/r/GamingSaves Subreddit Aims to be Definitive Source of Saved Game Files

If there’s one thing I’m confident of, it’s that data loss is one of the most frustrating things on earth. It doesn’t matter if we’re dealing with photos, videos, documents or anything else, that feeling of knowing that some of your important files are gone for good is a horrible one. For a gamer, it can be made worse when saved games are involved.

It’s a lot easier today than ever before to have redundant backups of your saved game files, but even so, there are times when the inevitable strikes, and you lose your collection, in effect losing all of the time and effort that went into each game. It’s for that reason that a new subreddit launched this past weekend caught my eye: /r/GamingSaves.

The current tagline for the subreddit is a simple one: “For all your gaming saves!” As simple as a saved games resource sounds, to have a repository on a community-driven site like Reddit, to me, is important. There have been situations where I’ve been in need of a saved game, either because I lost one or because I needed one for a game I planned to benchmark, and I know all-too-well that finding legitimate copies of a save online is a challenge, and those sites that do have legit files might make you jump through hoops for them.

That’s where this particular resource makes things easy. The moderators there force a certain naming scheme, so searching for a particular game is simple, and so far, all of the linked-to download spots have been safe (Dropbox, MediaFire and Mega are popular choices).

A great feature of this subreddit is that it’s not only for supplying saves, but it’s also for requesting them. So, if you ever find yourself really needing a saved game for any title at all – even if it’s on a console – you can go here to request it.

Bit by the bug, I couldn’t help but upload a couple of personal saves: Sleeping Dogs (PC), Metro 2033 (PC) and San Francisco Rush 2049 (Dreamcast Emulator).

If you have saves to share, by all means share them. If you don’t have a 100% complete save, don’t fret: You’re allowed to upload any save that has value. Not everyone wants a 100% complete save anyway.

Ahh Reddit, why do you keep feeding my addiction like this…