
With the Console Wars officially being over, gamers need something to debate endlessly, and the digital vs physical argument makes for as good a fight as any other. Both positions have clear upsides and downsides, and you're either in one camp or the other. However, some fresh fuel has just been dumped on the fire: did you know that your physical game collection is rotting as we speak, and the valuable discs themselves, rather than outlasting digital servers forever, are rapidly approaching their use by date?
TheGamer just published a fascinating article that looks into Warner Bros.' new DVD exchange program for those experiencing premature disc rot, sometimes known as laser rot. Regardless of the name, disc rot refers to the chemical deterioration that affects all discs sooner or later, eventually making them unreadable.
This inevitable fate awaits all CDs, DVDs, and Blu-rays. CDs have a 50- to 100-year lifespan, and DVDs are supposed to last between 30 and 100 years. Despite being the newest iteration, the Blu-ray discs PS5 games are printed on have the shortest life expectancy and are only estimated to last around 20 years under ideal conditions.
As the very oldest DVDs ever produced (such as Push Square Editor Sammy Barker's beloved Mars Attacks) aren't even 30 and have already begun to fail, it seems that defective discs were distributed at some point, and Warner Bros. is now attempting to make good.
Disc rot can be postponed by keeping your collection in a cool, dry, environment free of humidity, out of UV light, and sealed to prevent oxidation. Still, that's assuming that your precious discs were pristine and not defective to begin with.
Streaks, spots, shadows, and other discolouration on the underside are all tell-tale signs that the degradation process is underway. As TheGamer notes, it's ironic that the best thing you can do to preserve your physical game collection is to back it up digitally.
If you have an extensive collection of PS1 games, some of which may be 30 years or older now, it might be time to entomb them in some sealed preservation chamber or, failing that, fire them up again for the sake of old times. Nothing lasts forever, after all.
Did you expect your physical game collection to survive until the inevitable collapse of the universe? Are you surprised that disc manufacturers in the 90s might not have expected consumers to cling onto their shiny treasures for decades to come? Lovingly lay out your collection and savour every last moment in the comments section below.
[source thegamer.com]
Comments 114
When we go full download only we’ll get ripped off. Supply and demand on old physical games mean the price becomes very very low. This supply and demand pricing completely vanishes when you have a monopoly. PlayStation still try and charge you £40-£50 for games a decade old.
A story about 2 years (2006 to 2008) of faulty manufactured WB dvds is great way to get clicks about disc rot.
dont worry your physical collection will be fine for years to come
Im surprised that Microsoft wasnt put it the title for even more clicks
home burned dvds cds etc are not the same and will fail
"Blu-ray discs PS5 games are printed on have the shortest life expectancy and are only estimated to last around 20 years under ideal conditions."
Wait what!? So you're saying in a about a year all PS3 discs will start to rot? I have a hard time believing that, I just checked some of my launch PS3 games (Resistance & Project 8) and they still look pristine.
Meh. I literally have some books from the 1910's that have held together. And Sega Genesis carts that are over 40 years old. I'm not worried about disc rot. Discs are made of plastic that will be on this planet long after humans are gone. And discs will last a lot longer than their reported lifespan if you take good care of them. As for the physical vs digital debate. I prefer both being available. It gives the consumers choice. And we don't get much of that these days.
@Juanalf Disc rot will not be visually discernable but functionally.
They have been talking about disc rot regarding 90’s cd’s for decades. I’m still to find a single person who’s music cd’s have rotted.
@Boxmonkey "CDs have a 50- to 100-year lifespan..." - the article
I find this article a bit mileading:
From this article: "the Blu-ray discs PS5 games are printed on have the shortest life expectancy and are only estimated to last around 20 years under ideal conditions."
From the actual source article this one cites: "Ern Bieman, a digital preservationist with the Canadian Conservation Institute, told me that commercially produced Blu-rays—if they’re undamaged and stored correctly—should last at least 20 years. “They could certainly last longer, but you wouldn’t want to bank on it,” Bieman said. “Discs, whether they are optical discs or any other kind of media, are degrading from the day you get them.”
I think there's quite a difference between saying "around 20 years" and "at least 20 years."
BLURAYS ONLY LAST 2O YEARS? THE PS3 IS NEARLY 20 YEARS OLD 🥺🥺🥺🥺
Physical media like VHS and film will rot faster if not stored properly. People with CDs and blu-rays will be fine for the years to come.
Their digital media equivalent will be delisted from a server sooner than the physical media will rot.
Oh and my 60gb PS3’s blu-rays are just fine as they are stored indoors with their original packaging. Same for my Xbox 360.
Digital games afflict my wallet!
Maybe this is their way of making everyone go digital? They will then be able to charge as much as they like on their stores.
@SeanOhOgain And my games on it still work as good today as they did then.
This whole thing seems a bit exaggerated to me.
My physical collection (dvd's,blue rays,audio cds etc) are all fine. If you take care of things they will last. My books and comics,graphic novels will out last me too because...I've taken bloody good care of them. This article is nothing nobody already knows and is another pointless one. Any gaming news out today?
@LifeGirl I think Khayl is engagement farming with this article a little bit with the exaggeration 😉
@Boxmonkey The sales on Playstation, Xbox, and PC digital storefronts can be very generous. I got DOOM 2016 for $6 three years after it came out on a PSN sale.
I think at my age I shall worry at my own rot
Any disc I buy now will out last me 🤣
Contention about the nature of and reasons for disc rot aside (seems to me like it's a very real thing, but, due to the relative youth of discs and lack of research, no one really knows to what extend we should expect it), the real lesson here is the impermanence of everything. Nothing lasts forever; we've lost so much art and product throughout human history, and, at some point, E.T. and Sonic & Knuckles will be nothing but remnants in a museum. Everything degrades — you, me, and Mario too.
Old news. I knew this over 20 years ago.
Back in 2003 when I was a junior member of the IT service team at my large employer, I visited our supplier of media. I seem to recall for example that we were migrating away from these server DAT tapes at the time.
They gave us a presentation on all the various media we used in our organisation and I clearly remember them telling us that discs were only to be used for "transferring" material from one location to another, and were not suitable for "storage" due to the surface material decaying.
They were not a reliable media for backing up our corporate data.
This was around the time I remember digital games taking off on PC with the introduction of Steam etc. It was the time when psychologically I accepted digital and the reason I had no issue ditching all my PS4 discs a decade ago and committing to digital on the console side too.
So this disc rot issue isn't new news.
Will a disc last long enough for me to finish the game and then trade or sell it? Yes. So that’s good enough for me. Far too many games released for me not to have enough new games to play 20 years later.
This is bad in terms of game preservation however, and new players being able to play the game in 21 years time. Thought a disc would last longer than that.
Take care of your things you'll be fine, was this a bad campaign to start getting people to go full digital or what, I mean probably gonna happen eventually but I like my physical, ill hold out as long as possible
Misleading article is misleading.
Laserdiscs are also supposed to have really bad disc rot. In reality most LDs are still fine and it’s usually a case of certain discs made at certain times in certain plants that are affected. Just like the WB dvds.
Writable media, that’s another thing entirely
Would not surprise me if the games were printed on sub par discs, all so they can eventually become unplayable and the Corpos can sell you a remastered version instead.
@SintasSays yes the sales are good but why aren’t old games on permanent sale? How many people are realistically going to be buying them at £40?! The competition authorities need to take digital store fronts to court. I should be able to buy games from other competitors not just PlayStation.
This is a common boogeyman in collector circles. I'll just say, as someone who owns over 1600 disc-based titles - some older than 30 years - I have never, ever seen or experienced "disc rot". I restore the games myself as a hobby and I'm looking at discs constantly.
I'm sure it's real (everything dies) but waaaay overblown. I'm willing to bet many tens of thousands of dollars worth of retro games it is overstated.
@Max_the_German I have hundreds of ps1 and ps2 games and even the ones where part of the dye has gone “white” they all function perfectly.
This article is giving an incorrect impression based on something unrelated
Yes disc rot exists but this article is just scare mongering.
Fearmongering at its finest. At least let us have couple of confirmed cases and then talk about this.
@Boxmonkey Big games don’t get cheap quickly anymore, even with physical editions. As an example, GOW: Ragnarok was released in 2022 and is still at least £20 used, around £30 new, and currently £34.99 via the PlayStation store. These days you have to wait 5+ years for properly cheap prices. Doesn’t feel worth it for a few quid off.
I have a couple of Star Trek TNG discs that have gone a bit cloudy and freeze a bit, but that’s from a collection of over a thousand discs. Nothing lasts forever, but it still made sense to buy something once and enjoy for 30 years than trust you can find it on a digital store or streamer. Plus I have libraries of physical dvds, cds and games and have no desire to access them for a subscription when I already own them.
It’s inevitable Playstation is going all digital soon, but I’m seriously considering this Gen if the games they make are even for me anymore. The lack of competition in pricing games on a proprietary storefront is just another reason why I probably won’t bother with the PS6.
I’m more worried about wildfires that burn down my home with my whole collection than disc rots. On the bright side, if disc rot happens it will help solve my storage/ moving headaches. I have so many movies and games I accumulated over the past 25 years that my shelves are full and I’m starting to put new games in storage containers that take up rooms in my house.
50% of my collection is still factory sealed. Got some bangers! Lol
i still got ps1 disk from 94 and sega dream cast games from 2000 and they still play perfectly fine
@Boxmonkey your last sentence is completely wrong. Just look at PlayStation store sales prices for any first-party Game on PS3,4 or 5. They all go down way below half-off
I swear some people don't even read the article...
Obviously, time rots everything. I am going all in on digital but I understand why people prefer physical.
@AFCC yeah I certainly do mate. I buy physical unless I see a mad sale price on the store. But I still tend to buy for the collection anyway. Don’t really care about the rot though it’ll never affect the artwork 👌
All my games are stored in thick, grip seal baggies, with one or more silica gel pouches in the bag for good measure. No idea if it’ll make a difference, but it can only help. Plus I’d put them in the bags anyway to stop the cases rubbing against each other.
I think my body will sadly rot long before all these physical games
@MrGawain Does it clean off if you use something appropriately wet? Just asking because my old deep space nine dvds in the slimline cases would get all cloudy and I'd have to clean them, and my brother's did the same. It's the cases affecting them oddly. I bought the newer boxset and all discs are fine now for years.
The only disc rot I've experienced so far is a "bronzing" effect on a handful of 80s CDs but they play fine. Oh wait that's not true, I've bought a couple of early 90s CDs off big ebay sellers that have been stored poorly and had scratches from misuse and they had final tracks that had distortion noises on playback. That just shows how important it is to treat your discs with care and away from cold and damp places!
All my PS1, PS2, and DVD movies are still in great condition. Some defective copies doesn't mean it's happening to all CD and DVD, especially the ones that has been treated with great care.
Heck, i'm more worried with fire accident or flooding than disc rot.
@Boxmonkey I've had a few CDs and DVDs go bad over the years. Granted, it's only a few out of many 100s so it's not a huge problem, but it does happen.
@trev666 (#2) This, this, this. 1,000,000%. Disc rot is mightily blown out of proportion.
And can we maybe get the trend of "(#x)" for replying to comments? Maybe @pushsquare can overhaul the comment section to incorporate the comment you're replying to?
@Boxmonkey (#7) exactly.
Right as everyone is trying to push you to go all digital where everything costs more and they can just wipe a game from existence whenever they choose...this starts doing the rounds.
What an incredibly convenient coincidence 🤔 😂
Don't know about that but sounds way off because I've got physical disc collections of my old time music artist when I was young. 25 years later and as recently tested they're in superb condition.
@ANJB78 it's not a conspiracy theory
Pushsquare: You better stick to digital because your physical collection is falling apart haha. This is the biggest shill article for Sony I've ever seen. As soon as their next digital "sale" is on, I'm sure you'll be telling us all about it as usual lol
@DonkeyFantasy
Sure...it's all on the level for this to be being talked about right now 😂
As I know, from my 4000+ dvd/bd/uhd library right now only 3 discs suffered from disc rot. The problem lies mainly in production process. All discs that died, in my collection, had rough edges and it looked like silver layer was glued on disc. The best condition have discs with round edges where silver layer is "laminated inside" of disc.
Removed - unconstructive feedback
@BecauseBecause
I tried cleaning them, but it seems to be underneath the plastic. They’re from 2006, and I remember buying all the sets on sale for about £8 each, so I’ve had my value for them. When enough go I’ll get the blu-ray box set.
@Boxmonkey this is true to an extent, not sure if you've ever been to CEX recently (if ever) but older game mark ups are becoming increasingly common. Saw a copy of Velvet Assassin for the 360 which was a very OK game for £66 in CEX, came out in 2009.
Removed - unconstructive feedback
I mean, there's always a chance of disc rot happening, but if you take care your discs will probably outlast you.
It would be nice if this article were updated to reflect the actual “at least” lifetime for Blu-ray Discs so the original article’s info that THIS article cites is represented accurately. Otherwise it really comes off as misrepresenting the effective life span of a Blu-ray Disc, intentionally or unintentionally.
The other thing I mentioned is apparently not mentionable here, so I shall not mention it.
@Boxmonkey I own some music CDs pressed in the early 90s, which have disc rot. Often you don't hear it - CDDA has a good error correction, but I'm unable to create a bit-perfect copy.
In the end, if 1 publisher for 1 or 2 years is affected, this could mean that all available copies of a game are affected. It turns game preservation into gambling even with physical media.
We need a right to backup our games, and to hack our systems to play backups.
@Max_the_German I agree,but also Ultra Blue Rays have been around for a while now,it seems to me 9/10 years,in the meantime some improvement will have been there,even with this technology
@MrGawain the Blu-ray release is fantastic, amazing the work they did on the tng trek blurays!
@Flitzpiepe I'm curious what CDs they are! As I said elsewhere I've only seen some bronzing and some with slight rot that were poorly stored in a warehouse somewhere that i got off eBay. But my 1987 Soup Dragons looks perfect and plays perfectly. It might depend on what factory it was made in and materials used etc i suppose. Funny thing i just noticed is there's the Warner Bros logo on it!
I only need the discs to last as long as I'm alive so L rip bozo get Shrekt
Nothing lasts forever. More incentive to actually play one’s games than stick them on a shelf.
Some more propaganda in favour of an all digital distopia. No thanks.
The amount of denial in this comments section is insane 😆 Disc rot is a real thing, that's why it's been talked about since the 90s (they knew it would eventually be an issue). I've experienced it with a few old CDs and DVDs for sure, but not many. This is to spread awareness, not fear. Just take care of your discs and when possible, dump them to a PC for even longer preservation 😎
@BecauseBecause Most noticable it is with my original copy of Nirvana's Nevermind. The hidden track is pushed to the very last sectors of the disc, and some part of the data layer just has peeled off at the edge.
Then a copy of a CD by the German punk band "Die Ärzte", pressed by Sony Austria in 1994. It has at least one little hole in the data layer. Unfortunatly, one track on the disc is banned in Germany, and no newer copies exist. (Or only with one track missing)
I know a lot of people are saying this but I'm very disappointed in these fear monger articles. Must be too slow a day at the offices for journalistic integrity
Why don’t physical video games come with a digital copy like blu ray/ 4K movie discs do?
#teamdigitalftw 😎
i understand disc rot is real, but if you keep your discs relatively clean and safe and store them correctly, there’s nothing you should be concerned about
This article brought to you by Sony and other media giants who want to completely do away with physical media.
I've got a big box of music cassettes in the loft..I'll have to see how they are faring up..I bet they still play.
I've vinyl over 40+ years old, CDs that are 30+ years old and a whole bunch of physical games over that period that all work fine and most likely will continue to do so long after I'm gone.
By comparison much of mine, and your, digital collection will be delisted, removed and sites that host them likely changed or defunct by then.
This article is the very definition of making a mountain out of a molehill.
The REAL reason for this nonsense about all our physical media not working in X amount of time being spun is because publishers want you to own nothing while having complete control over any purchases you make with them. End. Of. Story.
Sadly consumers are buying into the lie. Even defending it. You reap what you sow.
Sorry but the premise of this article is a bit silly imo. Physical copies, even if it were true that all discs are soon doomed to stop working (in most cases, they won't for a very long time), they are still better for preservation and you have control over the product you purchase. You can lend it to other people and even sell it to others if you want. Physical copies are often much cheaper than digital and in the case of some, are better value when they come with the DLC built into the disc build. So much of this misinformation comes from the false belief that physical copies only act as download triggers which in most cases, isn't true.
I haven't yet encountered a rotten disc, touch wood — but I did purge a load of DVDs after a house move a couple of years ago, and some of those I hadn't touched in years... I've fired up a few handfuls of PS1/2 discs this past year and they all worked just fine.
Entropy. There is no escape. Sounds daft but it makes me question hanging onto some crap til later life. It's just gonna make someones life harder after i shuffle off.
It is sadly just a fact of the technology. Most storage technology, in fact. Games preservation will never involve original media and needs to exist on transferable storage devices that can be modernized and updated when those storage devices begin to fail.
@Boxmonkey
Congratulations, you've found two. Both myself and my friend have had disc rot affecting our earliest CD's, ones I bought in the 80's. In my mates case you literally see the rot like a fungus spore on the metal surface of the disc.- we have at least 2 dozen examples, none of them are functional now.
Anyone thinking their discs will be OK for life is in for real shock, as they do not last that long.
Its for this reason that if I back important data up to disc I use M-Disc certified equipment and discs, with a stone layer that genuinely lasts a life-time.
I haven't had any game discs rot, but I've been entirely digital now for years and sold off all my old game discs several years back. My media is all ripped and stored locally as well as in the cloud.
For info: Ern Bieman, a digital preservationist with the Canadian Conservation Institute, told Gizmodo that commercially produced Blu-rays, if undamaged and stored correctly, should last at least 20 years.
@Northern_munkey Cassettes will be fine mate - they deteriorate in a different way
The best way to preserve games is pirating unfortunately. The easiest way is to upload to a digital library is through physical media. That’s why a lot of people hate a digital only future. Streaming or Gamepass like distribution hated even more so.
Disk usually have about 15-20 years lifespan.
Not a single one.
The only one that did was a cheap cd burn i did back in the day. Console games are all perfect.
If you store them in your moldy basement without any protection then i can see it.
But, another thing, don't use this to say digital is better cause hard drive discs are subject to the same thing.
@Bamila My oldest one is Sonic CD. It's 32 years old. Still fine.
Actually, they are all fine. I only had one rot in hundreds from one i burned myself on the pc and they are all still fine. Honestly the rot came from the golden top surface. I believe that was the issue. It was a bad quality disc.
@Flitzpiepe Peeled off! I've never seen that before! I have seen discs with rough edges before though, maybe that could happen to them. I'm surprised at it being Nirvana though, me and my partner have loads of 90s CDs from around that time with no issues. At least Nirvana's Nevermind has been reissued several times over the years. It'll be bad if albums that have been long deleted start going.
No one is questioning the existence of the problem,we are questioning that it is as widespread and absolutely certain as it appears from reading this news.
As others have said,the problem with Warner Bros. DVDs is not due to the natural end of the discs,but to problems during assembly.
Problem that,normally,should be the exception,not the rule.
Then of course,if everyone tells his experience,it is obvious that everyone will have some examples of discs that do not work,statistically,it is natural.
Justifying the absurd scaremongering in this article,however,is quite another thing,I think.
@Titntin That does surprise me, I can't help but wonder what sort of places they were stored in, maybe just inside houses and not in the loft or garage, but there's just so many variables anyway that we could have the same album on CD but made in different factories/countries and so on.
@BecauseBecause I couldn't tell you where my friends discs were kept, but mine were on shelves in the front room along with all my other media. My room is always between 17 and 21 degrees and I have no damp. I lost about 6 and didnt realise until it came time to digitise them all. Mine looked fine but simply wouldn't read.
I'm a discogs user. I bought a promo copy of a CD from 2008 that skipped, so I cleaned it and it literally fell apart. Bought a legit retail copy and it was fine. Recently purchased a disc printed in 1984. It's older than I am. The case and inserts were partially yellowed from cigarette smoke and/or sun damage. Says "printed in West Germany." Played fine. I know multiple people who have passed away who didn't have total lifespans as long as this CD.
I do remember hearing about disc rot for a while now. I haven't checked a lot of my older games in a while, but a friend of mine has a copy of Jet Set Radio Future that he's had for years, and every time he plays it every few years, it's causing more and more issues.
Comments section full of dinosaurs! Sold all my physical media years ago, never regretted it. So many new games to play, no need to hold onto the past. Declutter your lives, people, you really don't need all that stuff to be happy.
@BecauseBecause The issue with re-releases is that every CD "remaster" from the late 90s and later has increased loudness and reduced dynamics.
Anyway, I buy my music digitally as FLAC nowadays, and I don't have such problems anymore. That is how I want my games, too.
However, preserving digital media requires me to have free access to the data and store it on a medium of my choice.
Even the PS5's internal memory will eventually lose data, if you don't provide power to the system for a longer period of time. Eventually all updates will be gone, and having only the "gold master" / pre-day-one version on disc almost always means: The game is buggy and sucks.
Lucky we don't live forever.
@Boxmonkey I mean they don't especially when Sony always have great sales, also this isn't a Sony thing both MS and Nintendo are the same with Nintendo being worse as they rare put big 1st party games on sale. Finally its also up to other Publishers as well on how much games cost and how much they go on sale
I've been collecting videogames that were on discs since they first Started putting them on discs and not one of them have rotted to the point of no longer working. What are you guys doing storing them out of their cases in a moldy basement or something?
By the time/if my discs fail the digital versions will either be dirt cheap or I’ll not care about playing it anymore.
@trev666 it depends on the quality of the disc you recorded on. I've got cds and dvds that are over 25 years old and they still play perfectly.
Yup, have known about disc rot for a long time now. This is nothing new. We'll just have to wait and see what happens to our discs.
The internet seems pretty undecided about the life span of blu rays, (not surprising, considering they are still relatively young). I suspect the 20 year is more manufacturer extremely modest guess.
@Deadlyblack is it definitely the game though and not the laser going on the console? That's another thing I don't think anyone has mentioned, and that is eventually all consoles will die anyway lol
@Flitzpiepe Oh yeah, this is partly why I went to the trouble of finding the spyro trilogy that's completely on the disc!
@BecauseBecause I walked into a store, took a look at the back of the box and grabbed the one, which didn't mention a required download. What was the troublesome part of this process?
I have had exactly one disc get disc rot out of nearly 1000 discs (CDs, DVDs, games, Blu Rays) in the 30+ years I’ve used them. Most likely it was a manufacturing fault (improperly sealed). Scratches are far more common, but if you keep discs in cases that should be pretty rare too, though I have plenty of old CDs from my teenage years which look scratched but work perfectly well.
Don’t panic. Look after your stuff. To paraphrase what was printed on the inlays of CDs in the 80s and 90s ‘with proper care your disc should give you a lifetime of enjoyment’.
@BecauseBecause The laser on his Xbox is just fine cause he can play his other games without any issues. JSRF is the oldest game he has too.
@SeanOhOgain And this is why I modded my PS3.
Two of my Sega CD games have succumbed to disc rot but nothing else (that I'm aware of). The first game, Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side, won't boot at all. The other game, Jurassic Park, will boot but it'll eventually fail because there's just data missing.
I'm not saying this to freak anyone out, but you shouldn't pretend disc rot is a non-issue either. Back up your collection if you can, and look into what steps are needed to play backup discs on your favorite consoles.
@Flitzpiepe What country do you live in? In the UK to my knowledge there is no copy of spyro that states no download required on the sleeve. Except for the crash kart double pack.
Look at these on eBay, they all say download required on the front, people had to see discs inside for the year to know if it was all on the disc or not as some copies were complete but with new copies i wasn't going to be able to tell. It's all documented online.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_nkw=spyro+reignited+trilogy+ps4&_trksid=p4432023.m4084.l1311&_sacat=0
I usually just sell my previous collection after each generation.
I have had old CD's fail because of scratches and have had lasers fail to read the disc and needed to replace it. Never have I had a Blu-ray disc to fail.
It's well known that laser discs are not a sustainable support for storage. Nothing beats the magnetic tape. That said, your Blue ray has probably a longer lifetime than a subscription account where the purchased content can be made unavailable at any time.
Honestly, I'm more worried about losing my collection in a fire than I am about losing it to disk rot.
This feels like an article pushing towards full digital future. I'm sure either we have tech to repair discs or we can easily create it, since it's such an old tech.
Keep buying discs people.
@Gamecuber BTW, GameCube was one of my favorite systems. The jump to 3d on the 64 wqas amazing. But the smoothness in GC was absurd. A lot of good games as well.
Everyone is going to push for all digital, we just gotta keep buying discs.
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...