Keeping certain game's savedata after restoring

Question

Level 1

0 points

Keeping certain game's savedata after restoring

Hi! First of all, sorry for my english, I'll try to explain it the best I can.

I have an iPad 4, running iOS 8.1.2. It's been working a bit slow lately, and I guess that it needs a restore, and also an update, because of Apple Music, security fixes and that stuff. The thing is, my mom uses it to play some games like Farm Story 2, Kitchen Scramble, Cooking Fever... You know, farming and cooking and that stuff. I know they're based on servers since they require an internet connection to work so here comes the problem.

I know that not every game syncs its savedata with iCloud, so if I restore, I have to make a backup with iTunes. Does this backup include the savedata of this games? I have the doubt cause I don't know if they're synced with the servers of the game developers itself or if they are stored locally.

Hope it's clear, I'd appreciate your help SO much. Thank you in advance!!!

iPad, iOS 8.1.2

Posted on Jul 1, 2015 5:05 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

SergZak

Level 6

10,338 points

Jul 1, 2015 5:20 AM in response to Andreuu_u

Andreuu_u wrote:

I have to make a backup with iTunes. Does this backup include the savedata of this games? I have the doubt cause I don't know if they're synced with the servers of the game developers itself or if they are stored locally.

It depends on the app/game developer whether or not the user data is included in the backup. Most that are synced to a server are (the app's own server or Game Center) and some data can be synced/saved to your own online cloud storage (iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc). Most that are backed up locally on the device itself are backed up in an iTunes backup but there are some that are not, or some of the data is saved but not all of it. To be sure, contact the app developer to verify.

I have learned over time that an iTunes backup should never be considered a 100% complete backup. Many times, the only way to verify for certain is to actually make a backup, then restore from that backup to verify. But by using this method, if you were going to lose data, you just did so in the process of testing. 😐

It would be nice if Apple themselves allowed a per-app backup method in addition to the "full" iTunes backup. This used to be doable using third-party utilities but beginning with iOS 8.3, they've blocked this ability and we can no longer backup our data this way.

Reply

Answer 2

Andreuu_u Author

Level 1

0 points

Jul 8, 2015 2:53 AM in response to SergZak

Hey!

Well, after reading your amswer, I mailed each developer, they all answered quickly (surprisingly, I didn't expect it!), and after signing in their webs and/or syncing my games with Facebook, my games were supposed to be saved. I restored then, and you were right, a backup is not a 100% backup! But I logged in in Facebook and in those games accounts (Rovio, Rockyou, Storm8...) and yep, all my progress restored! ^^

And you're right, taking full control of what are we actually backup'ing would be just great! Sometimes the cloud, or the full sky since there are too many clouds, makes life more complicated. Full integration with iCloud, like some games do, would be phenomenal!

So solved, thank you so much for your help! 🙂

Reply