CD Deterioration. When?

How's about a different topic, we've got all the "boo halo!" and "Ohnoes WWII" topcs going at the moment.

A few year ago we started to see NES (and some SNES) games with save functions beginning to pack up as their batteries died. And other fell to oxidisation of the metal contacts. While this is fixable it takes a little bit of know-how and skill.

When do you guys think we will start to see similar things happen with Playstation, 3DO, Mega CD etc era games? Discs decay over time so it's going to start happening eventually, question is how long do you think it might take? Whats your opinion on it? Are these games worth working to preserve, or will you be bidding them good riddance?

Personally, I feel that while it probably won't happen for tens of years, we definately should be acting to preserve these games for the future, unfortunately for the moment that means illegally ripping/copying them, as there are very few organisations acting to preserve these older games. That and the companies that hold the rights/produced them are either no longer around, or  only interested in preserving the game if they can re-release it for a profit.

But what do you think? I'd be interested to know.

When your grandson finds your consoles in a box in his dad's attic. He'll go "wow what are these things dad?" and he'll hear back "your no good grandfather was playing with that crap right until the day he died, that shit always came first, not me D:" and on the same night, drunk as usual, he'll go outside with it and set it all on fire, laughing and screaming hysterically as he watches the flames reach the sky.


...Maybe not.

Haha, you're right about one thing, them vidya games do come first :P But they won't be in anyones dusty attic, they'll be buried with me in a mausoleum.

I read somewhere that disc degredation can be anything from 2 - 70 years, all depends on the quality of the disc. So I guess we'll start to see the low budget games dying first huh? I know i've had homemade discs die in a couple of years, but thats what you get when you buy discs from poundland :P

It takes around 20-30 years.  By then, the game will have been ported to other forms or released to the public domain as a download. This is nothing to be concerned with.  Eg., remember pong?  Well you can still play it if you want to. You don't have to own the device the media was originally stored on (it's optional).

This is a really interesting topic that could definitely provoke some thoughtful discussion. Nice one, The_A_Drain.

I own a lot of disc-based games (probably around two hundred, if I had to hazard a guess), and it's not a nice thought to think that one day those discs may just pack in and refuse to work anymore. I'm hoping that companies will start to see the value of digital distribution in this respect. In a perfect world, companies like Sony and Microsoft would be releasing HDD-based reincarnations of older consoles ten years from now, so gamers can preserve their collections in that way. I for one would love to see the future bring something along the lines of a 250GB PS2 that you could rip all your old game discs to and play from the hard drive, as well as providing access to online stores where you can download full versions of old games. I know we're starting to see this with Xbox Originals, Virtual Console and the PlayStation Network, but it'd be great to see it really take off as a means of preserving a little piece of our own gaming history.

@dankempster:

I sympathize, I must own approaching 600 disc based games (and another 350 - 400 cart based games) and the thought is indeed horrifying.

Honestly what I would like to see is an officialy released emulator, and an officially licensed tool for ripping discs you physically own, heck i'd gladly even pay for a tool like that in the interest of legally preserving my collection. But, and this is the only downside I can see to digital distribution. digital distribution has stepped in and actually given companies a potential boost of profit in the years to come when discs start to pack in.

Again, I wouldn't mind this so much if I was able to purchase every game I own, but as you mentioned we are only seeing select titles, and as for Sega CD, 3DO, Dreamcast, Panasonic, etc titles? Not a chance in hell of seeing those released that way.

But yeah, I love digital distribution. But in the interest of preserving a piece of history it's actually a double edged sword, as making a quick buck will often come out on top of preserving history.

There was talk a while back of some organization creating a giant emulator and building a collection of every single game in history in the interest of preserving them. It was some science institute in europe I think, I don't remember. But I can only hope it happens.

Compact discs (pressed) have an estimated lifespan of somewhere inbetween 30 to 200 years.
Recordables (after burning) have an estimated lifespan of 70 to 200 years. Granted they havent been overwritten several times.
In their blank state they're only good for around 5 to 10 years.

Another interesting tidbit of info on this subject. I can't remember which game specifically, one of the pokemon GB/C games, possibly gold/silver. Due to the way the game handles the clock (it has one constantly ticking away inside the cart, draining the battery) they are dying over the next couple of years.

I'm told it was part of the reason they went ahead with the remakes, whether or not this is to be beleived I don't know.

The first audio CD's were victim to deterioration after about 20 years. Although most early CD's are still going strong today. It all depends how/where they are stored I guess.