Deterioration of Physical Media

[Thief]

Video games will not last forever. Eventually they will begin to become faulty and cease to work -- merely due to age and rotting. Does this concern you? Have you made precautions for the end of your physical media (backing up your games or investing in alternative measures of play?).

Personally, I think the future needs to be entirely rid of consoles and physical media. Focus needs to be put towards proper official emulation in order to preserve the games of the past. Emulation is not currently what it should be.

It's a sad truth, but your games will eventually die. How soon, I'm not sure, but they're not getting any younger. It's at least something a collector should keep in mind.

[OL]

I seriously doubt these non-bio-degradable discs and cartridges I own are going to deteriorate within my lifespan.
All the same, I do believe it'd be good for future generations if someone (a company of some kind, maybe a new type of museum) set out to preserve as many games in existence as possible, digitally on a database or whatever the case may be. No doubt the most popular games (every Mario, Sonic, Metroid, etc.) will exists damn near forever, or at least as long as someone owns the rights, but what about the obscure stuff? I think of games like Ranger X, Air Fortress, and others, and I can't help but feel like eventually those ones will just not exist anymore, unless someone were to set up an official means of storage for their game data. Or y'know... something.

[Thief]

I seriously doubt these non-bio-degradable discs and cartridges I own are going to deteriorate within my lifespan.

From what I understand, discs are susceptible to Disc Rot and may not last as long as you'd hope. Cartridges should last longer, although the batteries inside them will not and may need to be replaced before things like leakage of battery acid occur. It's at least something to consider.

All the same, I do believe it'd be good for future generations if someone (a company of some kind, maybe a new type of museum) set out to preserve as many games in existence as possible, digitally on a database or whatever the case may be. No doubt the most popular games (every Mario, Sonic, Metroid, etc.) will exists damn near forever, or at least as long as someone owns the rights, but what about the obscure stuff? I think of games like Ranger X, Air Fortress, and others, and I can't help but feel like eventually those ones will just not exist anymore, unless someone were to set up an official means of storage for their game data. Or y'know... something.

Yes absolutely, video-games need to be preserved (and realistically playable) otherwise they'll just be forgotten and lost over time.

EDIT:
more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_degradation

[Mr357]

Disc rot isn't relevant unless you store your discs poorly. It almost always happens as a result of sunlight, humidity, heat, etc.

[ys]

I personally haven't encountered disc rot yet. I sometimes record, mix or master music and now and then I had to burn a cd for a band or requested by their company (besides standard harddrive backups). Because of that I searched information about disc rot long ago but when I tested cd's from 10-15 years ago they still worked. And note that professionally pressed discs are better quality wise. Albums that I own on cd from the early 90'ies also work.
But still, it is something to consider, as mentioned. In case of.

[Rakim]

I can see it now. Nerds of the future scanning the ancient rotting ruins of youtube for obscure let's play videos from our era, meticulously recreating the worlds based on what they see and hear.

Nearing completion of their magnum opus, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, they will be greeted by Damaca, the local DMCA bot, who will give them an ultimatum. Cease production or receive corporal punishment in the form of a public factory reset of their consciousness. How embarrassing!

what the hell is wrong with me? lol

[Anonymous81]

I will always demand physical media from my gaming platforms. The day there is only a streaming or digital-only option, is the day I cease to be anything but a retro gamer.

Yes, their life spans are finite. But I will not cede control of my games library to publishers. I require ownership rights, right of resale, etc. It's a fundamental cornerstone of my gaming and game collecting.

Plus, until and unless bandwidth caps cease to be a thing, digital only game distribution is simply not feasible for all consumers. Especially for modern games, which can weight in at more than 50GB.

I welcome and advocate the option to have cloud, digital, or otherwise non-physical backups, and for the industry to more heavily invest in official emulation alternatives, yes. And when a game never gets a physical release and is ONLY digitally distributed, I'll still buy and play it if I have to, if it's the only way to get it. But it will always merely be a secondary option for me, and an exception rather than the rule. I require physical media. The day there are no longer physical retail discs, I'm done.

[Monkei]

I don't even buy physical games anymore. I started buying games digitally on the PS3, mainly indy titles at the beginning, since these usually aren't available on disc. I guess that made we warm up to digital.
After a while I started to divide so called AAA games into "will play through story, than most likely never again, so want to be able to sell" and "will play again and again, so having it digitally on my system would make sense". I started to buy stuff like Dead or Alive 5 and Sonic Racing digitally. I'm not a collector of games, so having that box on my shelf to never be opened and played again doesn't make much sense for me.
When I got my PS4 about a year ago I stopped buying physical copies of games alltogether. With rare exceptions like Sleeping Dogs, which isn't available in Germany, so in order to avoid having to create and use a UK PSN account I just got the disc from Amazon. Digital has lots of advantages. Like not having to put in a disc. Sounds like a minor thing, but I'm glad I can switch from one game to the next without getting up. You don't have the noises from the disc drive either. I love it. I'd be annoyed if a game was released physically only.
You can save money be selling games of course. But I have a huge, huge backlog and don't care for playing games right when they release in most cases. That means I can always wait for special offers and buy pretty much everything at a reduced price, so no need to sell the stuff again at all.

Concerning the topic of preservation for ourselves or the future - I don't care. Everything ceases to exist sooner or later. My games will, my t-shirts will, and so will I.

[Henry Spencer]

There is already loads of Japanese games gone forever now due to the lack of preservation, I'm talking about games that were released on PC88 and PC98 as well as MSX, NES and other old consoles/Japanese PCs. There's a guy in Japan who has his own museum of games where there's no known physical copies of games in existence/very rare games.

I'll admit that I've binned some games, at least the ones that you can find really cheap on Amazon and in abundance. But currently I'm going through the clutter and chucking the boxes and keeping the discs in storage in one of those CD/DVD cases that holds 100s of discs, just for easier browsing and not cluttering my shelves up with so many games.

I'm fine with digital games since I know I will be able to play them for the foreseeable future, working i nthe tech sector I know for a fact that the only time servers get switched off is in dire circumstances, whilst it means the likes of Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo will move their resources from one server to another and free up room on the old server it's not the end of the world since just looking at them so far, they've been pretty good at preserving their own IPs, I mean, sure it's taking them a long time to release some of their old games on digital stores but they at least put pretty much everything on there. Besides, nothing's gone forever even if they fail the migration. The days of floppy disc backups are thankfully long gone.

Then there's the ROMs/ISO dumps all over the net too, so even the most obscure games you can't buy unless you spend thousands are still a few clicks away (and no, I'm not promoting piracy).

For the really obscure stuff that I like, I can just Amazon a copy of a game. At least I know that I will keep my games in good condition. Preservation won't really be a problem for a good decade yet, I don't think.

[Riku Rose]

The fact that you can back all your games up to an external hard drive now throws out the arguments that if your console broke you was screwed. I'd buy all my games digital if it wasn't for the fact that in the UK the games are still so much more expensive then if you buy a physical copy. I ended up getting The Last of Us limited edition simply because it was over £40 which meant I could then use a code that made it cheaper then just the normal game.

I've not put a CD in a CD player since about 2005 when I got my first iPod, I put all my CD's on iTunes and have moved them laptop to laptop while the CD's have sat in the loft since then, not once have I took a single disc out. People may like having stuff on a shelf but I'd rather just get rid of the shelf and have something nicer there. I was someone who liked the design on the Xbox One simply because it blends in with other stuff you stick under your TV and I don't have this weird grey box there. I'll be 24 this year and the last thing I want is my home too be filled with is collector's editions of games I'll open once and then never look at again.

I laugh when people say they will only buy a game psychically, do these people also refuse to use netflix, watch films on TV or even go to the cinema? They say it as if someone at EA is going to call an emergency meeting as they read a comment by MilfHunter69 and they need to stop all digital games immediately. When you decide to do this you aren't hurting anyone but yourself and you're missing out on great experiences like Journey which many would say is one of the best games in recent years. The people who say this stuff are also the people who're saying that gaming is nothing but boring AAA stuff when the people trying to experiment can't afford to put a game in a box and make up the majority of the digital space. Gone Home would have never been funded by any publisher when originally pitched and it has taken the developer two years to get it on consoles just digitally and it's one of the most beautiful games ever.

I also just can't wait for the all digital future simply so games can move forward. If a game isn't a $60 launch title then it doesn't stand a chance at retail as it doesn't get the shelf space. Just look at the Steam store and they have successful games priced at all different prices. I played Emily is Away last month for free on Steam and that game was fantastic. I simply can't be bothered to look into PC gaming so Steam at the moment is something I never really use but my god would I love a console equivalent.

[streetwaves]

Disc rot most likely happens at an exceedingly slow pace as long as games are stored properly. I keep my game room climate-controlled all year and have completely blocked out sunlight into the room.

[MiTT3NZ]

I genuinely don't give a fuck. I'm happy with digital copies coz I detest clutter. Despite the fact that my room's a shit tip. Still... I only buy games on the cheap anyway, and I pity the fool that buys anything at full retail price.

[myshtuff]

I've made the transition to digital for certain things. Most major games I play on steam on PC. If a console or handheld game is reasonably cheaper digitally I'll probably get it. For music, I recently sold all my cds except my Daft Punk ones and now buy digital through Google play or amazon. The main thing I get physically now are blu-rays and certain DVDs. It was a tough transition at first, but its kinda nice now.

[IlDucci]

Guess I am stuck in the past as I tend to buy physical games whenever I can... But I mostly do digital.

As for past discs, I do have a PAL DC Unreal Tournament that got rotten (Bought at a second-hand store, didn't saw the hole until I read about Disc Rot) and a Club Nintendo's exclusive CD with music that got waay too rotten (I didn't kept it, so it got hit by the weather).

So I'm not also worried about my own storage conditions, but about the other's whenever I buy new retro games.

[Kenny]

I have a mixture of both. I prefer physical but if I have to get it digitally, I will.

I just don't like the idea of the HDD corrupting and potentially never getting some of the games I originally downloaded because they took them off the server for any reason (ex P.T.).