Can someone explain why

[goodwoodrw]

Most game I have purchase place the game saves and scenarios in the main game folder, there some game that place them Mydoc/games/ etc etc why?

[RyanCrierie]

Blame Windows.

The "new" standard is to put them in the user's My Documents folder.

It also makes modding a bitch.

[Grim.Reaper]

Typically older games (or some games created by smaller development firms) stored user data along with the program files, which nowadays is not a good practice because you want to separate executable type files versus files that get updated/changed such as settings, mods, saves, etc. The program files folder is locked down by default and can cause issues when trying to write to files within it, unless you give more admin-like privileges which you really don't want to do all the time. Some companies will get around this issue by placing the game files in a custom folder outside of the program files folder (like root of c:\) where its less restrictive and data files can more easily be stored. Another reason for using a My Documents folder is the fact easier to backup your data since some folks don't backup program folders (unless doing full disk mirroring or something like that). My Documents is a common folder that backup software usually auto backs up by default.

In theory, much of the game's files (non executing) should be stored in the AppData folder (its a folder for games/application related specific data), especially files that don't change much. The reason many companies use the My Documents instead is simply the fact the user easily can find the My Documents folder where many people have a hard time finding the AppData folder since usually hidden and buried where the common user can't easily find.

[goodwoodrw]

When I posted I was thinking Warplan, just finding files is a pain. There no good reason, so why don't they keep all the files in the main game folder, is there any excuse for games to do any different. I would be interested in hearing from one of the small devs that do it.

[Grim.Reaper]

ORIGINAL: goodwoodrw

When I posted I was thinking Warplan, just finding files is a pain. There no good reason, so why don't they keep all the files in the main game folder, is there any excuse for games to do any different. I would be interested in hearing from one of the small devs that do it.

There are good reasons, per the reasons I stated. If you go by the standards of the Operating System, executable files should be in the program files folder by default and program changeable files in the AppData or My Documents folder. When you attempt to go against the standards and place executables and data files in program files, you can run into issues without proper access rights. Of course you don't have to agree with the reasons, but they are reasonable reasons:)

Certainly the company can choose to go against the operating system standard and store the files outside of the program folders but then makes things less standard...

[RyanCrierie]

ORIGINAL: Grim.Reaper
Certainly the company can choose to go against the operating system standard and store the files outside of the program folders but then makes things less standard...

The standard for a long, long time was:

A folder like:

C:\Game\Saved Games
C:\Game\Data
C:\Game\Art

which made modding easy and worked.

But everything had to change because apparently users are too stupid to be trusted, and we now must all bow down before the new "appdata" standard; which shits data all over the place; instead of in a single known folder.

[Grim.Reaper]

ORIGINAL: RyanCrierie

ORIGINAL: Grim.Reaper
Certainly the company can choose to go against the operating system standard and store the files outside of the program folders but then makes things less standard...

The standard for a long, long time was:

A folder like:

C:\Game\Saved Games
C:\Game\Data
C:\Game\Art

which made modding easy and worked.

But everything had to change because apparently users are too stupid to be trusted, and we now must all bow down before the new "appdata" standard; which shits data all over the place; instead of in a single known folder.

Well times have changed and threats are much more nowadays whether we like it or not, can’t fault operating systems for trying to make things safer....although I will agree nothing is totally safe anyways. As for appdata, it is not very structured but the good developers include ways within their games to help the user find it,. For example some games will put a link within the help or about screen where the user can click and windows explorer will pop up taking the user to the location.

In any event just like anything everyone entitled to their opinions so easy to see all points of view

[Lobster]

You can put a short cut on the desk top for the folder that is stored in Documents.

[demyansk]

This always gets me confused each time when I try to install mods in Panzer Korps. I mess it up all the time with the two different locations.

[ringoblood]

You and me both, pain in the butt.

[cpdeyoung]

I know there are very good reasons for separating executables from data. The world is less friendly for computer programs and their users,

but

There really is no excuse for the installer program to not tell you where it just got done copying files. It knows exactly where the data is.

For that matter every game we buy knows where its data is too, and it should have this info up front. In fact it should have clickable links to go to each folder in Explorer, not some arcane Unity file control.

Programmers take note : this is an issue for your players, and you are wasting a lot of support time which you could avoid with a few line of code.

Chuck

[Grim.Reaper]

Agree and some games do have the in game links....totally agree that all games should have it. So simple to add....

[RyanCrierie]

From a stack exchange thread:

18

Looking at my disk, I have

1 game that saves savegames in %APPDATA%
1 game that saves savegames in %LOCALAPPDATA%
2 games that save "other stuff" in %APPDATA%
3 games that save "other stuff" in %LOCALAPPDATA%
2 games that save savegames in %UserProfile%\Saved Games
21 Games that save savegames and loads of other stuff in %UserProfile%\Documents, not counting...
15 Games that save savegames and loads of other stuff in %UserProfile%\Documents\My Games

It's insane at this point.

[cpdeyoung]

@RyanCrierie

I think that is why the game itself should make the folder locations available with links.

If Load and Save dialogs used Explorer like "common controls" rather than game engine controls it would also help I think.

Chuck

[RyanCrierie]

One of the reasons given was that the older (default) install folder for many games was:

...

%ProgramFiles%\<gamename>.

%ProgramFiles% is meant to be modified only during installation/deinstallation of programs.

Since Windows XP/Vista applications writing to that directory need to be run as administrator, to make it harder for say, a virus to replace word.exe with an infected version of word.exe. Another reason is that Microsoft wanted multiple users to be able to use the same programs without having to share their personal files, in this case savegames. There are other/better ways to address these issues, but they were not chosen at the time.

Personally, I always changed the install folder for my Matrix games to

C:\MatrixGames\GameName

To keep everything all in one neat place.