, I know.

    • 24/01/2012 at 14:24 roryok says:

      @daf I’ve actually added it to the poll now.

      “The other option would imply people knew about it, but unless they’re technically inclined I very much doubt it.”

      True. I’d consider myself technical and I didn’t know it existed. But if non-technical people don’t even know it exists, why would they choose it on a poll? It doesn’t leap out as a better suggestion than all the others – only really technical people like yourself are likely to understand why its a better choice.

      Anyway, we’ll see. maybe more people will choose that now that it’s there. Either way, doesn’t really matter. It’s only a poll!

    • 24/01/2012 at 14:45 Sheng-ji says:

      Well I think it’s a great idea – Firstly it is simplicity itself to relocate your documents folders and there are several methods to do so – I prefer using symbolic links, but I believe there are other methods described in the windows support database.

      Secondly, the net effect on your documents folder is a single folder called My Games – perfect for me as although I loath “My” in front of any folder name, I’ve learnt to cope with it and I subdivide my documents up anyway.

      Thirdly, it can be used by all games to place most of their files, thus creating a modern interpretation of the “Games used to be self contained in their install folder” leaving only the games system files in the program files bit

    • 24/01/2012 at 17:01 zaphod42 says:

      Or Windows could just learn to actually support videogames.

    • 24/01/2012 at 17:15 dontnormally says:

      Dear John,

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Account_Control

      Sincerely,
      Yes, it sucks.

    • 24/01/2012 at 17:27 roryok says:

      @Sheng-ji In XP installs the first thing I always did was make a folder on the C drive called Hub, right click on My documents and rename it and point it there.

      Windows 7 (and probably vista – I didnt bite) now have the User folder as the main, well, user folder in explorer, and that can’t be moved anymore

      Luckily I can still delete all the pointless, useless folders that get created there like “links” and “Favourites”

    • 24/01/2012 at 23:11 geoffreyk says:

      Note to all: The location of the “Users” folder in WIndows 7 is configurable. My “Users” folder is on my non-OS storage drive. It is not super-easy to move, and it has to be done after installation (can’t configure it during), but it is mobile.

    • 25/01/2012 at 06:28 Dhatz says:

      I always wanted the save/load screen to be a saves manager, or at least show the location.

    • 25/01/2012 at 06:32 pmanpman says:

      USB phone chargers is a stupid idea

    • 25/01/2012 at 09:49 roryok says:

      @pmanpman ok, I’ll bite. Why are USB chargers a stupid idea? This better be good.

    • 27/01/2012 at 07:03 RvLeshrac says:

      @dontnormally

      What does UAC have to do with *anything whatsoever* here?

      %UserProfile%\Documents\My Games\ is where game data, such as INIs, and per-user game installations should go.
      %UserProfile%\Documents\Saved Games\ is where game saves should go.
      Both of these folders are fully under the user’s control, and thus don’t require elevation. UAC isn’t touched.

      UAC is involved when moronic developers put per-user files, or user-modified files, in a system folder (%ProgramFiles%, %CommonProgramFIles%, %SystemRoot%). Then, the user has to be elevated to modify things such as key bindings.

      UAC is also involved when moronic developers decide that they need to install crap into %SystemRoot%\System32, %SystemRoot%\SysWoW64, or write to any section of the registry other than HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Since the application’s directory is included in the module search path, any modules which aren’t redistributables (such as DirectX) should be placed in the application’s directory, and redistributables should be invoked by the UN-ELEVATED installer only if the installer determines that the specific dependency isn’t already present. Which *NEVER* requires elevation on an unmodified OS.

      Google Chrome is a prime example of this: It doesn’t require any elevation if you install it per-user (“Just for me”), while requesting elevation (and invoking UAC) if you choose to install it per-machine (“For Everyone”).

      UAC works very well, when developers aren’t retarded. These are simple rules to follow:

      1) Don’t put *per-user* shit in Program Files.
      2) Don’t put *any* shit in the Windows directory.
      3) Don’t put *per-user* shit in HKLM.

    • 27/01/2012 at 07:07 RvLeshrac says:

      Oh, I guess, related: You can move almost anything anywhere, save for %SystemRoot%\*, %ProgramFiles%\*, and %SystemDrive%. Just create a junction. As long as nothing in that folder is called before FSFilter is loaded, or after it is unloaded, you won’t have any issues.

  2. 24/01/2012 at 11:29 Nosgoroth says:

    Make it so.

    • 24/01/2012 at 15:49 fwfulton says:

      I think a round of “So Say We All” could carry more weight.

    • 24/01/2012 at 17:16 roryok says:

      there was a time I would have agreed, and started into it. But I recently followed Edward James Olmos on twitter, and he says it too much for my liking. He also refers to himself as Galactica Actual, which is a little unfortunate

  3. 24/01/2012 at 11:30 Kollega says:

    I really wish that RPS demanding to put saves in one sensible, easily accessible place would actually make everyone put them there. I really, really do.

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:59 bigtoeohno says:

      Rock Paper Shotgun: tackling the big issues

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:05 Meat Circus says:

      Technically, Microsoft already proposed a standard location for savegames, i.e., where the execrable GFWL stores its shit.

      Thus tainting that directory’s good name forever.

      What we need is an enforcement regime. All games henceforth should be monitored for compliance and the deviants shunned and publicly ridiculed.

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:21 Arona Daal says:

      My Wishlist is a bit larger than that:
      Second Desktop/Quickmenu Link which directly starts the last Savegame.
      No (unskipable?) Logos/Intros/Menus/Logins, just Doubleclick and you are playing.

      Same for quitting : Alt+f4 = Instant Desktop (BF 2 does that nicely)

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:22 bigtoeohno says:

      Don’t get me wrong it makes a great deal of sense. Will it happen? I say prob not.

    • 24/01/2012 at 17:33 roryok says:

      I’ve been participating in this thread all day, and it’s certainly interesting, but I don’t hold any hope of it going anywhere. Even if every single games dev was to do this immediately, every game thus far released would still suffer from it. Therefore, I propose a two part solution:

      1. That all PC games developers store their game saves and configs in C:/Users/[ID]/Documents/My Games/[game name]/Saves

      2. That we see exactly how many games we can tweak the registry entries of to point to this same folder. I’m off to do this right now, with everything I have installed.

      UPDATE: After trying this with just a few games I have lost the will to live. Mass Effect ignored the new save folder and created a new one where the old one was. Mirrors Edge wouldn’t start, and I couldn’t find any of the entries for Rage. =(

    • 24/01/2012 at 18:05 Archonsod says:

      “Technically, Microsoft already proposed a standard location for savegames”

      Funnily enough they actually did. And it’s exactly where we’re suggesting they be put. Of course, given Microsoft’s ability to adhere to standards they can’t really call developers out for not doing the same.

    • 24/01/2012 at 18:22 daf says:

      @roryok Rage uses the “Saved Games” location so by default it’s “%userprofile%/Saved Games/id software/rage” assuming you haven’t moved your Saved Games folder, on XP I’m not sure were they chose to put it.

    • 25/01/2012 at 06:33 sassy says:

      @roryok: Sometimes it is best just to ignore the past. Even if a standard was brought in that all developers started following, past games wont be patched.

      Fortunately at this moment a piece of free software names “Game Save Manager” can locate and backup the vast majority of game saves. Not an ideal solution to the problem but it is a working and currently existing one.

  4. 24/01/2012 at 11:30 QuasiBelgium says:

    Not in my friggin’ documents! Come on! D:

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:37 haowan says:

      Where else? My Documents is visible and accessible. AppData is hidden. Some other places (e.g. Program Files) are forbidden. Arbitrary directories help nobody. My Documents is a great standard place to put saved games.

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:43 QuasiBelgium says:

      Well, I’d like to be able to use my documents for documents. It’s just spammed with folders from all kinds of programs and games who want me to be able to access their screenshot and have me play my own music in them and what not.

      A “my games” folder should just come with the installation of Windows, just like My Pictures, My Music, My Videos, My Whatever, and My Documents.

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:50 Ninja Dodo says:

      The odds of RPS convincing game devs to change their placement of files are higher than the odds of convincing all software developers everywhere. My Documents is lost to personal use.

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:51 Dan Lawrence says:

      There already is a ‘Saved Games’ default folder for this in Vista & post Vista versions of Windows. It is supposed to be the standard location for saved games but developers often don’t read boring standard documentation or they want their one size fits all function to save games somewhere whatever OS the program is being run on.

      I vote that you campaign for developers to use the provided folder rather than trying to continue sticking them in documents because they are obviously not documents.

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:53 RagingLion says:

      I hear you and sympathise but after reading the comments thread to the “STOP IT” piece I can see the reasoning behind it. As long all game stuff is kept in one folder without every single publisher or game feeling like they should have their own separate folder directly underneath the “Documents” level then there won’t be any clutter and it will be more than bearable.

      Sounds good to me: +1 to this.

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:58 jplayer01 says:

      Well, there already is a My Games folder inside My Documents. It’s a visible, accessible location. It’s far better than having all the game folders strewn across my drive. And it’s far better than a bunch of games deciding to spam My Documents full of their own folders. They will (optimistically) be reduced to this one, tolerable folder, My Games.

      I can only hope developers decide to listen. This is one of the places where consoles have it right. My saved games and all game data are in an easy to find place on my PS3 (scroll up in the Games menu), so I can copy/move/delete them at will. It’s long overdue for PC’s.

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:59 BrightCandle says:

      Agreed the documents directory is a very bad place for this to go. They clearly aren’t documents and should go into c:/users/John/My Games instead.

      But its also worth mentioning I don’t really want games to use that directory exclusively for all their patches and such. Ideally I would want it backed up and I don’t want to waste upload on temporary files and such in there, it should be the user settings and saves. Even mods and maps should go somewhere else ideally (the games directory).

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:06 Megagun says:

      @jplayer: I don’t think it’s there by default. I have such a folder, but I’m running a Dutch version of Windows 7, and it’s still called “My Games” rather than the localized “Mijn Spellen” or “Mijn Games”. All the stuff that is there by default is localized for me, which leads me to believe that games have created the “My Games” folder on Win7, not the OS itself.

    • 24/01/2012 at 14:11 cliffski says:

      It’s not localised because the last time I checked, there is no windows API call to get \My Games. . it has to be hard coded by the devs. You *can get My Documents:

      SHGetFolderPath(NULL,CSIDL_PERSONAL,NULL,SHGFP_TYPE_CURRENT,docspath)

      but then you have to do this:

      sprintf_s(path,”%s/My Games”,docspath);

      which sucks. Unless they changed this very recently.

    • 24/01/2012 at 14:42 Ninja Foodstuff says:

      Good grief. It’s these (b)anal arguments that caused this mess in the first place.

    • 24/01/2012 at 14:49 nicePenguin says:

      I think the Documents folder is already lost…
      54 out of 56 of the folders in My Documents are for programs on my PC

      http://i.imgur.com/gXQTC.png

    • 24/01/2012 at 15:03 Miltrivd says:

      as @InsaneJ said, harcoded folders are no good, you could end up with folders in your users folder or admin folder or public folder and it won’t work across all windows versions. Besides, My Documents folder is already full of crap nowadays since every single bit of software makes a garbage folder in there making a mess. In my case, I don’t even use the damn thing.

      If we want a change, it has to be something that actually works for everyone and be simple. My opinion is that should be by a C: folder (C:\Savegames) with the OPTION (this is where we make something be really good) to change it wherever we wanted (game folder, another folder, etc.).

      And add something that should be the norm, the installation should tell you at the end where is putting your save files and ask you if you want a shortcut to it as well.

    • 24/01/2012 at 15:05 DMStern says:

      @cliffski: There is a FOLDERID_SavedGames (defaults to %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games), new in Vista, which is obviously where Microsoft think the saves should go, and as such I have to agree. In order to reduce the chance of collisions I do think the full path should include the developer or publisher name, which is fine as long as it’s done in a consistent fashion.

    • 24/01/2012 at 20:00 LionsPhil says:

      What DMStern said (with a pre-Vista fallback to “My Games”). John choose poorly. Stick. To. The. Fucking. Platform.

      Still, at least it’s not %HOME%/.bad-linux-port—dotfiles being such a universal idiom and all![1] Fuck you very much, GIMP.

      1. They’re also wrong for MacOS X, even though it’s allegedly UNIX.

    • 25/01/2012 at 01:17 Finster says:

      Are any of you actually suggesting that you are trying to keep documents in “My Documents”?! That’s insanity. It’s a lost cause for storing legitimate documents in, what with all the files that programs want to keep in there. You’re far better off making a separate folder of your own.

    • 25/01/2012 at 01:26 Blain says:

      I don’t get this (possibly because my computer is four years old and running XP). Most games use My Documents already. Putting them into a My Games subfolder would drastically reduce the mess in My Documents.

  5. 24/01/2012 at 11:30 Baggypants says:

    shouldn’t you really use variables like %userprofile%\Documents\My Games\[game name]\Saves\ ?

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:33 Starky says:

      The “John” part in his suggestion is that variable though.

      Obviously games need to have user account specific saves.

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:33 haowan says:

      @Baggypants yes, on the technical side that’s correct; they’ll always map to the right place like in John’s post though. We’re developers, so we’re technical and all that and don’t need explicit instructions, just where we need to put the save games :)

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:34 Baggypants says:

      “We’re developers, so we’re technical and all that and don’t need explicit instructions”

      Hahahahahah….

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:42 royaltyinexile says:

      No, I think it’s quite clear that he’s suggesting every gamer on the planet will have a user defined as ‘john’, or will change their names TO John, in testament to this biblical savegame prophesy.

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:48 roryok says:

      Well I’m certainly doing that. I also think all games should henceforth be called 3:16

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:49 DiGi says:

      Damn, so I made new folder named “John” just for nothing? :-)

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:50 John Walker says:

      While I like Royalty’s suggestion, I’ve fixed that.

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:55 yrro says:

      No, you should use SHGetKnownFolderPath and a FOLDERID value (or, on XP or earlier, SHGetFolderPath and a CSIDL value).

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:16 Theodoric says:

      Yeah, I moved my Documents folder to my D partition ’cause it was filling up my windows partition. Please be more specific about the fact that it needn’t be C please, this is important. In fact, I’m personally satisfied with having it near the game folders; the G disk I used for games is 2 Tb big and can easily harbour any and all save games, which can get scarily huge in some games.

    • 24/01/2012 at 13:23 Happydaws says:

      Also the \Users\ part is wrong, not everyone running EN windows you know :)
      (yes there is foreign readers on RPS!)

      Just had an issue with an American dev trying to put files in \users\ on a Danish Windows.. Bleh..

    • 24/01/2012 at 14:16 mouton says:

      From now on, all saves will be in the John folder. All hail John.

  6. 24/01/2012 at 11:32 Nathan_G says:

    Developers? Do this. I know some of you are reading this: Do what John says, and do it now. We want it.

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:00 wccrawford says:

      I think I’ll wait until the debates are done. If this is worthwhile, there will be several arguments, including a blog post entitled ‘Standardized save game location considered harmful’ and much bitching about nothing. In the end, some half-assed consensus will be reached by actual developers, at which point half of them will actually do it. At that point, it’s fairly safe to put my eggs into that basket. 2 months later, Windows 8 will go Gold, and won’t have something that was in all previous versions of Windows and the entire debate will rage again.

      Edit: I should have finished reading the comments. Apparently the first debate is already raging. We’re on track, guys!

  7. 24/01/2012 at 11:32 Gusdor says:

    Applications should be saving data in the well defined application data folders.

    Mash ‘Windows + R’ for me. Now type %appdata%

    This is where Microsoft recommends that application modified data should be stored. Why invent another standard for Windows when one already exists?

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:34 haowan says:

      appdata is hidden. So less technically-savvy users won’t be able to find their save games if they need them.

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:35 Starky says:

      Because that one is annoying to search and hidden by default.

      Appdata is for application data that the the majority of users should never interact with.
      Save games are not that kind of data.

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:42 Gusdor says:

      We disagree on that point. I challenge you to prove that the majority of users want to email save games to their friends.

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:43 RobF says:

      No-one needs to prove that. We just need to enable those who want to do such things to be able to do such things without pissing around.

      Why do you need to hide save game data? Is it special or precious?

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:46 pyjamarama says:

      Save data is user generated data not application data, should be in the user space.

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:54 LuNatic says:

      @Starky

      %Appdata% is where programs should save any and all application-specific data on a user by user basis. Save games are EXACTLY this kind of data.

      If a user is incapable of googling ‘how do I backup my save games’ and then following the instructions, they should getting someone else to help them with it anyway.

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:59 RagingLion says:

      Surely the main application is to keep game saves and for that person to be able to keep them for perpituity by transferring them onto a new PC/hard drive as painlessly as possible which I think a large number would want to do.

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:00 The Sombrero Kid says:

      Because Microsoft aren’t right, look at gfwl to see why this is the most wrongf of all wrong ways to do it.

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:23 RobF says:

      “If a user is incapable of googling ‘how do I backup my save games’ and then following the instructions, they should getting someone else to help them with it anyway. ”

      No. That’s not how things should be. There’s no need to obfuscate and hide save data and there’s certainly no need to treat users like wanting to do something with a save file is something they should have to google to discover.

    • 24/01/2012 at 14:16 Milky1985 says:

      Save games are user data, and as such shoudl be in the users folder (ie my documents or documents).

      The AppData folder is for application data, i.e none user configurable settings (i.e which optimisations to use, stored shaders that kinda thing)

      There is no reason for saves or keyboard config files to be in the appdata folder, its not designed for that (putting config fiels for graphics etc maybe, but not saves)

    • 24/01/2012 at 20:52 Flavioli says:

      The point is to make the location as obvious and easy to find as possible. If most of the users find themselves forced to use Google, you’ve failed to do that. There’s no functional reason why the files should go in appdata when they could be placed somewhere that’s easier to find (and in the very least not hidden by default).

  8. 24/01/2012 at 11:33 Inigo says:

    But my John folder is where I keep my porn. This’ll just make things confusing.

  9. 24/01/2012 at 11:34 GetUpKidAK says:

    It already feels 0.0007% better. Please, developers, let’s push for that extra 0.0040%.

    Do it for the kids.

  10. 24/01/2012 at 11:34 Dan Lawrence says:

    Eh, what’s wrong with using:

    C:/Users/John/Saved Games/

    ….on post vista platforms? It has a shorter URL, a special icon and it is what the folder is for. Anything pre-vista is always going to be a mess now anyway because there was no standard folder and anything post Vista is just a case of developers not caring about the new standard/not updating their save routines/not wanting a separate save routine based on OS version.

    I think using that folder is less confusing for new users who won’t have the years of pre-vista experience that they have to go rooting around in a documents folder to find save games.

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:50 roryok says:

      Yeah, I think this would be better than Documents (since its not a document. I don’t intend to read or print any saves)

      However, I do think ‘Saved Games’ sounds wrong. it should be ‘Game Saves’

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:52 yrro says:

      You can’t use it if you want your game to work on both XP and Vista or later. Imagine what happens if someone plays your game on XP, then upgrades to Vista. The game, running on Vista, will look for its saved games in FOLDERID_SavedGames, but the saves created on XP will be elsewhere…

      IMO John is dead wrong with this, and saved games must be stored in FOLDERID_SavedGames. It’s not hidden by default, it’s easy to find, and it avoids cluttering the user’s Documents folder up with crap they don’t want to see.

      Unfortunately, FOLDERID_SavedGames only exists since Vista, but developers who insist on propping up XP should put in extra effort to avoid the case mentioned above (look in the XP location first, and only use FOLDERID_SavedGames if there’s no data in the XP location). As for that XP location, the correct and only place to store saved games is CSIDL_APPDATA (known as FOLDERID_RoamingAppData in Vista and later). If and only if your saved game data is larger than a few megabytes, it should be stored in CSIDL_LOCAL_APPDATA (known as FOLDERID_LocalAppData in Vista and later) instead.

      And can we stop this nonsense with referring to environment variables that just plain don’t exist? It’s only going to muddy the waters. The correct way to retrieve the location of any well known folder is by calling SHGetKnownFolderPath with a FOLDERID value (or, on XP and earlier, SHGetFolderPath with a CSIDL value).

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:53 John Walker says:

      The reason I’ve not opted for this is because it doesn’t pre-exist with an install of Windows, and thus will only lead to fuss.

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:53 diebroken says:

      Seconded.

      C:/Users/[user]/Games/[game name]/Saves

      No need to clutter up the ‘(My )Documents’ folder any more than necessary…

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:02 The Sombrero Kid says:

      I’m pretty sure it does exist from a fresh install, i’d be behind this, but most developers seem to agree on somewhere in my documents & this seems like a bigger leap for them.

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:04 goosnargh says:

      I’m pretty sure game developers can figure out a simple if-then-else statement for Windows XP users.

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:08 Dan Lawrence says:

      I’d be surprised if it wasn’t pre-installed as it’s a Microsoft standard ‘known folder’ now. Anyway, it would be instantly created the first time you save a game anyway so that doesn’t really matter.

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:24 Hoaxfish says:

      It might be a good point to notice that “My Pictures”, “my Videos”, etc are now found in C:Users[User] along with Desktop, Favourites, etc rather than XP’s location of “C:Documents and Settings[User]My Documents… My Documents now being a sort of catch-all for text-based things, or presentation slideshows, rather than “everything”.

      It’s a kind of Linux view of things (not really linux at all probably) where the User’s personal files and settings does not start within My Documents.

      The hidden folders.. are hidden because they’re system settings, which generally break things if you try and manually edit them, and generally don’t need to be copied over to a new install in order to keep your stuff working.

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:52 daf says:

      The system provided “Saved Games” folder is imo the way to go and not some arbitrary folder inside my documents, the “Saved Games” has an API call to get it’s location and windows allows you to rename it and move it, in my system it’s actually located in “D:/Home/Saves” (the same way My documents is D:/Home/Documents”).

      Deciding to use My Documents because XP doesn’t have “Saved Games” is a bit short sighted as with every passing month/year XP usage will drop leaving us with Vista, 7 and eventually 8. All of which have “Saved Games” folder. Let us leave My documents to my documents.

      In the meantime, the games that still would like to support XP could easily do so with a if statement at the start of the game, something trivial compared to how allot of games now have a DX9 and DX11 mode to account for the lack of dx11 on XP.

    • 24/01/2012 at 13:41 Megagun says:

      @John: your solution also doesn’t pre-exist on an installation of Windows 7. The Saved Games folder does (since Vista), but it doesn’t pre-exist on Windows XP. How will your solution cope with people that use a non-english version of Windows? Using Saved Games will work fine if you’re running Vista or later, no matter what language you use.

    • 25/01/2012 at 09:17 KenTWOu says:

      C:/Users/%username%/Saved Games/ – is simply the best choice!

      Anyway NTFS symbolic link helps you to clean up this mess and save all files in any folder you want.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_symbolic_link

  11. 24/01/2012 at 11:34 Man Raised by Puffins says:

    Damn, I’ll have to create a ‘John’ user now just for saves.

  12. 24/01/2012 at 11:34 AbyssUK says:

    Erm No, it’s my PC this isn’t a MAC let me choose where I store my save games please.

  13. 24/01/2012 at 11:34 dmadrfe says:

    I think you should contact developers and ask them how they chose save game locations. Do they have a system? Do they roll a dice ? Do they compete with other developers to make them as inaccessible as possible ?

  14. 24/01/2012 at 11:35 Guvornator says:

    What this needs is a petition.

  15. 24/01/2012 at 11:35 purdz says:

    I concur, although a ‘standard’ does exist this one makes more sense.

  16. 24/01/2012 at 11:35 Moni says:

    You should have some sort of form for developers to sign, pledging their allegiance to the One True Directory.

    Failure to comply will result in the sending of a disgruntled letter.

  17. 24/01/2012 at 11:36 revelationspace says:

    What if you don’t want save games on your C drive? Some games have large saves and a fair few of us use an SSD with limited capacity for Windows.

    Yes a centralised place for save games would be nice but it’s probably problems like the above that mean there will never be any ‘standard’.

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:39 Meneth says:

      Windows (at least Vista and 7) lets you move the Documents folder wherever you want. I have mine on my E: drive.

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:48 jon_hill987 says:

      XP did this as well, right click on my documents and select properties, you will find an option to move it.

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:16 Cinek says:

      And that’s one of reasons why it’s a best solution of all.

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:37 Stuart Walton says:

      You can temporarily change environment variables using the ‘set’ command, I use it to manage multiple Minecraft installs. It’s only local to the parent process and it’s children though, which has pros and cons but it under consideration, completely sensible.

      To change an environment variable permanently, which is the second part of the process of moving the My Documents folder (The first being to move the directory), you can either do a registry hack, or use the ‘setx’ command. Setx comes with Windows Vista onwards, for pre-Vista you’ll need to download it from Microsoft.

      I wont go over Setx usage as the arguments you can give it are quite numerous, you’re better off finding a guide. Reg keys are located at…

      HKCU\Environment (User Specific System level)
      HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders (User Folders)
      HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Environment (System level)

      If you don’t know what you are doing but still want to do a reghack, at least do a reg backup first (or at the very least a restore point to return to). I know this from experience.

  18. 24/01/2012 at 11:38 Kdansky says:

    Augh. Yes, you are wrong. http://xkcd.com/927/

    The Documents folder can actually be accessed without even knowing its name, and the XP/Vista variations are all linked together if you do it correctly. It belongs there. Because Microsoft decrees it so. People hard-coding their paths is the primary issue. Use the bloody Windows API!!!

    http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd378457(v=vs.85).aspx
    FOLDERID_SavedGames

    Is it that hard!?

  19. 24/01/2012 at 11:38 Colthor says:

    This is acceptable, because you can point the (My )Documents link at any directory on any drive you want.

  20. 24/01/2012 at 11:42 pyjamarama says:

    I still prefer a JUST ASK campaign. I known were I want my save games just ask me, everyone that uses a computer knows were to save a file, every program asks you or at least let’s change a setting. So JUST ASK

  21. 24/01/2012 at 11:43 Diogo Ribeiro says:

    Speaking of John, maybe we should start putting these in outdoors and handing out special glasses so only developers can see them.

    START IT

  22. 24/01/2012 at 11:46 Milky1985 says:

    I beleive your right on the “documents”, “My documents” thing, I think theres basically a built in shortcut in win 7 that directs “my documents” to “documents” anyway for compatability reasons.

  23. 24/01/2012 at 11:47 kukouri says:

    This must happen.

  24. 24/01/2012 at 11:48 Kdansky says:

    Bonus knowledge: You do not have write permissions from Flash (or HTML5, or any other web-format) into \Documents\, you can only go into AppData, or you need a problematic and rather frightening popup.

  26. 24/01/2012 at 11:49 Megagun says:

    Why not use Known Folders and use “FOLDERID_SavedGames”, which by default points to %USERPROFILE%//Saved Games? Windows vista and above only. Seems like a good solution, right? It’s built-in to Windows Vista and 7!

    Another option would be to use %appdata%.

    The suggestion as suggested by John may not work nicely with people who don’t run an English version of Windows, unless the “My Games” folder can be retrieved through some API. As far as I know, there’s no such option anywhere, and “My Games” only exists under “My Documents” on Windows XP (no longer on Windows 7) or if some other game has made it earlier. The proposed suggestion reminds me of this XKCD comic. Worth noting is that I am running a Dutch version of Windows 7, but this folder is also called “My Games” for me, instead of the localized “Mijn Spellen”.

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:57 Dan Lawrence says:

      Yeah this (Saved Games) is the new standard brought in with Vista and all post vista OS versions. In case any other developers are reading it is also relatively painless to check the OS version and branch your save game function, in C++:

      GetVersionEx(&osvi);
      m_isOSVistaOrLater = osvi.dwMajorVersion >= 6;

      Bah this was supposed to be a reply.

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:08 Megagun says:

      @Dan Lawrence: You did succesfully reply to my earlier message, but I edited it and added in one too many link (to an XKCD comic, argh), which means that it’s now awaiting moderation. Don’t worry, you didn’t screw up. :)

  27. 24/01/2012 at 11:53 Suds says:

    No. Flat out no. I agree that there should be a standardized place for game (and app) save files; and there is. %appdata%. The My Documents folder is for my documents, things that I deliberately put there, and organize to my convenience. There is nothing more annoying than when an application or game puts crap in that folder that you cant move without breaking that app or game.

    LEAVE THE MY DOCUMENTS FOLDER ALONE

    Save files are not documents, you typically cant open them in a document viewer and view their contents (let alone edit them!). Put your save files somewhere out of the way. %userprofile%\GameData\%game%\Saves or something would be infinitely better and provide a convenient place for users to access them to make backups or move from PC to PC. Alternatively %appdata%\%game%\Saves would be just as good for games that for whatever reason don’t want their saves tampered with. Just

    LEAVE THE MY DOCUMENTS FOLDER ALONE

    and find another “universal” place to store game data and saves.

    • 24/01/2012 at 11:56 The Sombrero Kid says:

      appdata is the worst idea of all, it might be intuitive for you and me, but know one else, it’s not about you it’s about us.

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:12 MugiMugi says:

      Totally agree here, put them in the folder they where MENT to be at. Where most applications already use to store it’s data files,

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:18 Cinek says:

      Right… put it in place where noone can find them? Truly brilliant idea.

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:26 thegooseking says:

      Why would no-one be able to find them if they were all in the same place? That seems like really specious reasoning.

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:46 Optimaximal says:

      Because that place is hidden by default?

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:52 The Sombrero Kid says:

      Also Shift clicking the 100 games you’ve got in there so you don’t copy over the 300 other apps that’ve left guff in there doesn’t sound fun at all.

    • 24/01/2012 at 14:18 mouton says:

      As many others, you miss the point. The place doesn’t really matter – it being single is what does.

    • 24/01/2012 at 14:20 Milky1985 says:

      there is a different between a data file and a user generated file.

      A save is a USER generated file, and so should go in the users folder, its not application data, its user data.

      [EDIT] By your own argument you could say that word documents should all go in appdata, since they are just data files used by word and so should be stored with the application, doesn’t matter that they are generated by the user via users actions.

    • 25/01/2012 at 05:18 kavika says:

      As said elsewhere, Microsoft spoke and already made an API for saved games. It’s close to what you want:

      It’s FOLDERID_SavedGames aka C:/Users/[ID]/Saved Games/[whatever]

      How to get it to work on XP is the only remaining question.

  28. 24/01/2012 at 11:54 The Sombrero Kid says:

    Games are no different from any other application, loading a save game should open up a open dialog at the default location & save games should be associated with the game so you can load the game + save from file explorer if you wish.

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:04 phlebas says:

      Agreed. But there should be a sensible default, so if you don’t change any settings you should be able to find the saved games without incident.

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:05 thegooseking says:

      The problem with that is that Windows still handles associations based on filename extension rather than something more sensible like the header info Linux uses. So which game gets to be associated with the .sav extension?

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:44 VelvetFistIronGlove says:

      Simple: nobody should use “.sav” as the extension. An appropriate extension is “.[gamename]Save”, so .BioshockSave, .MinecraftSave, .DeusExHumanRevolutionSave. Simples.

    • 24/01/2012 at 14:14 stahlwerk says:

      This idea is really quite the best computer-related thing I’ve read today.

  29. 24/01/2012 at 12:00 netizensmith says:

    For security all game saves should be in A:\

    Please insert floppy disk

    Alternatively I’m happy with where the article suggests.

  30. 24/01/2012 at 12:03 JohnP says:

    I approve of this. (Well, that’s that then they said. A random guy on the internet approves. Job done.)

    MyDocuments can be moved to any drive seamlessly, which means saves won’t be clogging up my SSD, and backed up automatically if you backup MyDocuments. (Obviously you should!)

  31. 24/01/2012 at 12:05 Genocidal says:

    Ugh. Can we just use the standard that already exists, that makes the most sense, and that makes it easiest to back up all of our saves in one go? I’m talking about /Users/Saved Games/. /Users/Documents/Saved Games/ would also be acceptable; sadly between the two locations the only game I have with info in either is Jamestown, and it’s in the latter.

  32. 24/01/2012 at 12:07 DRoseDARs says:

    John, I’m sorry but with this:
    “C:\Users\[user]\Documents\My Games\[game name]\Saves\”
    you seem to be unclear on your own concept of simplicity. Seriously, you want to drill down through 7 layers? I get that Microsoft has long been proud of their folder structure, but must you encourage its abuse?

    I’ve been using approximately this whenever possible since the late-80s:
    “D:\Games\[Whatever the game is]\Saves”
    and I always install my games on a physically separate (not partitioned) d: never c: in case the OS goes tits-up, so that it doesn’t take my games or anything important with it. Doesn’t apply if one is using a laptop unless it’s a fat hog of a laptop that has room for 2 drives (make that happen more, manufacturers).

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:39 Prime says:

      “Seriously, you want to drill down through 7 layers?”

      …or just click on the big convenient word ‘Documents’ in the Start Menu? Two-clicks from the desktop. Who drills down from c: these days? That’s why John’s suggestion makes the most sense, the most user-friendly option, because Windows itself is already pointing you straight at that folder.

    • 24/01/2012 at 14:11 mouton says:

      Depth is not the real issue. Fragmentation is. If they decided on one place and stuck with it, I could live with depth 20, if need be.

    • 24/01/2012 at 16:30 DRoseDARs says:

      @Prime
      You can make a shortcut to the folder and place it on your desktop. Double-click and done. And if something were to happen to that shortcut, the folder itself would be easy to find, rather than drilling down through a bunch of other layers that lay users probably wouldn’t associate as being leading them to their games or saves.

    • 24/01/2012 at 18:20 Prime says:

      My Documents isn’t easy to find?

  33. 24/01/2012 at 12:10 MugiMugi says:

    Please don’t put them YET AT A NEW PLACE. My Documents is for Documents, last I checked save games are files who should not be toutched and they are defetively NOT documents.

    Put them where they should be at %appdata%\Company\Game and NOWHERE ELSE. Most game companies follow this already luckely, make it easy to make a backup of your system as this is the #1 folder to make a backup off.

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:20 Cinek says:

      It’s not “yet another place”.
      Right now I got 12 various games storing their saves.

      It’s hardly a new invention. More like: Encouraging other developers to start using it as well.

    • 24/01/2012 at 12:47 Prime says:

      If you want to be technical about it then no they aren’t documents, but what save files and ‘documents’ have in common is being valuable user-generated data that the user might want to backup and store. Where better for save games than in the largest, most significant folder full of other data that the user generally wants to back up and store?

      To avoid rankling the ‘document vs file’ pedants, I’d perhaps argue as well to change ‘My Documents’ to ‘My Data’ or ‘My Files’. Or at least think of the folder in those terms. Ccleaner, when it cleans the registry, offers to save the state of your registry in a file in – guess where – My Documents! I bet you’re not all sniffing at that and re-targetting the folder each time!

    • 24/01/2012 at 13:08 johnpeat says:

      I’d agree that Documents isn’t ideal – problem is that Microsoft doesn’t and puts the “My Games” folder in “My Documents” on Vista and W7, so you’ll have 2 “My Games” folders if you put it where it should be…

  34. 24/01/2012 at 12:10 Peewi says:

    Vista and Win7 have a Saved Games folder in the user folder and I’d really prefer if developers used that.

    Saved games aren’t documents and developers should stop pretending that they are.

  35. 24/01/2012 at 12:14 djbriandamage says:

    \user\blah\documents\ is the Vista directory. In Win7 it’s \user\blah\my documents\

  36. 24/01/2012 at 12:16 jalf says:

    I’m pretty sure game developers can figure out a simple if-then-else statement for Windows XP users.

    Eh, it’s not a question of whether they can understand the highly complex rocket science involved, but whether they can be arsed to do it.

    We know they can’t. That’s why John suggested a simple fixed scheme which will work on *any* version of Windows.

  37. 24/01/2012 at 12:17 Berzee says:

    This idea, plus having an option for GameInstallDir/saves

    would be this, plus a good idea.

  38. 24/01/2012 at 12:25 Etherealsteel says:

    Game Saves should be saved to the cloud, problem solved. In some regards certain games already do this now. I like that type of service, it takes the guess work out of game saves and say I reinstall Windows I can start back where I left off. I do agree the game saves need a standard save place and from there a way to backup those game saves easily either to the cloud or another drive.

    • 25/01/2012 at 05:26 kavika says:

      If Microsoft can build in a cloud that doesn’t suck for this purpose, and make it back up offline so I don’t have to always be connected, then I’m completely for your suggestion.

    • 25/01/2012 at 08:04 RobF says:

      The problem with relying on any sort of cloud service alone is just like the clouds in the sky, tomorrow it might not be there.

      You still need a local solution.

  39. 24/01/2012 at 12:29 Xtinction says:

    C is my SSD, I prefer those 60 gigs would remain free of crap like savegames. I suggest we do not START IT.

    • 24/01/2012 at 19:02 Tams80 says:

      You can redirect your user folders. Sure the links stay on C:\ but the contents can be on whatever drive you like (actually moving the links is rather messy).

      Go to C:\Users\username or ‘Start’ –> ‘username’
      Then right-click the folder you want to access a different drive and go to ‘Properties’. Click the ‘Location’ tab and there you have it.
      AppData can’t be moved, but I don;t think there are many here who want game data stored there anyway.

    • 24/01/2012 at 20:19 DigitalSignalX says:

      How much space do your savegames take up? o.O About 30 games I have saves for, including ME 1+2, DA:O/2, anno, Risen, Asscreed 1/2/3 and several others and it all adds up to under 100 MB.

  40. 24/01/2012 at 12:30 Bluerps says:

    This seems like a sensible solution.

  41. 24/01/2012 at 12:33 keltic_dave says:

    Not to disagree with this article but you clearly forgot that on a windows computer there are 2 game folders.

    The one in my documents and the one just outside it in the user folder.

    user/Saved Games/

    This would be a better place to put saved games as it would be out the way and not in my documents.

    • 24/01/2012 at 13:15 johnpeat says:

      user/Saved Games was almost certainly created by one of your games – it’s not a stock folder (not on any of the 4 PCs I have here atm – oh the joy of fixing PCs!!)

    • 24/01/2012 at 15:56 Megagun says:

      The “Saved Games” folder under your user profile should always exist when running Windows Vista or later, but it might have a localized display name (“Opgeslagen Spellen”, in Dutch). It doesn’t exist on XP though.

    • 24/01/2012 at 19:05 Tams80 says:

      @ johnpeat I don’t think so.

      It has it’s own folder icon, which user created folders don’t by default. I also have nothing in it, yet it is still there, yet I have played every game I have installed and have uninstalled none of them.

  42. 24/01/2012 at 12:38 woegjiub says:

    I hate to be *that guy*, but what about non-windows platforms?
    /home/user/savegames would be sweet, but I see most developers storing them in /home/user/.gamename/saved games

    For windows, the suggested location makes perfect sense.

    • 24/01/2012 at 13:17 johnpeat says:

      You’re on a PC gaming site so we’ll be OK then

      We have a small amount of people who persist in using some variant of Linux but they’ll be dead of malnutrition soon and we don’t give 2 hoots about OSX (so that’s us AND Apple then!!) :)

    • 25/01/2012 at 05:38 kavika says:

      There are conventions for saved data on Linux already.

      http://www.pathname.com/fhs/

      I believe the closest thing to a recommendation is dot files and dot directories.

  43. 24/01/2012 at 12:44 Jamesworkshop says:

    No I dislike games or programs putting things in my document, game saves are not my documents, When I tell a game to install to a single folder, I do wonder why it bothers asking for a specific folder if only a unknown portion of the program is going to be written there, while the rest gets put god knows where, why bother giving me a choice if it is only going to be ignored.

    Would it be so hard for the game to atleast list the locations of the other folders it’s going to make, maybe if the game uses a launcher rather than directly running the game.exe they could put a button that opens the save folder, that doesn’t strike me a a hard thing to do.

    When i say

    C:\Games\Diablo II

    thats where I want the game located, .ini .cfg and the save folder I want in that location, I created a specific folder for games to go in and told the installer the direct file path I wanted it to use, not as a helpfull but ignorable suggestion but as an order.

    It leads into my primary annoyance of games leaving folders and junk registry entries that I can find months after having a game uninstalled, I should not be able to still find a complete save folder that didn’t get included in the uninstaller.

    What part of save games makes them not a valid part of the game to remove when uninstalling, that to me is as offensive as rootkits.
    I’m 100% certain when I remove a program that I want 100% of it to be removed when asked.

    • 24/01/2012 at 13:14 johnpeat says:

      It amazes me that people are as dumb as this,

      Putting savegames into game folders is massively, massively stupid – it makes them near-impossible to backup effectively and no easier to find/transfer to a new PC

      Almost no developer does this (I’ve not seen it in over a decade) and for GOOD reason.

    • 24/01/2012 at 13:15 Stuart Walton says:

      Game saves and game config files are not program files, they don’t belong with the program install. They are data files.

      The location that they are stored in should follow the following rules:

      -It must be located within a User folder that gets automatically defined upon User Profile creation.
      -That same defined user folder must be capable of being relocated and redefined buy the user
      -The game must locate the save folder using the definition in the registry and not a static link
      -The game must provide a shortcut (using the defined path and not a static link) to the save folder, the shortcut can be located in-game or within the Start Menu
      -The game uninstaller must give the option of removing any save folder it created

      You want to find your game saves – There is a link right to them
      You want to back up all your game saves – They’re all in the same place, drag and drop in seconds
      You don’t want your save data on your system drive – You can move it
      You want all configuration data to uninstall with the game – It can be done, if the devs don’t do it, you don’t have to go hunting for them because the dynamic link to find them is ALWAYS the same.

    • 24/01/2012 at 13:18 Dan Lawrence says:

      Also this saving in root behaviour is forbidden/restricted by the windows access control system that vista users will be intimately familiar with.

    • 24/01/2012 at 13:30 robaal says:

      It’s useful if you’re sharing the computer with someone.

      Make an account for each person and presto – you each get your own in-game settings, and there’s little risk of accidentally overwriting each others saves.

      I do agree though that putting DLC / expansions / addons in the user profile folder is insane.

  44. 24/01/2012 at 12:47 RockandGrohl says:

    Can we please spread this to other gaming sites? Kotaku? 1Up, etc?

  45. 24/01/2012 at 13:07 afarrell says:

    Jesus, dude, do you seriously have nothing better to do with your time?

  46. 24/01/2012 at 13:12 johnpeat says:

    I’m astonished that no-one has mentioned %USERDATA% or $HOME yet.

    On Windows, %USERDATA% is the user’s “home” directory – so

    x:\Users\YOU – Vista and W7
    x:\Documents and Settings\YOU – on XP

    with slight variants for some OEM and other weird versions

    On *NIX it would be $HOME if they had any games to play at all and I assume this works within OSX as well – but again, who cares? :)

    • 24/01/2012 at 13:43 doublethink says:

      *****That is not correct*****

      FOR WINDOWS XP:

      %USERPROFILE%

      points to

      C:\Documents and Settings\[user]

      So you detect for XP, if yes:

      %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My Games\[game title]\Saves

      That would mimic what John is suggesting on XP perfectly.

    • 24/01/2012 at 14:23 Stuart Walton says:

      Which works if the My Documents hasn’t been moved. To correct for that the game should retrieve the My Documents path from the ‘Personal’ data item located at…

      HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\Personal
      Default value: %USERPROFILE%\My Documents

      And then appending the rest of the path. Ideally there should be a ‘GameData’ User Shell Folder so it can be completely seperate, but there isn’t.

  47. 24/01/2012 at 13:18 skyturnedred says:

    Hmm. I always thought the most sensible place would be C:\TheGame\Saves\.

    • 24/01/2012 at 14:19 Optimaximal says:

      You don’t install to the drive root – It’s not been the right way to do things since Windows 98 introduced Program Files & My Documents.

  48. 24/01/2012 at 13:21 malkav11 says:

    As someone who has four hard drives for a reason, please don’t put anything I didn’t install on C: on C:.

  49. 24/01/2012 at 14:10 Unaco says:

    I predict… This Clarion Call will have no real effects, in the long run. Consensus will never be reached as to which location to use.

    It’s also largely inconsequential to the vast, overwhelming majority of PC Gamers, who will either never need to actively hunt down their save games, or will have no problems finding them, checking in the 2 or 3 common locations.

    • 24/01/2012 at 17:24 SanguineAngel says:

      “It’s also largely inconsequential to the vast, overwhelming majority of PC Gamers, who will either never need to actively hunt down their save games, or will have no problems finding them, checking in the 2 or 3 common locations.”

      Whilst I understand the practicalities of this thought process I really don’t like it. I find myself listed in “the vast minority” so often that I cannot help but wonder if I am being really really cleverly bullied. Just because something or someone is in a minority does not make them any less valid than the majority.

  50. 24/01/2012 at 14:15 mouton says:

    How about engaging the developers somehow, RPS? Perhaps ask them to sign a declaration or somesuch? Start with indies who will bow to your might and work your way up the food chain?

  51. 24/01/2012 at 14:24 stahlwerk says:

    John, I totally support your endeavour. But regrettably, it’s “/Users/NAME/Saved Games” that is established on all Windows 7 machines. How do I know? I’m at work, at my working-man’s W7-64 professional workstation with nary a game, and still it’s there.

    It’s a retargetable folder much like My Documents (whose path is actually /User/Name/Documents click the address bar in explorer to see the real path), so you could point it to your superfast Raid 7+10 SSD-SAN, for extra-fast savegaming.

  52. 24/01/2012 at 14:31 Chakawi says:

    %installDir%/Saves/

    I htink that’s the simplest and safest place. (Heck the holy grail itself, UFO Defense used that logic, but singular if I remember correctly.)

  53. 24/01/2012 at 14:56 DocSeuss says:

    This may just be because of the way I prefer to sort files on my computer, but wouldn’t it be good to, once you’ve gotten into my games, sort by developer and THEN game, rather than just go straight to the game? Otherwise, you’ll have like five thousand games in one directory.

    • 24/01/2012 at 17:33 RobF says:

      Nah, because then you end up with the same thing that blighted many a start menu. Go looking for the game and find it’s filed under SuperPinataSexDwarf GMBH Tokyo or something like that.

      It’s a fair point but if you’re aiming for clarity, pub/dev is going to end up a complete cluster of idiocy because at least you can trust people to know their own game name most of the time.

  54. 24/01/2012 at 14:57 B0GiE-uk- says:

    Pointless article when you have gamesave manager!

    http://www.gamesave-manager.com/

    Excellent free app!

  55. 24/01/2012 at 15:27 RegisteredUser says:

    I think it shouldn’t be underestimated that for backup purposes, including online backup, it might not be the worst idea to seperate out the usually 5-20gb+ sized savegame directories from the “normal” documents one ends up saving under the user profile, such as actual, er, documents.

    But since half of apps and similiar already screw this up, I guess we would need a wholly broader conversation about the use and obtuse-iveness of how user profiles and directories are structured.

    Quite frankly, I would much rather have things seperate and be able to choose via checking a box more in my backup scheduler than having to manually select every dir EXCEPT the 2-3 ones I don’t want due to being just too oversized.

    Not sure if anyone has thought about this / considered this yet, but to me this is the single biggest issue with a lot of things(easily divideable sections, online backup limits both in speed and storage, local backup limits in terms of 4,5 gb rewriteables etc pp).

  56. 24/01/2012 at 15:45 doublethink says:

    What if we put our money where our mouth is and make an open source library that does this?

    Handling all fringe/edge cases and returning the proper save directory and cfg files?

  57. 24/01/2012 at 15:58 theloz says:

    NO JOHN! MY DOCUMENTS IS FOR DOCUMENTS!

    “C:\Users\ANGRYINTERNETCOMMENTER\Saved Games” is the only place.

  58. 24/01/2012 at 16:00 shadyMrPatch says:

    I know plenty of Nerds have got in on this one, but let me add my own penneths worth.

    This is particularly close to my heart as Stalker S.O.C. used hard coded paths, meaning I lost my saves (4 times), and had to restart the game 4 times, I gave up after 4 when there was a glitch that required a patch that wasn’t compatible with old save games.

    So. To add to everyone elses comments.

    Do not use absolute paths for this. I, and many like me, redirect My Docs or what ever else. Where we do this (if we do it properly) by changing the system wide variables for things like %homepath%

    They are redirected away from the OS drive so we can reinstall easily.

    I would simply say go back to the day when you initially click ‘save’ and you choose a location. Set its default to
    %homepath%\Documents\Games\Saves\%NameOfTheGame%* but let us choose.

    I signed up to say this. I absolutely hope that this gains some traction, just make sure you get it right!

    *Name of the game, not the name of the damn developer.

  59. 24/01/2012 at 16:03 Laak says:

    the only reasonable and pretty awesome solution i see, with almost no downside = Steam cloud (or some other cloud service)

    The down side strikes only when you are forced to play offline (train/plane/etc)

  60. 24/01/2012 at 16:06 explodeydendron says:

    Ideally, games would allow you to set your own folder for save games.

  61. 24/01/2012 at 16:10 namad says:

    incredibly stupid. this is a laughable location to store save games!

    it’s buried extremely deeply. it’s confusing to find. as new versions of OS are created things will change and this directory will no longer exist or make sense. the deep buried nature of this location makes it so long filenames are in real risk of violating windows total path length restraints. there’s no way to get people to agree this specific location is objectively best! it’s your opinion, and it’s based off almost nothing. the only historically and objective location that save games can be universally stored is simply to store them in the directory of the game itself. in a folder called “saves” within whatever directory is defined as being for the game. this is how things were originally done, and how many things are still done. it is 100% entirely operating system neutral. relying on microsoft for standardization and consistency is just foolish.

    no to mention all the problems you will cause for users with MANY games, and SMALL SSD drives! a 60gigabyte SSD drive doesn’t always have room to store all your savegame files! plenty of RPG’s have 10-200megabyte savegame filedata. windows 7 requires around 18-20gigabytes of space to begin with. storing all the savegames in a directory mandated in it’s location by the operating system is just so silly. what will happen to this system come windows 10? you know microsoft doesn’t give a damn about maintaining it’s templates over a long period of time, and you know microsoft isn’t going to listen to RPS….sigh I used to think the writers of RPS were intelligent and well informed, until today.

  62. 24/01/2012 at 16:14 namad says:

    I mean seriously, this whole debate is nonsense. first of all game developers and operating system developers will do whatever the heck they want, always.

    Secondly this problem didn’t exist in the 90s, it flat out didn’t exist! savegames used to just ALWAYS be within the installation directory of the game, because they were files related to that game, and putting the savegame files NEAR the .exe made it very easy not only to find them, but to reach them in the fewest commands of cd.. or clicks in windows explorer.

    the problem already has one known solution from history, no real downsides, there’s no way to get people to agree on the best template, heck microsoft can’t even agree! windows 95,98,me,2000,xp,vista,7 have all DRASTICALLY rearranged what directory were what, and what they meant and where they went! relaying on microsoft makes it impossible to maintain an agreement because microsoft can’t even stick by it’s own opinions let alone those of others

  63. 24/01/2012 at 16:16 namad says:

    honestly, I think all the material related to a game should just be inside the games installation directory, the installation program lets me pick what directory I want to put things in, but then it just randomly spews not only savegame data, but sometimes cache data, and profile data all over my windows installation! when it could easily just rest inside the installation directory, like it used to, and like users would assume after having gone through the hassle of selecting said directory in the first place.

    computers aren’t mobilephones

  64. 24/01/2012 at 16:18 Ultra-Humanite says:

    Sounds good to me. The status quo of randomly storing saved games, sometimes seemingly in thin air, is what is most objectionable. Just pick one spot and put them all there.

  65. 24/01/2012 at 16:55 Post-Internet Syndrome says:

    I support this.

  66. 24/01/2012 at 16:59 zaphod42 says:

    What about windows XP? It doesn’t have a users folder.

    What about Mac OS X? What about Linux?

    Ah, now we start to see why things are complicated, and why it isn’t as simple as just “DEVELOPERS STOP THIS”

    Also: Windows REALLY needs to do more for gaming. There needs to be a way to launch an application “as a game” so that windows knows not to cache the memory to disk just because you alt+tab’d for a second. It needs to know to give this program high priority and run it in fullscreen windowed mode (true fullscreen mode in windows is broken as crap). There needs to be a proper games folder, whose location is in the registry in something dependable developers can find.

    My “games” folder in windows 7 is a mess. Only a third of my games or less is actually on there, it contains games I don’t have installed anymore, and it has annoying advertisements for windows live and a bad UI.

    Its not developers fault. Windows needs to realize THAT PEOPLE USE IT AS A FREAKING GAMING PLATFORM and start helping that long.

    Guess what? There can just be a registry variable for and then all games can be saved to /Profile/Game Name/
    Then, if you want to set
    SAVEGAMES= “C:\Users\[user]\Documents\My Games\[game name]\Saves\”
    then you can. You can have that be the default too. Then, if people want to move it somewhere else, for whatever reason, they can.

    Beause, you know, these things are COMPUTERS. They can be CONFIGURED :O

  67. 24/01/2012 at 17:03 Danny252 says:

    People actually use My Documents and all that stuff? I am actually amazed – I’ve only ever thrown things into C:\ (or a folder inside that – C:\Music, C:\LabReport, …) and anything inside \Users\[user]\ (or equivalent) is blatantly ignored unless I do need to fiddle around with some config file in there

    Then again, I’m still surprised that there’s gamers who wouldn’t be able to find AppData. Maybe one day I’ll get past the misconception that “uses computers a lot” means “knows how to find the control panel”?

  68. 24/01/2012 at 17:09 Ridnarhtim says:

    I use my documents. I just moved it onto a bigger hard drive.

  69. 24/01/2012 at 17:23 JBantha says:

    You know what would be great? A MEMORY CARD! Heck yeah…

  70. 24/01/2012 at 17:35 frame says:

    Can’t stress this enough:

    %APPDATA% – its where everything’s supposed to get stored that’s associated to my user account
    %LOCALAPPDATA% for cache things, not meant to get copied to domain servers
    %PROGRAMDATA% for data shared between users

    Microsoft already defined all this.

  71. 24/01/2012 at 17:48 daf says:

    I’ve already commented in reply to several people but just wanted to say some final words.

    I fully support what John’s trying to accomplish, it can be a pain to search for were your saved games are, or not being able to use my documents for it’s intended purpose due to it being littered with a folder for every game you own.

    However, I cannot support what he chose as a good solution, putting them all under a arbitrary folder “My games” under my documents is perpetuating the problem, “My games” would be a hardcoded name which couldn’t be localized or moved out of My documents.

    More to the point, Microsoft already solved the problem by introducing a “Saved Games” folder, it defaults to “%userhome%/Saved Games” and is a special folder like My documents is. That means it can be renamed and moved at the user description while still allowing applications to find it trough the appropriate API call. Even though it’s not supported in XP, any solution should be one thinking towards the future, and who will be using XP in 1-3 years time to play the latest games?

    So I hoped I’d see RPS to advocate the better solution, by using “Saved Games” those who wanted it in my documents can move it there, those who want it in %appdata% can also move it there, those who want it inside a dropbox folder to keep it sync on several computers can also easily do so, the API call will always return the path chosen by the user, whatever that may be.

    As you can see some games already use “Saved Games” (Rage being the highest profile one I’ve seen), it is the better option, and it’s a shame microsoft didn’t kept it as a requirement for the Game for Windows program.

  72. 24/01/2012 at 17:58 Megadyptes says:

    what’s wrong with X:\whatever\Games folder\Saves, why does everything need to be centralised? Almost as pointless as that stupid games folder that windows 7 has.

  73. 24/01/2012 at 18:02 Om says:

    No. Stop being part of the problem Mr Walker

    When I have a folder for a game on my computer then I expect all material relating to that game to be *stored within that folder*. This obviously includes saves. Why on earth should I have to go rooting around My Documents when the game itself lives in C:\Program Files\Edios\Sexual Panther III?

    I shouldn’t have to roam across my computer to find saves, maps, mods, tactics (I’m looking at you FM), etc. They should be where the rest of the fecking game files are

    • 24/01/2012 at 19:14 dogsolitude_uk says:

      Um, I see what you’re saying, but consider this: do you save word documents in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office? Or graphics stuff in C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS3? Just curious! I know some people do.

      Having all your docs, whether game saves (I often think of saved games as documents generated by the game), letters, pictures and stuff in one handy place is quite useful if you need to suddenly move your gubbins to another PC.

      I had to do this recently, and after much swearing I resolved to keep all my files and stuff in an easy-to-move-place in future…

  74. 24/01/2012 at 18:18 Sivart13 says:

    Well you can tell from the clear consensus in these comments how shit like this got the way it is and is going to stay that way forever.

  75. 24/01/2012 at 18:54 Tams80 says:

    I’d prefer C:UsersusernameSaved Games. If for some reason I want to move my saves, I would like to be able to just copy one folder and I would rather not have it embedded within My Documents (or anywhere else). Perhaps a ‘Game Data’ or even ‘My Games’ for all user game data would be a better name.

    ‘Saved Games’ can be moved. Not the file path required for a program (which you don’t really want), but the location of the contents can. The problem with a program going to AppData is that as far as I know that you can’t move the location of it.

    As for conflicting with XP, as Dan Lawrence has pointed out this shouldn’t really be hard to fix.

    Edit: I removed the ‘choose where you want’ option as a user may choose somewhere inappropriate. I’ll put it back, but the default should be ‘Saved Games’ so that those who just click through don’t end up putting their game data somewhere stupid without knowing.

    This would probably require more development by the developer, but I’m guessing once you have method to allow it, it can be applied to any game.

  76. 24/01/2012 at 19:07 dogsolitude_uk says:

    Now let me name my saves.

    Hovering over filenames like “Outer Sanctuary 2012-01-09 17-78″ to see a tiny thumbnail screenshot appear in the game load interface screen does *not* help me much at all, especially if there are fifty of the damned things, and especially if it’s an old game I haven’t touched in years.

    Filenames like “Sneaking through hospital 2 get Gravi”, or “Completed Mages Guild Quest Line” are much more helpful. Especially if it’s an RPG game that doesn’t allow you to easily differentiate between different character saves without using a third-party doodah.

    I’m looking at you, Bethesda. And you know it.

  77. 24/01/2012 at 19:14 Jahandar says:

    ~/.gamename/saves

    oh wait, are we talking windows only?

    Joking aside, I prefer a simple saved game folder inside the games install folder, its simple, the most compatable across OSes and OS versions, and most importantly it doesn’t fill up my space-limited OS drive with saved games. I want those on the storage drive/partition where I …store things.

  78. 24/01/2012 at 19:24 londiste says:

    first, i have cursed the mess with savegames pretty much every time i have reinstalled operating system on my computer (which happens very rarely). the problem is – i have 250+ games in steam, a bunch in origin, a few in most of the dd platforms plus a cupboard full of older games. recently i went through and deleted a large part of the save games i had (from between 150-200 games), trust me when i say this – finding and managing all those is pure hell.

    i’ve lost a bit of faith in humanity after reading through the comments on both the story from yesterday and this one. note that my post in primarily windows-centric.

    as (i think) second comment in the previous story said, microsoft has actually done their homework and have said where they would like developers to put the save game files. and no, c:users is not hardcoded, there are path variables in place for it. backing up user profile is something that even computer illiterate people should be able to achieve, if you don’t like this on c:, there are simple methods to move it etc.

    so, the location that microsoft has officially recommended for savegames would:
    - hold all the savegames in one place
    - allow for simple backup
    - is not a hardcoded location but accessed via environmental variables
    - can be changed by user simply and quickly

    —

    now, let’s look at some proposed alternatives:

    1. saving games to install directories:
    - it would require access to these locations and as windows installs games under %programfiles% by default, games (even the ones written in the last few years) are going to be surprised when uac asks them to say what the hell are they trying to do. (and i must mention that contrary to popular belief, uac does not suck. besides, if you are smart enough to go without it, you are able to turn it off very easily)
    - backing these up and restoring those will be very annoying as you have to find the savegames one-by-one in a location that is probably not very easily accessed.

    2. providing a save location:
    - you really want to do that each time you install something?
    - if you use a predefined variable for it, what exactly is wrong with the location designated for exactly that purpose by the operating system (i.e. my documentsmy games)?

    3… oh, i stopped reading and thinking by this point.

  79. 24/01/2012 at 19:25 londiste says:

    btw, this is my “my documents” folder (only savegames-related parts of it). do you want to guess how convenient is is to find the 3 folders with actual _documents_ in them among this :)

    ├ 4A Games
    │ └ Metro 2033
    ├ Alpha Protocol
    ├ ANNO 1404 Venice
    ├ Anomaly Warzone Earth
    ├ APOX
    ├ Atari
    │ └ The Chronicles of Riddick – Assault on Dark Athena
    ├ Battlefield 3
    ├ BFBC2
    ├ Bioshock
    ├ Bioshock2
    ├ BioWare
    │ ├ Dragon Age
    │ ├ Dragon Age 2
    │ ├ Dragon Age 2 Demo
    │ ├ Mass Effect
    │ └ Mass Effect 2
    ├ CARS
    ├ Codemasters
    │ └ GRID
    ├ Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars
    ├ Crayon Physics Deluxe
    ├ Criterion Games
    │ └ Need for Speed(TM) Hot Pursuit
    ├ Deus Ex
    ├ Deus Ex – Invisible War
    ├ Diablo III
    ├ Duke Nukem Forever
    ├ Duke Nukem Forever Demo
    ├ Dungeon Siege
    ├ Dungeon Siege LOA
    ├ EA Games
    │ ├ Dead Space 2
    │ └ Mirror’s Edge
    ├ Eden Games
    │ └ Test Drive Unlimited 2
    ├ Egosoft
    │ └ X3AP
    ├ Eidos
    │ └ Batman Arkham Asylum
    ├ Electronic Arts
    │ └ Dead Space
    ├ FIFA 12
    ├ Gaslamp Games
    │ └ Dungeons of Dredmor
    ├ Hard Reset Demo
    ├ Hitman Blood Money
    ├ LucasArts
    │ └ Star Wars The Force Unleashed 2
    ├ Max Payne 2 Savegames
    ├ Max Payne Savegames
    ├ My Games
    │ ├ beyond the sword
    │ ├ Borderlands
    │ ├ BulletStorm
    │ ├ civilization iv colonization
    │ ├ CrimeCraft
    │ ├ Dawn of War 2
    │ ├ Dawn of War II – Retribution
    │ ├ DiRT3
    │ ├ Dungeon Siege III
    │ ├ Fallout3
    │ ├ FalloutNV
    │ ├ Gas Powered Games
    │ │ ├ Supreme Commander 2
    │ │ ├ Supreme Commander 2 Demo
    │ │ └ Supreme Commander Forged Alliance
    │ ├ Gears of War for Windows
    │ ├ Oblivion
    │ ├ Overlord II
    │ ├ Reckoning
    │ ├ Red Faction Guerrilla
    │ ├ sid meier’s civilization iv
    │ ├ Skyrim
    │ ├ Sonic Generations Demo
    │ ├ SquareEnix
    │ │ └ Supreme Commander 2
    │ ├ Terraria
    │ ├ Titan Quest
    │ ├ Titan Quest – Immortal Throne
    │ ├ Ubisoft
    │ │ └ R6Vegas2
    │ ├ UnderGarden
    │ ├ Unreal Tournament 3
    │ ├ UnrealEngine3
    │ │ └ AlienBreed2AssaultGame
    │ └ Warlords
    ├ Nemesys
    ├ Neverwinter Nights 2
    ├ NFS SHIFT
    ├ NFS Undercover
    ├ NFSTR
    ├ Nitro Games
    │ └ PiratesOfBlackCove
    ├ OnLive App
    ├ OpenTTD
    ├ Orcs Must Die
    ├ Osmos
    ├ Overlord
    ├ Petroglyph
    │ └ GuardiansOfGraxia
    ├ Prince of Persia
    ├ Red Alert 3
    ├ Rockstar Games
    │ ├ GTA IV
    │ └ L.A. Noire
    ├ Saved Games
    │ └ Jamestown
    ├ SavedGames
    │ ├ DirchieKartWorldTour
    │ └ Solar2
    ├ SEGA
    │ └ Renegade Ops
    ├ SEGA Mega Drive Classics
    ├ SHIFT 2 UNLEASHED
    ├ Square Enix
    │ ├ Batman Arkham Asylum GOTY
    │ └ Just Cause 2
    ├ StarCraft II
    ├ Telltale Games
    │ ├ Beyond the Alley of the Dolls
    │ ├ tales of monkey island – chapter 1
    │ ├ The City That Dares Not Sleep
    │ ├ The Penal Zone
    │ ├ The Tomb of Sammun-Mak
    │ └ They Stole Maxs Brain
    ├ Test Drive Unlimited
    ├ The Witcher
    ├ TwinSector
    ├ VVVVVV
    ├ WB Games
    │ └ WB Games\Batman Arkham City
    ├ Witcher 2
    ├ Wizards of the Coast
    │ └ Wizards of the Coast\Magic the Gathering
    ├ Xenonauts
    ├ Zombie Shooter 2 Demo Saves
    ├ Zombie Shooter 2 Saves
    └ ZombieShooter Saves

  80. 24/01/2012 at 19:27 Shadram says:

    I agree with your choice, Mr Walker.

  81. 24/01/2012 at 19:31 Brun says:

    Windows 7 appears to have a “%USERPROFILE%\Saved Games” folder. THAT seems like the most logical place to put things.

  82. 24/01/2012 at 19:42 Demievil says:

    Only by creating a true save-game union can the format be saved.

  83. 24/01/2012 at 19:51 damunzy says:

    Gah. While I welcome the call to standardize I don’t really want my saved games in My Documents/Documents folder. I’d choose: %USERPROFILE%\Games\

    And while we’re at it- Let’s get Microsoft to create a standard environment variables called %GAMES% and maybe even %GAMESAVES%. I’d also like to see the default for %GAMES% set to C:\Games.

    Oh, and let’s change C:\Program Files\ to C:\Programs. I know that some other languages (non-English) have not had to deal with a stupid space in the path name since 2001 with XP!

  84. 24/01/2012 at 19:52 Arglebargle says:

    Outside of a few foibles as to the location of the saves, the important thing is that the saves get put in one place by default. No more ‘where are my saves’ Magickal Mystery Tour. Ideally, there should be an install option in games of ‘default’ for that single place, with a choice of player defined locations as an alternative.

    While there may be reasonable arguments as to the placement of the default saves folder, at a certain point the arguments begin to resemble those of ‘how many angels can dance on the head of a pin’.

    • 25/01/2012 at 00:06 RobF says:

      Yeah, very much this. The point isn’t just the where, it’s actually getting up and putting all the saves in one place.

      We can go round in circles forever and a day with reasons *not* to do something and seemingly are. Well done, we can type comments. Now, what *can* we do with this to help make it better?

      So if it’s a compatibility problem and things would on a technical level be better off in userthing/game saves or whatever Vista/Win7 call it, fine, let’s call it that then and just get on with it. Have a fallback for XP and we’re done. That way, huzzah, we actually have somewhere where all the saves go and we can move on and everyone ends up happy.

      As long as the saves are visible, easily movable/backupablle, findable, we’re good. It’s 2 clicks to documents or 3 to save games. They’re both good. As long as we’re clearly labelling things and being somewhere faintly obvious and not obfuscating, it’s fine.

      I still think Documents makes more sense from a user point of view as Documents is basically “stuff” to them, not *documents* but if it’ll shut all the arguing up, let’s go with save games unless there’s a magic tech fairy reason not to (Flash or whatevs) but if Save Games is easier/better, so mote it be.

      Or we could just sit here and talk about how we can’t do anything about anything and nothing will ever change because umm BECAUSE. But that’s rubbish.

  85. 24/01/2012 at 19:57 kraii says:

    Someone has probably already said it but, I’m too lazy to read 5 pages of comments and I want to dip my oar in.

    This please:

    %A_STANDARD_ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE_THAT_RELATES_TO_GAME_STUFF%/
    yourlovelygamename

    Then default that variable to c:/Users/bobby/MY AWESOME GAMES or whatever the general consensus is

  86. 24/01/2012 at 20:33 Scandalon says:

    I’m a bit late to the party, but I would like to direct your attention to MASGAU – while the app itself is rather useful (and is being worked on to be cross-platform), he’s also freely sharing the game save location/definitions people are contributing – if everyone would pitch in, our lives would be easier.

  87. 24/01/2012 at 20:38 DigitalSignalX says:

    For a developer to take this RPS initiative seriously, you need to invent a small approval logo to stick on game posters/boxes along with the million other little logos.

  88. 24/01/2012 at 20:43 Flavioli says:

    I should mention, since this was an obstacle when I had to write installers, that the “Documents” folder is named differently for Windows OSes before Vista, including XP (which is still very commonly used among gamers, including myself). In XP, for example, it’s “My Documents”, ie %UserProfile%/My Documents.

    I should also note that there is no environment variable for the Documents folder like there is for the current user folder (%UserProfile%). The best case would be for the folder to be Windows OS-independent, something like %UserProfile%/Saved Games, as was suggested here. Otherwise you are leaving unnecessary room for oversights.

  89. 24/01/2012 at 21:29 rockman29 says:

    I think the the [USER]/Documents is the best way to go. It also then compartmentalizes saves by user.

    I think it should be a feature of Windows though also, so it’s also not hardcoded and it just goes to wherever this Windows feature designates. I would be fine if that were the default though.

  90. 24/01/2012 at 22:24 ericks says:

    I agree with the Saved Games folder, but, you know, they could just like… ask you where you want your saves.

    Then everyone’s happy.

  91. 24/01/2012 at 22:28 Halberd says:

    I agree. Sorta.

    JUST NOT ‘C:\Users\[user]\Documents\My Games\[game name]\Saves\’

    Instead: C:\Users\[user]\Saved Games\[game name]\Saves\

    Makes way more sense.

    It’s one of those global folder things on windows 7, which you can move to any folder, so that when something looks to the global ‘Saved Games’ thing, it is directed to where ever you put it.
    ie.
    D:\[user]\Saved Games\[game name]\Saves\

  92. 24/01/2012 at 23:08 gregsaw says:

    No. The documents folder is for documents, not game saves, configuration files, or cache. Microsoft created a Saved Games folder for a reason.

  93. 24/01/2012 at 23:22 larsiusprime says:

    While you guys work this out, I will say that at Level Up Labs we made it so that our game itself makes it easy to find your save files.

    In Defender’s Quest, the main save menu has a big “config” button that takes you directly to the stupid place Adobe AIR forces us to save the users’ save data.

    Better than nothing :P

  94. 25/01/2012 at 00:06 Ropashot says:

    Sorry Mr Walker but that is an awful place to store games for many reasons ranging from technically to user friendliness, to many reasons to list so to avoid this turning into an essay so I’ll only skim over that and your suggestion makes you part of the problem.

    First off storing different parts of something in various places is bad, when it comes to this “all eggs in one basket” is good for many reasons, backing up a game, formatting OS, OS drive crashing etc. Do you really want to run around backing up save games or copying them over multiple times because you changed something with the OS or it’s drive? That sounds like actual work, a chore someone should be paid to do.

    Which brings me to you wanting them stored not only on the OS drive but on the OS drive in a location defined by an OS environment variable. So now you can add potential future compatibility problems to the list of cons too. This exact thinking of yours has caused countless man hours at work because eventually a new version of Windows will break it and old software, in this case games, will at best need jumping through hoops and work around just to get them working again. Also to expand on this a little if you searched you can find modern games where using an environment variable causes problems for a variety of reasons, from Windows itself to the game or simply because the user has edit this variable by changing the location of that folder.

    There is no better way to handle this than keeping things simple and self contained, relying on the OS or the OS drive as little as possible by keeping the saves in the games own folder. This is something that’s worked problem free for ages.

    As mentioned you are part of the problem, wanting to use some strange location to store parts of something splitting it up over location you think are good, not only is that bad to begin with but the location you chose is also bad. I don’t mean to be rude or offensive when I say this so please don’t take it to harshly, though it’s people like you wanting to reinvent the wheel to how they see fit, clearly without even having put much thought into it. You are just like all those developers you complain about putting parts of the game in strange locations, overcomplicating things which is always bad.

    Why avoid the sensible, time tested method.

    • 25/01/2012 at 01:25 Durkonkell says:

      Firstly, if I want to back up my saved games, it is easiest if I can just go to My Documents, copy the My Games folder and paste it onto my backup drives. If games wrote save games to their program installation folders, I’d have to go around copying them game by game for everything I have installed.

      Secondly, Vista and 7 won’t generally let programs write to the C: Program Files directory unless they are executed with administrator rights.

      Additional: To address the various people saying that this is a terrible idea due to stuff cluttering up their Documents directory: I have 25 different folders under My Documents for save games and other game data. I would certainly prefer to have just one folder instead, and have all the EA Games / Electronic Arts / Separate folders for every Bioware game / THREE folders for Arma 2 stuck in there instead. 25 folders of non-documents, plus save files strewn across various other random and inaccessible parts of my hard drive or just the one folder of non-documents?

      It really is the best solution for user accessibility. Start it!

  95. 25/01/2012 at 00:10 pupsikaso says:

    FFS John! WTF? A game’s saved games go into the game’s folder! The folder where the GAME IS! Not into some documents somewhere on a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DRIVE than the game is!!!

  96. 25/01/2012 at 00:39 Nixitur says:

    You know what would REALLY solve the issue? If during installation, you can choose the save game folder. You can already choose where you’re installing the game, so why not choose where you store the save games, too?
    I don’t WANT my save games to be on C:/. I use Windows XP, my save games could, without a problem, stay in the game folder. When I need to trash C:/ because of Windows having problems, I don’t want to lose all my save games. I don’t want to make C:/ huge “just in case”, I want C:/ to stay small and manageable, only having Windows and a few essential programs on it.
    Granted, most people don’t use XP anymore, but that’s exactly why I say: Let us freaking choose! If I want all my save games to be on my external harddrive, then that should be my choice.

  97. 25/01/2012 at 01:26 Grayman says:

    Stay out of My Documents. While I like to keep my things elsewhere I do not want automatic data put in there.

  98. 25/01/2012 at 11:34 jmtd says:

    PLEASE no more “My Bullshit” brain damage. (The possessive adjective is facing the wrong way anyway, it should be “YOUR Documents”…). %USERPROFILE%/Games is fine. (Something w/o spaces in is pragmatically a good idea.)

  99. 26/01/2012 at 01:59 Creeker says:

    Don’t put stuff in my documents folder. It screws up my auto backup script when it has to deal with gigs of game stuff when all I wanted was my letters and tax stuff in there. Seriously, so much stuff gets dumped in the documents folder by programs I’ve abandoned it and store my real documents in another folder now. There’s been a perfectly good ‘saved games’ folder in my profile since vista. How about we use that?

  100. 02/02/2012 at 13:22 grimskin says:

    afaik Windows already have special folder for saved games (since Vista or may be even XP).
    in Win7 it’s C:\Users\[user]\Saved Games\. Problem is that very few developers use it.
    And now you’re actually try to make the problem bigger by suggesting another non-standart place for saved games.

Comment on this story

XHTML: Allowed code: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Respond to our gibber

Read our finest words

Unlearning To Share: The Industry Hatred Of Human Nature

Search for clues

Play indie, mods, demos

Browse the archive