Almost every gamer has been there. You have a long term game going that you’re excited about, the story is unfolding, and you’re so close to reaching that goal. Unfortunately, your power went out, your hard drive fried, and now you’re stuck wondering why, oh why, (insert third-party) cloud doesn’t save your game’s data in full.
For me, it was The Sims 4. Electronic Arts has published many wonderful games that take advantage of cloud storage. But when it comes to one of my favorites, Origin doesn’t support it. After losing a three-year ongoing game save of my own, I picked up the pieces, wiped up the tears, and declared never to let this be an issue again. The answer was clear: If Origin wasn’t going to let me cloud save for my multitude of Sims, I’d make my own instead!
After some trial and error, mostly with test saves because I learned my lesson, I’ve settled on the following method.
Step 1: Set up OneDrive
If you’re already running a Windows 10 device, then this is going to be the easiest step for you. Unfortunately, not everyone is on Windows 10 quite yet. For those clinging to their former OS, you will need to download and install OneDrive onto your computer.
Which games (except Torchlight) store the current state of the game to the Steam cloud? What is the Steam Cloud? Steam is Valve's online game purchasing and digital delivery service/platform. Steam Cloud is a fairly new addition to the Steam platform that saves the state for various games to Steam's servers in the 'cloud'.
- In cloud gaming, the gaming provider runs the game on its servers and then streams the display back to you. The host app on your machine sends your mouse and keyboard inputs back up to the server on which the game is running.
- Game to your heart’s content, and next time that tornado comes through, you’ll know that your games and other various files are safely stored on OneDrive. So you should probably take cover.
- Gloud Games has categorized the games based on popularity, genres, most famous etc. To make it easy for the users to sort out what game they are looking for. Download now from Google Play Store. Gloud Games for PC can be downloaded and Played on a Desktop PC/Laptop running Windows XP/7/8/8.1/10 and MacOS/ OS X operating system.
Once finished, you will see your cloud drive in the explorer.exe.
OneDrive should begin running immediately in your system tray and ready to sync to the cloud automatically by default.
Step 2: Copy The Files Over to the Cloud
It is important to recognize exactly what you’re hoping to backup onto the cloud first. You could choose to simply backup the saved games, the tray, mods, or you could be like me and save the whole game’s document file. It’s worth noting that these documents files are not the game files found in Programs, but are simply the local user content.
Right click on the folder you decide to backup to the cloud, select copy, then paste them into your cloud folder. This will create a mirror of your game’s content in the OneDrive local folder which will begin syncing to the cloud online. But because you copy it over doesn’t mean the game is linked to the cloud just yet.
If you open your game currently, it will save to the documents file, leaving the backup as a former version of your game. This is handy in case you have a specific save state you want to keep, but not if you want to run from the cloud itself. For that, you will need an automatic symbolic link between the game files and the local OneDrive folder.
Step 3: Enabling a Symbolic Link
Return to your original file location. You’ll need to either delete or rename the game’s folder. I suggest the latter, just in case you’re paranoid like me and don’t want to lose all of your progress.
Now that the file no longer ‘exists’, you’ll be able to create a symbolic link. Put basically, this is similar to a desktop shortcut that will redirect the game to use another file path instead of this local one.
Search and run cmd.exe as administrator. This is an important step since you’ll likely receive an error and not be able to proceed further. Note the file paths of the game file in Documents and OneDrive, then input them into cmd replacing the paths with your own:
mklink /D “C:OriginalFilePath” “C:OneDriveFilePath”
A confirmation will let you know that a symbolic link was created.
Just in case you want to make sure that it worked correctly, all you have to do is go back to the original Documents folder. Click on the folder with the link on it. If it redirects you to the OneDrive folder, then you are all set.
That’s it! Anytime that your game accesses that file, it will automatically pull from your local OneDrive version instead. Likewise, anytime it saves, it will drop the files into the cloud, creating an instant backup that you can access online at any time. The only downfall of this system is that your OneDrive will need to sync after playing, so I only recommend it for single player games and for those that have unlimited internet access. However, games can still be accessed while syncing without hangup and can be used while offline too.
Now you won’t have to worry about your hard drive being fried! Game to your heart’s content, and next time that tornado comes through, you’ll know that your games and other various files are safely stored on OneDrive. So you should probably take cover.
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The Universal Windows Platform (UWP) in Windows 10 offers a set of APIs that can be used for developing games across Microsoft devices. When developing games across platforms and devices, you can make use of a cloud backend to help scale your game according to demand.
If you are looking for a complete cloud backend solution for your game, see Software as a Service for game backend.
What is cloud computing?
Cloud computing uses on demand IT resources and applications over the internet to store and process data for your devices. The term cloud is a metaphor for the availability of vast resources out there (not local resources) that you can access from non-specific locations.The principle of cloud computing offers a new way in which resources and software can be consumed. Users no longer need to pay for the full complete product or resources upfront, but instead are able to consume platform, software, and resources as a service. Cloud providers often bill their customers according to usage or service plan offerings.
Why use cloud services?
One advantage of using cloud services for games is that you do not need to invest in physical hardware servers upfront, but only need to pay according to usage or service plans at a later stage. It is one way to help manage the risks involved in developing a new game title.
Another advantage is that your game can tap into vast cloud resources to achieve scalability (effectively manage any sudden spikes in the number of concurrent players, intense real-time game calculations or data requirements). This keeps the performance of your game stable around the clock. Furthermore, cloud resources can be accessed from any device running on any platform anywhere in the world, which means that you are able to bring your game to everyone globally.
Delivering an amazing gameplay experience to your players is important. Because game servers running in the cloud are independent of client-side updates, they can give you a more controlled and secure environment for your game overall. You can also achieve gameplay consistency through the cloud by never trusting the client and having server side game logic. Service-to-service connections can also be configured to allow a more integrated gaming experience; examples include linking in-game purchases to various payment methods, bridging over different gaming networks, and sharing in-game updates to popular social media portals such as Facebook and Twitter.
You can also use dedicated cloud servers to create a large persistent game world, build up a gamer community, collect and analyze gamer data over time to improve gameplay, and optimize your game's monetization design model.
In addition, games that require intensive game data management capabilities like social games with asynchronous multiplayer mechanics can be implemented using cloud services.
How game companies use the cloud technology
Learn how other developers have implemented cloud solutions in their games.
| Developer | Description | Key game scenarios | Learn more |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tencent Games | Tencent Games has a developed an innovative solution using Azure Service Fabric enabling traditional PC games to be delivered as a service. Their Cloud Game Solution uses a ‘thin client + rich cloud’ model running workloads as microservices in the backend. |
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| 343 Industries | Halo 5: Guardians implemented Halo: Spartan Companies as its social gameplay platform by using Azure Cosmos DB (via DocumentDB API), which was selected for its speed and flexibility due to its auto-indexing capabilities. |
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| Pixel Squad | Pixel Squad developed Crime Coast using Unity game engine and Azure. Crime Coast is a social strategy game available on the Android, iOS and Windows platform. Azure Blob storage, Managed Azure Redis Cache, an array of load balanced IIS VMs, and Microsoft Notification hub were used in their game. Learn how they managed scaling and handled players surge with 5000 simultaneous players. |
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Other links
How to design your cloud backend
While producers and game designers are in discussion about what game features and functionalities are needed in the game, it is good to start considering how you want to design your game infrastructure. Azure can be used as your game backend when you want to develop games for various devices and across different major platforms.
Understanding IaaS, PaaS or SaaS
First, you need to think about the level of service that is best suited for your game. Knowing the differences in the following three services can help you determine the approach you want to take in building your backend.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is an instant computing infrastructure, provisioned and managed over the Internet. Imagine having the possibility of many machines readily available to quickly scale up and down depending on demand. IaaS helps you to avoid the cost and complexity of buying and managing your own physical servers and other datacenter infrastructure.
Platform as a Service (PaaS) is like IaaS but it also includes management of infrastructure like servers, storage, and networking. So on the top of not buying physical servers and datacenter infrastructure, you also do not need to buy and manage software licenses, underlying application infrastructure, middleware, development tools, or other resources.
Software as a service (SaaS) allows users to connect to and use cloud-based apps over the Internet. It provides a complete software solution that you purchase on a pay-as-you-go basis from a cloud service provider. Common examples are email, calendaring, and office tools (such as Microsoft 365 Office apps). You rent the use of an app for your organization, and your users connect to it over the Internet, usually with a web browser. All of the underlying infrastructure, middleware, app software, and app data are located in the service provider’s data center. The service provider manages the hardware and software, and with the appropriate service agreement, will ensure the availability and the security of the game and your data as well. SaaS allows your organization to get quickly up and running with an app at minimal upfront cost.
Design your game infrastructure using Azure
Following are some ways that Azure cloud offerings can be used for a game. Azure works with Windows, Linux, and familiar open source technologies such as Ruby, Python, Java, and PHP. For more information, see Azure for gaming.
How To Usegloud Games On
| Requirements | Activity scenarios | Product Offering | Product Capabilities |
|---|---|---|---|
| Host your domain in the cloud | Respond to DNS queries efficiently | Azure DNS | Host your domain with high performance and availability |
| Sign in, identity verification | Gamer signs in and gamer identity is authenticated | Azure Active Directory | Single sign-on to any cloud and on-premises web app with multi-factor authentication |
| Game using infrastructure as a service model (IaaS) | Game is hosted on virtual machines in the cloud | Azure VMs | Scale from 1 to thousands of virtual machine instances as game servers with built-in virtual networking and load balancing; hybrid consistency with on-premises systems |
| Web or mobile games using platform as a service model (PaaS) | Game is hosted on a managed platform | Azure App Service | PaaS for websites or mobile games (which means Azure VMs with middleware/development tools/BI/DB management) |
| Highly available, scalable n-tier cloud game with more control of the OS (PaaS) | Game is hosted on a managed platform | Azure Cloud Service | PaaS designed to support applications that are scalable, reliable, and cheap to operate |
| Load balancing across regions for better performance and availability | Routes incoming game requests. Can act as first level of load balancing. | Azure Traffic Manager | Offers multiple automatic failover options and ability to distribute your traffic equally or with weighted values. Can seamlessly combine on-premises and cloud systems. |
| Cloud storage for game data | Latest game data is stored in the cloud and sent to client devices | Azure Blob Storage | No restriction on the kinds of file that can be stored; object storage for large amounts of unstructured data like images, audio, video, and more. |
| Temporary data storage tables | Game transactions (changes in game states) are stored in tables temporarily | Azure Table Storage | Game data can be stored in a flexible schema according to the needs of the game |
| Queue game transactions/requests | Game transactions are processed in the form of a queue | Azure Queue Storage | Queues absorb unexpected traffic bursts and can prevent servers from being overwhelmed by a sudden flood of requests during the game |
| Scalable relational game database | Structured storage of relational data like in-game transactions to database | Azure SQL Database | SQL database as a service (Compare with SQL on a VM) |
| Scalable distributed low-latency game database | Fast read, write, and query of game and player data with schema flexibility | Azure Cosmos DB | Low latency NoSQL document database as a service |
| Use own datacenter with Azure services | Game is retrieved from your own datacenter and sent to the client devices | Azure Stack | Enables your organization to deliver Azure services from your own datacenter to help you achieve more |
| Large data chunks transfer | Large files such as game images, audio, and videos can be sent to users from the nearest Content Delivery Network (CDN) pop location with Azure CDN | Azure Content Delivery Network | Built on a modern network topology of large centralized nodes, Azure CDN handles sudden traffic spikes and heavy loads to dramatically increase speed and availability, resulting in significant user experience improvements |
| Low latency | Perform caching to build fast, scalable games with more control and guaranteed isolation of data; can be used to improve match-making feature for game as well. | Azure Redis Cache | High throughput, consistent low-latency data access to power fast, scalable Azure applications |
| High scalability, low latency | Handles fluctuations in the number of game users with low latency read and writes | Azure Service Fabric | Able to power the most complex, low-latency, data-intensive scenarios and reliably scale to handle more users at a time. Service Fabric enables you to build games without having to create a separate store or cache, as required for stateless apps |
| Ability to collect millions of events per second from devices | Log millions of events per second from devices | Azure Event Hubs | Cloud-scale telemetry ingestion from games, websites, apps, and devices |
| Real time processing for game data | Perform real-time analysis of gamer data to improve gameplay | Azure Stream Analytics | Real-time stream processing in the cloud |
| Develop predictive gameplay | Create customized dynamic gameplay based on gamer data | Azure Machine Learning | A fully managed cloud service that enables you to easily build, deploy, and share predictive analytics solutions |
| Collect and analyze game data | Massive parallel processing of data from both relational and non-relational databases | Azure Data Warehouse | Elastic data warehouse as a service with Enterprise class features |
| Engage users to increase usage and retention | Send targeted push notifications to any platform from any back end to generate interest and encourage specific game actions | Azure Notification Hubs | Fast broadcast push to reach millions of mobile devices on all major platforms — iOS, Android, Windows, Kindle, Baidu. Your game can be hosted on any back end — cloud or on-premises. |
| Stream media content to your local and worldwide audiences while protecting your content | Broadcast quality game trailers and cinematic clips can be watched from all devices | Azure Media Services | On-demand and live video streaming with integrated Content Delivery Network capabilities. Use one player for all of your playback needs, includes content protection and encryption. |
| Develop, distribute, and beta-test your mobile apps | Test and distribute your mobile app. App performance and user experience management. | HockeyApp | Integrates crash reporting and user metrics with an app distribution and user feedback platform. Supports Android, Cordova, iOS, OS X, Unity, Windows, and Xamarin apps. Also, consider Visual Studio Mobile Center — mission control for apps that combines rich analytics, crash reporting, push notifications, app distribution, and more. |
| Create marketing campaigns to increase usage and retention | Send push notifications to targeted players to generate interest and encourage specific game actions according to data analysis | Mobile engagement - will be retired March 2018 and is currently only available to existing customers | Increase gameplay time and user retention on all major platforms—iOS, Android, Windows, Windows Phone |
Startup and developer resources
Microsoft for Startups provides product, technical, and go-to-market benefits to help accelerate the growth of startups. One benefit includes getting an Azure free account. You have $200 credit to explore services for 30 days, 12 months of popular free services, and always free 25+ services. For more information, see Bring your startup’s ideas to life with an Azure free account.
Microsoft offers several developer programs like ID@Xbox and Xbox Live Creators Program to help you develop and publish games.
Learning resources
- //build 2016: CodeLabs — Use Microsoft Azure App Service and Microsoft SQL Azure backend to save game score in Unity
- //build 2017: Delivering world-class game experiences using Microsoft Azure: Lessons learned from titles like Halo, Hitman, and Walking Dead (video)
- Reusable set of building blocks, projects, services, and best practices designed to support common gaming workloads using Azure on GitHub: Building blocks for gaming on Azure
How Do I Use The Cloud
Tools and other useful links
Software as a Service for game backend
Playfab currently powers more than 1,200 live games with 80 million monthly active players. It is a complete backend platform that includes full stack LiveOps with real-time control.
You can integrate this solution into your mobile, PC, or console games using SDKs. There are SDKs available for all popular game engines and platforms, including Android, iOS, Unreal, Unity, and Windows. To get started, see Documentation.
It offers game services like authentication, player data management, multiplayer, and real-time analytics to help your game grow its user base. Harness the power of real-time data pipeline and LiveOps to engage your users with customized in-game items, events, and promotions. You also have the ability to conduct A/B testing, generate reports, send push notifications, and more.
We are constantly innovating and adding new features. For more information, see Features and for pricing, see Simple pricing that scales with you.