Does anyone else get annoyed that games dump their user files into your Documents folder? I've abandoned using Documents for Documents because it's not mine any more. What I don't get is why games do this. Modern Windows has a literal "Saved Games" folder but so few use it. It also has an "AppData" folder for, you know, application data.

This isn't rocket science yet game devs seem to think all the files made by their games are documents. That's just dumb.

That annoys the hell out of me. Searching for the save folder of a game is like undertaking the quest for the Holy Grail. In old games, the saves folder was usually in the game's folder itself. Later, a lot of games tried to use the Documents folder which, while weird, was still OK. Now, all hell has broken loose. It's either in documents or x:\users\user\Appdata\Local or Roaming (hell I even found one game on LocalLow), or, in Strike Suit Zero's case, in the game's folder as a throwaway save file. Make up your mind, dammit!

Haha...so true looking for game saves is like searching for the lost treasure of El Dorado for some of the games. The most logical place would be My Games folder which is still inside Documents but atleast it is organized but very few games make use of it and the rest are all over the place.

The part that annoys me is that while a user specific folder existed from 1995 or so, game developers still used arbitrary folders for the saves and/or settings.
If you are in a multiuser environment, the %UserProfile% folder should be the one used, since it is user specific. In a multiuser, multimachine environment, the %UserProfile% folder is also synced between machines.
If you are in a single user environment, using the %UserProfile% folder doesn't give you any drawbacks either.

But instead of doing that, they decide that the installation folder is the proper one.

So yes, I do mind the practices of the game developers, though not the ones you mind.

Yes, it annoys me that My Documents folder has been invaded and taken over by my games. This has forced me to use another folder for my documents. But because I love games so much, I will not take action against them for this...

So if game devs all used the Saved Games folder then everyone would be happy, right? I will take action! I will continue to whine on the internet until my demands are met!

And if that doesn't work, will you fart in their general direction?

I don't see why it wouldn't work... But yes. Yes I will.

I totally agree, the Documents folder becomes a mess! (p.s: I renamed it as "MyData" because there is just everything in it)
Also, you never know where your savegames are gonna end up, so you always have to search for them or check some info.

Why the dev don't simply ask you for a custom savegame folder at setup??

I was so happy when they introduced the game folder. Years later I have about a hundred games installed on my machine, a lot of them are modern, but there is only 5 entries in the game folder.

Another gripe: Games that do no shut down their sound when put in the background.

Another fun thing certain games (e.g. Machinarium) do is save games as Flash cookies--so if you clear those in the name of online security, you delete your saved games by accident.

Do bear in mind that only the Windows NT line was ever properly multiuser. Legacy Windows never was, and until Windows 2000, the NT line was rarely targeted by game developers.

If memory serves me right it still had separate folders for each user, even if it didn't properly control user access.

I don't mind it when a game saves in the Documents folder, but I wish game developers would give players' a choice of where they want the game to be saved. Just a choice of the Documents folder or the game folder itself would be useful. But it really drives me crazy when game devs bury the game saves deep within the hidden "Application Data" folders! Ugh!

Bugs the hell out of me. I'm someone who likes to reformat the computer every now and again, and I like to back up my saves on disc / drive / thumb / card too. I've noticed that it's gotten annoying as hell to track some of these things down! Keep them in a subfolder in the game file (most do this) - the worst offender I found lately was for a game that only had one set of saves; wanting to replay it but not wanting to "lose" my original set of saves (because I'm hoping the game gets a sequel that plays off my original choices) I thought I'd track them down and back them up. They were buried in a subfolder of a HIDDEN fileset somewhere in USERS! Ahhharraghghgghg!