I am in the process of researching the viability of a VR gaming cafe. Since this would largely use games from Steam, I am looking at the capabilities of the Steam platform and what it allows.

I am aware of the Steam Site Licensing Program which appears to suit the general need to have a centrally managed Steam account without requiring users to log in to their account.

One problem I've run into, however, is how to manage saves for larger games. Particularly as games like Doom VFR and Fallout 4 VR come out that would require multiple play sessions to complete it seems important to persist saves per user somehow.

Is there any way to manage saves per user per game? One method I thought was to copy the local save to a central storage server after the session is finished, and copy it back for a specific user when the game is relaunched. This seems a bit cumbersome. It would be nice if there was a more concrete way of managing this.

Are there any good ways of managing saves in a gaming arcade environment without users logging in to their personal Steam account?


What system do you have to identify the user?

You only mentioned not using Steam login, but how will you do the authentication? How does the computer know "Bob" is playing the game instead of "Bill"?

Whatever authentication method you're using, the save file will be managed within that system.

Or the system lets them insert a USB key with their save files on it, and the system copies it over to the right folders, then deletes it when the session ends.

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    It will be a centrally managed identity with the user information sent to the system being used. So the system will know the user currently playing. But the actual Steam account being used is not theirs rather owned by the company per the Steam Site Licensing program information. – Steve Sep 25 '17 at 4:53
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    I imagine the authentication system should be able to move the save files around, but this will require each game to be custom setup, since save file locations are non-standardized. Even the USB method will take work because each game will have their save files at a different place, but at least you don't have to host a ton of files or worry about scalability. – Nelson Sep 25 '17 at 5:09
  • That would be fine, since I am going to be defining each available game anyway with it's launch location and for time tracking purposes. – Steve Sep 25 '17 at 5:11
  • I think the USB key is probably the best route, with warnings about some games, especially like Skyrim and Fallout 4, that you need a lot of space. I had over 1000 saves in Fallout 4 at one time, each one around 30 Mb... I forgot which one that created continuous auto-saves... or maybe Fallout New Vegas. It's one of those that kept ALL the auto-saves. – Nelson Sep 25 '17 at 5:13
  • Something like that can be worked around I'm sure. It seems like this is the way to go though, syncing the saves files from disk to either a server or some other storage after the session. – Steve Sep 25 '17 at 5:18

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