The Value of Saved Games

[MaxVance]

You all may remember that Mr. Melee had his house robbed and his GameCube and his accessories for it stolen several months ago. He eventually got back the stolen items in one way or another, but there was one thing the insurance company couldn't replace: the saved data on his memory cards. This makes me consider if saved game data could be considered to have some sort of (monetary or otherwise) value, depending on the game and amount of progress the player had put into it. Do you think game data should have this value?

[BP]

* Bird Person holds the Wii Remote in The Dumbbell form and flexes

When you're this good, save data is worth NOTHING.
Okay, to be more serious... In games like SSBM, where every millisecond of progress is recorded, you don't want to lose it. When you score 384 in WarioWare: Smooth Moves, you don't want to lose it. For the latter, I actually moved the data to a CD-R immediately, on the off chance a large meteor came down and destroyed my house whilst I am out bowling. Well, the data would be destroyed also... Maybe I ought to upload it to Google Pages. That's what I'll do, yes...
In an age where you can move game saves to your computer, lost files can be prevented. Of course, nobody wants to spend a few minutes every time they play moving their game saves to the Internet. Maybe a once-per-month routine would be wiser (though, you obviously wouldn't do that for games you didn't play that month.
Heh heh heh heh... Don't use this to brag to your friends! If you do, you're bad!! You'd also have to do a bit of work to find the correct sequence of folder titles to make the Wii read this.

[The Chef]

Reminds me of how a couple weeks back I mistakenly erased my Melee file. It doesn't matter anyway since I didn't even unlock everything fair and square. I got the save from my cousin, and Brawl is supposed to come out this year.

[Vidgmchtr]

That's why if a fire were to occur in my house, the first thing I'd jump for are the memory cards, because I know I could get everything else back.</materialistic>

...Oh, and all my precious photos. And the cats, because you can't upload them onto the internet or keep them in a safe place....

I'm sure some game saves could be of some monetary value, such as ones that have overcome nigh impossible feats.

[ShadowBrain]

I think there's websites now where you can buy 100% data for games and download into onto the system (via SD card for Wii, for example), but if you think about it, anything's worth anything if someone's willing to pay for it.

[Lizard Dude]

For completely single-player stuff, I don't give one flip about my save files unless it's a game I'm currently playing through. A few months after not playing a save, it becomes dead to me and if I go back to the game, a new save will be started no matter what.

Saves that have unlocked stuff usable in multiplayer or records of various historic events in your gaming (SSBM) are def. worth keeping around.

[Eclipsed Moon]

It's kinda funny this gets brought up.  Just two days ago, my hard drive died, and I also realized that the one thing I wouldn't be able to save would be my saves.  It was annoying, but I realized I'd be able to get over it.  I didn't have too many saves on it, and given a few days I could probably get back to all of them.

I also woke up this morning and realized that I'm never going to finish PM2 if I don't erase my record and start over.

[Glorb]

I don't think that game data should be backed up by insurance, because it's yer own daggum fault you didn't back it up with an illegal memory card-copying device.

But seriously, if someone were to swipe your memory cards and erase them, I think that there's a way around it: hide the cards. It's easy. Or, rather, make backup memory cards, and hide those. Remember, it's harder for them to get corrupted if there's nothing nearby to corrupt it.

However, I remember that something similar happened to me before. I was clearing out my PS2 memory card of unneeded game saves for games I don't have anymore or don't need, and I accidentally erased my RE4 data file. Sure, I had the progress saves themselves, but that means I lost all my Mercenaries high scores, as well as all the weapons I unlocked. That sucked, until I remembered that I backed it up another card. See, I tend to keep setting/data files on a seperate card, because, generally, stuff like that is harder to get back.

[Mr. Wiggles]

I done't think game saves are really worth anything, especially if you can just do it again. It'll be frustrating and tedius, but whatever.

Honestly, you're the only person to blame if you lose your saved data since you should've had a back up copy in an extra memory card or something. Unless we're talking cartridge games, in which case too bad. Same goes for games that can't have copied save data like Animal Crossing.

Doesn't mean I wouldn't punch the nearest wall if I were to get Pokemon Diamond and complete it only to find out my Ruby version file( with it's complete pokedex) was deleted. I worked really hard to catch all of them, and it was harder still to get the legendaries legally.

[Glorb]

That's exactly my point sort of-ish. I mean, unlocking every special weapon in RE4 (and we're talking the PS2 version here) is practically impossible, so I flipped.

[Eclipsed Moon]

I'd just like to point out that the ideas of both hiding the cards and it being the owner's own fault that he didn't have backups of every save file are both really dumb.  None of us expect them to get stolen like that, although it could happen to any one of us, and sometimes you just have to deal with it, instead of getting paranoid that everyone's after your memory cards by hiding them (but not your consoles because you can always just buy another console, it doesn't take nearly the work to earn the money than it does to replay through the game).

[Luigison]

It's kinda funny this gets brought up.  Just two days ago, my hard drive died, and ...

Same thing happened to me, but I couldn't save Windows XP.  Stupid MS.  I paid for a full retail version, but since the key was used on the now dead drive they won't let me use it anymore (unless I pay a $60 fee).  I think I'm gonna switch to SUSE Linux or something. 

I found out the hard way that Wii VC games don't save state if you turn off the Wii without going to the Wii menu.  Duh.  At first it was a pain, but I think it made me a better player on New Adventure Island. 

[ShadowBrain]

Oh, I just remembered; killer idea for a criminal: He steals nothing, breaking into your house in the dead of night only to delete all your save files. "The Eraser"!

[NintendoExpert89]

When I had my computer reformatted last summer, I backed-up all my files onto 6 CDs, even those that go as far back as 2001. I keep them hidden so that they don't broken.

[Fwirt]

...Oh, and all my precious photos. And the cats, because you can't upload them onto the internet or keep them in a safe place....

What do you mean?  I uploaded my cat onto the internet MONTHS ago...  She hasn't been the same since.

I don't think save files should be worth money, but they're still valuable.  I was pretty frustrated when my Yoshi's Island cart blipped and deleted all my data.  (Of course, my current file is better than it was before now, but that's beyond the point. :D )  IMO the fun of beating the game matters much more than the save data.