Microsoft's OneDrive cloud storage service is installed on your PC by default, and it can cause some trouble when playing PC games on multiple devices.
They use Documents because it’s an easy way to ensure saves don’t persist between users. If you and a sibling both play on the same computer, you don’t necessarily want to be sharing game saves. Since the Documents folder is on a per-user basis, the saves are per-user as well. If they simply saved the games in the Program Files folder, saves would potentially persist across users. And anyone who has had a younger sibling accidentally erase all of their saves knows what a bad idea that is.
It also allows them to persist after a reinstall of the game or of Windows itself, as the Documents and media folders are (optionally) not wiped when reformatting via a Windows install. For games that for whatever reason (fuckin’ Dark Souls 3) don’t have cloud saving this is a boon.
They use Documents because it’s an easy way to ensure saves don’t persist between users. If you and a sibling both play on the same computer, you don’t necessarily want to be sharing game saves. Since the Documents folder is on a per-user basis, the saves are per-user as well. If they simply saved the games in the Program Files folder, saves would potentially persist across users. And anyone who has had a younger sibling accidentally erase all of their saves knows what a bad idea that is.
Make it a new personal folder called “Games”.
Not the first time MS fiddled with those settings lately.
It also allows them to persist after a reinstall of the game or of Windows itself, as the Documents and media folders are (optionally) not wiped when reformatting via a Windows install. For games that for whatever reason (fuckin’ Dark Souls 3) don’t have cloud saving this is a boon.