What's funny is that I've been using Windows for eons and had never even seen nor heard of that directory before ever. I also have "show all hidden files" enabled, and lo and behold - there it was. When I saw it I felt like a doofus for having never noticed it before. :) I mean, if I was someones grandma it would make sense, but I'm a gearhead so it was kind of embarrassing in a small way that I don't truly give a crap about but still... ;)

I'll wait for another update or two if I can hold off that long and if they don't sort it out by then I'll just use a junction point in Windows to take care of it and free up the space if I need it before then. :)

It reminds me of the accursed "AppData" folder included in later versions of Windows. It's yet another hidden folder that shouldn't be needed. I've lost track of how many games bury their save files in there. Just put the save in either the game's own directory or in the Documents folder!

Computers are multi-user these days so it makes sense to have per-user game saves/configuration, but it'd be nice if there was both an official standard location for them *and* all companies/developers knew of and used these locations universally *and* Microsoft did not move the location from one version of Windows to the next. :)

Since the Documents folder has been around since the Vista era, I think it would make sense if all Windows games made a copy there. But I still would like them to keep the save in the game's own folder! :P

For some odd reason a lot of saves got switched to my videos folder, and they were even non gog games. Lets just count this one as user error, cause quite frankly I can’t think of any other way they could have moved other than me moving it...

In the long run though, I agree Gog Galaxy needs a save backup feature and a feature where you can change where your save files are located.

"My Documents" has been around since at least Windows XP, if not earlier versions of Windows. What's annoying is that some games put themselves into a "Save Games" subdirectory of that, others put themselves directly in the My Documents dir, some into "SaveGames" (no space), others make their company name or publisher's name a subdir then put their game inside that directly or inside a subdir of that with the game name, others put it in Appdata/Local/Roaming or whatever with absolutely no consistency whatsoever.

Even if there was an official standard declared by Microsoft (maybe there is, I dunno), unless there is some kind of active enforcement such as a certification program that disallows you to sell your game until it meets quality controls specified by Microsoft or whatever - then companies will still do whatever random stuff they decide to go with because there is no accountability for it.

Same thing with the directory the game actually installs into too. I've had many games from EA put themselves into different directories. "EA", "EA Games", "EAGames" or Ubisoft games putting themselves into "Ubisoft", "UbiSoft", "Ubi" or some other variant. They can't even quality control the directory they will use for all of their own games!

Yeah, "My Documents" was around in XP, but it wasn't until Vista where it became a real folder and not just something buried under a hidden "Documents and Settings" folder.

But it would be nice if there was some kind of standard could be reached for game saves. It's annoying always having to refer back to PCGamingWiki to see if the game save location is listed there!

There are custom OS variables that game companies should use instead of hard coding explicity file/directory paths during installation. I'm not a Windows developer so I don't remember what all of the directory variables are but it is probably something like %DOCUMENTS% or something like that. If they use that variable the OS will expand it to the correct location for that OS release. That should work at least back to Windows XP and possibly earlier to go into the right location.

Lots of game developers do not seem to do this however.

In Linux there is a standardized directory structure that everything is supposed to follow. It is documented in the "File Hierarchy Standard" document (version 2.3 last I checked) and goes directory by directory through the entire operating system filesystem layout describing what each directory is for in detail. Most Linux distributions adhere to the FHS 2.3 very strictly and only diverge from the standard by human error or for particular specific technical reasons to solve a problem at hand or similar. But that's only what is within a distribution's own control. 3rd party packagers and upstream software developers often have never even heard of the FHS standard let alone read it or understand it, and many of those have no real UNIX/Linux background so it's just an esoteric document they may not even know exists. The downside is that lots of software both open source and proprietary built and/or packages by 3rd parties other than the OS vendor end up not following the FHS standard either, and you end up with a situation similar to how it is in Windows which is everyone making their own rules and not even doing the same thing consistently all the time. There are no consequences or accountability for it either other than public whipping in mailing lists and forums. :)

This, plus games should really ask for savegames path, like they do for the installation.

Okay, but the combination of galaxy and the gog installers should know what files were plunked down, and not unplunk other files without some kind of user action.

I haven't lost any of my saves on any single-player games for probably 15 years, since I manually back up my save games, which is as simple as a copy+paste. The only semi-exception has been when a game bug caused the game not to autosave properly (I can't exactly back up what hasn't been saved).

I would never use any save backup feature of Steam, GOG Galaxy, or any other client. Then I'd be dependent on that client not screwing up.