Hey there felow GOG gamers :D

As most of you may already know, the most recent update brought cloud saves to the Galaxy platform, which is a HUGE improvment to the software imo. But as of now, it's only limited to a very retricted set of games :( sadface.

There are plenty of games available here. Almost 2000 titles.
"Well that's a lot !" you may say; and I'm pretty sure the GOG team thinks the same.
Not all of those games may benefit from cloud saves, but if we are to wait for cloud saves to be supported on our favourite game one day, i dare guess "soon" isn't the appropriate time we might see it coming.

Now listen: what if we helped GOG ? :D

If we can identify, for every game available on here, which files correspond to the save files and where to find them in the game directory, and gather all this data in one place, wouldn't that be of great help to the GOG team ?

What do you think ? Is that realistically feasible ? Would you help ?

EDIT: databases like this already exist and can be found on PC Gaming Wiki or integrated to MikeMaximus' Game Backup Monitor :)

Will gog help motivate me with wallet amounts? :D

If GOG asked, and provided a formalized way to report the information? Yes.

If a random forumite decided to start this up, but GOG wasn't interested and ignored the information gathered anyway, making the whole exercise a colossal waste of everybody's time? No.

Contact GOG. Try to work something out. Make sure it will actually make a difference to them. Then, and only then, will it make sense for anyone to start doing this.

Yeah of course, we're not starting anything RIGHT NOW.
This topic is mostly to gather attention on the subject and see if anyone would be willing to help. If people find it interesting enough and are motivated, we'll contact the team and see if we can actually be of any help to them. It has to start somewhere and I figured I'd ask here first ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Save.files will be in:
Game install location.
My document.
%appdata%

You would probably know other than dependency on clientware.

I would also add, one of the reasons for buying here is that they get a game running on new os's, which would include the save system, so they should already have a very good idea of where these go/what they look like.

Regardless of whether GOG would use the information, it would be helpful for anyone else trying to find the saves for making a personal backup, or troubleshooting a save file. I've noticed questions about finding saves files for games sometimes remain unanswered in the individual game forums, even after several replies of attempts to find them. Sometimes I don't find them even though I (think I) am quite familiar with scouring obscure system files on a Mac. I don't consider it unreasonable to maintain a listing games and their save file locations.

I think it could be simplified by first listing the typical locations to search on each OS. Then have one group of games that do use those typical locations, and a second group of games that deviate and store their saves in some other location or manner (f.e. multiple files in multiple folders, within the executable, etc.). To keep the listings focused, I'd say have two different threads, one for each group. Also include the listing of typical locations in the first post in each.

It might become more complicated than that, but I think that would be a good start for the frequently asked question of locating the save for a specific game. Quite often people ask because they have already looked in the typical or obvious locations, and other times because the typical location became different for a new version of an OS.

EDIT: …assuming there isn't already a (lost) thread maintaining this somewhere here…

EDIT 2: It'd be nice for Galaxy to provide a link to the folder with the saves for a game, like it sometimes does to the manual for a game. (Mostly for troubleshooting purposes.) I wouldn't be surprised they already know where the saves are kept for every game. But if they do know and don't figure out an easy way for themselves to share their knowledge, then obviously it'll have to be researched individually every time someone asks that question in the forums for a specific game. (…as happens now…)

The premise behind the OPs idea is good I think but when I read your message I have to agree with you that in order to make such an effort viable, it should be organized with a representative from GOG. They might already have the information and don't need people to do it perhaps, and it just takes time to do all the work and quality testing internally before they bless other games with the feature for example, which could mean other people independently doing this could be wasting their time and effort on something already known.

It would be nice if a Galaxy engineer or manager could perhaps comment on the viability of this and what approach might be best if it would be something helpful to GOG, whether it is posting lists of things in the forums, via mantis.gog.com or something else, and avoiding duplication of effort by multiple parties somehow.

They should start by checking PCGamingWiki.

This^

Why reinvent the wheel? Assuming Gog doesn't already have all the necessary data I've found PC Gaming Wiki to be excellent for that kind of thing and you can probably find the save location of most of the games available here already without any needless digging around.

Well, there's also MikeMaximus' Game Backup Monitor, which does support quite a few GOG Games out of the box.

I third this. There are no reasons to build a database, when it already exists.
Still, GOG should probably manual check if the data in PCGamingWiki are correct and updated.
It's very time consuming, but I guess some day all 2000 games on GOG will have save cloud (with some exceptions, like games that store data in the windows registry... there's gamesave manager for this, though).

I didn't know at all about these websites/tools ! Those are really interesting and seem very active !
The first one is crowd-sourced and the other one open-source, so the data is fully available, can be completed by anyone and that's just perfect.

Maybe what we can do is inform GOG these initiatives exist, and encourage them to use the two when they will search for save folders.
In the meantime i will add my own games save file directory to MikeMaximus' database :p

I just sent a suggestion through the contact form. It was bit long and wrapped up my suggestion and yours, so i'll spare you the repetition.
I'll get you updated when i get an answer :)

I've got an answer from the the GOG Team ! Here is question, followed by their answer: And yesterday; almost one month later, i got an answer:

Hello,

Please apologize the delayed reply, I sent an email to my colleagues, but I was stuck in email limbo. I bumped them, and after some considerations we aren't 100% sure if we will be able to enlist your help. Please be sure that I know where to find you ;) if we decide to ask for help, but for now I can't give any promises. :)

Regardless, thank you VERY much for offering to help. :)

Regards,
Firek

I'll keep everyone updated on this topic if i get more information :) but i think we can get back to sleep for now !