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The Value of Your Saved Game
N'Gai and the LevelUp blog take on an interesting thought experiment: which is more valuable, the $60 game you bought at the store, or the save-game file sitting on your console's hard drive? The article explores the various ways save-games can be backed up, and calculates how much the average saved game is worth based on your age and income. "Our back of the envelope calculations clearly demonstrate that in all but one of the categories, the save file is more valuable than the game itself, and ought to be backed up regularly in recognition of that value. And that's without even attempting to figure out the worth of any intangibles: the frustration of having to replay familiar levels and challenges just to get back to the halfway mark; the attachment that you may have built up to the character; any customization and personalization you did the first time through; the loss of unlocks, user-generated content and other valuable elements." I have a massive save-game file for Oblivion that I would be very distraught to lose. Any saved-games you've been carting around or protecting over the months/years?
Games are about the journey, and the ending. Your save file increases in value until just before complete it... After that, the file is nearly worthless.
The exception to this is open-ended games, of course... There is no end to those. Even Oblivion never 'ends' because you can continue doing minor quests after you beat the game. The Sims is another obvious sandbox game that had savefiles that only increase in value... Until a new version of the game (not expansion) is released. At that point, the saves are just as worthless as the ones from games that end.
Any game that you quit before the end, for whatever reason, has no little or no value as well. The effort to get back into the game after a 2 month break is better spent re-playing the beginning and getting better at the game before you get to the stopping point.
And one last remark: Games are entertainment, not work. Playing them produces nothing of value and is only useful for relieving stress or boredom.
BTW, I'm an avid gamer with a couple decades experience.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Like other software, the data I create is more valuable (to me) than the software I bought from the store. During the days I played Disgaea religiously, at the point where I had more than 20 hours of play, lots of bills/areas passed, many characters at least transmigrated once, the amount of time and energy put into that game alone was far more valuable than the disk itself. Far more valuable. The disk could be stolen (or exploded) by Prinnies at that point and I could go out and find a new disk. If the memory card the save game was stolen (or exploded), there is not much I could do because the only way to "replace" it would be to play the game from the start.
You see this all over technology though. The 10 million piece model is more valuable than the CAD tool program that created it. The 500 million row database with years of collected data is more valuable than the software used to serve it up. This is why backups are so important to any IT infrastructure. You want to capture and safe guard the created content, not necessarily the software that runs it.
I think most of the value is in a game that you're currently playing. Say you have played 23 hours into a 28 hour game, and you go back to play it again the next day and your hard drive crashes. You can reload the game from original media, but the save files are gone. Personally, there aren't many games that I would pick up and start over with after that kind of loss. The majority of games are the "beat it once and never play it again" variety.
With games like SimCity, I don't think the loss would be all that horrible, because replayability tends to be fairly high. I tend to get bored with any one city after a few days with that game anyway.
Or, at least the Steam service.
I have just re-installed all of my Steam powered games, but what is missing are all my saved games. Wouldn't it be great if I could add those to my Steam account, so that not only do I always have access to my games, but also my saved games? I guess it would only be necessary to store the last saved game, but this could really be a useful feature.
Valve? Anyone?
Any fool can talk, but it takes a wise man to listen.
Did we forget games are for fun, not for work? You can equate the "value" of your time as if it was work to playing games. If you lose a saved game, then the game should still be fun if you play it again. If not, you stop playing. Not like you're being forced to.
When I was in MOS school a buddy in the barracks had a Play Station and FF7. He gave me the first slot on the memory stick, so when ever I wanted to save, I just hit the OK button over and over. Well, after he moved out I was hanging out with another guy who had just moved in. He also had a PS and FF7 and he let me play on it one day. As we were sitting there chatting, with out thinking about it, I went to save my game, and yup, saved my brand new game over slot one on the stick.
Right over his level 97 toons.
whoops.
I think there may have been tears. There was definitely a lot of anger. I was not invited back.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
it wouldn't be the end of the world if I lost it
:P
In a way, with civ you created your own little world. To loose the save game would in fact be the end of the world.
You did reach the end. You died. Many games simply get progressively harder until you simply can't continue and die. In that regard, it's a lot like life.