How to get good backup schedule for saved games

I'm not sure what you want to do is possible.

It appears that you want to back up a specific program (a game) and then be able to keep the backup and be able to restore it later.

Normally, Windows applications (including games) install into your system in many different locations besides the actual program files folder (or custom install location). These locations can include user data, Windows, and program data folders , and the Windows Registry, among others. Because of this, you can not back up a Windows application (or game) by itself.

You can make a disk/partition backup that will include your OS and all installed applications, and your system can be fully restored from that particular backup, but you can not restore just "the game" from the backup.

You could make a full system backup with one (or more) games installed. Remove any you don't want and install others, and then make a new full system backup. You would then be able to restore which ever full backup you wished to use.

The downside to this would be you would have to monitor other changes to your system when using any of the restored versions, as you may create new data files other than in your games, and they would not be included in older restored backup images, and would require backup and restore to be able to have them available if needed after restoring a older full backup image.

Maybe I'm not 100% clear what you are asking.

I know what I need to back up, its just the saved games, not the entire game directory itself, most of them come under the windows user \ saved games folder or windows user \ my games folder, some Steam games have seperate locations but I know where they all are, and the folders aren't particularly large. I don't need any registry backups or anything lilke that, they are straight file backups. I guess what I am trying to do (for example) is:

Install Game 1
  Back up Saved Games for Game 1 (c:\users\thewildpaw\saved games\game 1)
Install Game 2
  Back up Saved Games for Game 2 (c:\users\thewildpaw\my games\saves\game 2)
Remove Game 1
Install Game 3
  Back up Saved Games for Game 3
Play Game 2
  Update Backup for Game 2 as part of schedule Remove Game 2
Reinstall Game 1
  Restore Saved Games Backup for Game 1

Having one backup schedule for Saved Games won't appear to work as eventually if Game 1 is not reinstalled for a period, the backup will get overwritten. Another option potentially would be to have a seperate backup for each game rather than a "Saved Games" backup, and then back up the Acronis settings. My total size will probably be close to 500Mb so a full system backup would be a bit over the top in this scenario, I was hoping as a gamer that there was someone who is already doing something similar!

If those are just files, like user files, you could use any backup tool. You could use ATI, but you could equally use Robocopy (free and included with Windows), Microsoft SyncToy (free), etc.

I could, but I use I use TIH for other backups, and I like the ability to be able to back up my own TIH settings and to be able to have different backups for different times and frequencies, I reformat my machine relatively frequently, at least 3-4 times a year so I don't want to spend ages setting everything back up again, just install TIH, restore my settings and then I am good to go to restore saved games, music, docs etc at my convenience, meanwhile backups are taken as normal.

I may well back up a full image in the future as currently I have to install Windows 7 to use the Windows 8 upgrade pack I have.

I'm assuming that you meant 500GB not 500MB.

If you have not partitioned your hard disk, you may wish to separate your OS from your data by creating a data partition.

I have my system setup with a separate data partition, and the OS partition is under 50GB and can be backed up separately from the data partition.

This allows me to create many OS partition backups without having to back up my whole disk.

As a matter of fact, I have even switched between Windows 8 and Windows 7 by only restoring the OS and System Reserved partitions on the drive leaving the data partition alone.

Using ATI and a file-based backup/copy tool are not mutually exclusive. You can do both. I do regular full disk mode backups with ATI, but I also backup my music files using Robocopy.

I don't see your problem, so either you're not understanding things or you're not explaining them well. You seem to be contradicting yourself, as first you say you just want to backup those game files and not backup system things like Registry, but now you say you want to backup the whole system so you can restore everything. You need to decide what you want and, as I say, two different backup strategies may be what you need.

If you do a full disk backup, that would naturally include those game files.

Nowadays it makes backups in way more effective way, but still has some issues with backing up settings and saved games, which can be in the AppData folders. Game developers should think through this moment, and care about feedback from gamers, in my opinion. When I think about trustful and reliable game developers, I always think of iLogos agency, because developers from this company know how to develop and implement all the new features, making any game much interesting than it was before.