Hey there,
I had a tech talk about retrogaming on OG Hardware. We ended up with the point that discs, some GBA,(3ds) and Switch games just die and cannot be used anymore.
So i question what is the use in collecting then. Its basically dead money. Its not really a cheap Hobby.
What do you think about it?
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I like collecting games for 2 reasons
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I like the games. Just having a physical copy is nice to have for the box and game art alone.
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so that I own a licensed and can backup the game before it dies. Since even if the game dies I still legally have a playable copy of the game.
Thats one Argument for keeping the stuff OG. I really have mixed Feelings :/
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I own a lot of systems and games and, well, you have a point. Gaming on an original device is really nice, but everybody should really think hard about just buying some flash drives for their favorite systems. Games are mass produced. Nothing artsy there. Just mass produced entertainment. A CD-Rom with some nice prints on there. A plastic shell with a sticker. A box. Nice to look at and if you can get them cheap, buy them. But there is no reason to spend hundreds of dollars to buy that one game from some scalper.
I don’t collect anymore. I do still have a small amount of stuff that I enjoy but overall it’s too expensive, not enough space, unreliable media etc…
I personally like having my small collection of games. No idea when any of them will die, but it’s at least nice to have them. For price, I’m lucky enough that the vast majority of games I want aren’t super expensive at a local game store I like to visit.
That, or are cheap enough at a pawnshop near me. Ty the Tasmanian Tiger for PS2 for under $20 (possibly under $10/I don’t remember)? Sign me up! Almost bought it, but decided against it since I wasn’t sure how tight the rest of my college financial aid money would be after all my Christmas shopping.
Edit:
I am also skeptical about things like disc rot because I have heard countless times about it but have never met a single person who has ever had it happen to them.
Just on the issue of disc rot, I feel like I have something to add to the conversation that’s more than a personal anecdote.
For many years I worked as a game developer and I did tons of multimedia software, it would not be an exaggeration to say that in my career I personally oversaw the burning of over 100,000 discs, and that’s not counting manufacturing or high-run final product.
There’s actually a pretty high failure rate, even on new disks. Most that are about 7 years have a 50% failure rate, anything after 10 years if you’re lucky you can use software.
In the above examples I’m talking about discs that the consumer grade hardware can burn. It doesn’t matter that we used the highest quality equipment, it really doesn’t change the formula. Commercially made ones have a much higher durability, somewhere around double.
So basically any disk you own, regardless of where and when it was made, you’ve got 15 to 20 years at best and then it’s nothing but a crap shoot.
Well. Look for older games like Metal Gear Solid or FF7. They still work.
Could it be that you speak about an expected failure rate?
Cartridges tend to be reliable in the long run as long as you avoid physical damage. Leaking save state batteries can be a problem there.
Optical discs do go bad just by aging in the box.
There’s another angle to this. A while back, Metal Jesus Rocks had a video about a Switch game that had an incorrect cover, and it was going to be corrected after the first production run was sold through. Which means it would be a collectors item.
He bought it, but had a “wtf am I doing?” moment afterwards. He didn’t care about the game beforehand. Its only value to him is that a manufacturer mistake would make it valuable to other collectors. Which is somewhat circular logic.
Edit: to clarify, I don’t think it’s just about rare things, either. Having a collection at all, where you have tons of games that you don’t really care about and they just sit on a shelf, is kinda insane. I don’t have any moral compunction about pirating old games, so why bother? In many cases, I can even play on original hardware with SD card mods, and especially on optical disc systems, the experience is better.
In the age of emulators, original games are no better then NFTs. They are just a pretty thing to look at, and a store of value for however long other people value them.
I’m mostly being sarcastic, but only mostly. I personally see no value in game collecting. Obviously some people like to hold real games and stick them into real consoles. Me, I just want to play the games.
Makes sense. But what are the odds getting such?
I added this in an edit, but I don’t think it’s just about rare things. Having a collection of games that just sit on your shelf is silly. Which goes for a lot of other types of collecting, too.
Not sure why anyone would think that, I have functional machines and games going back to the Atari 2600.
Because facts. I knew about CDs/DVD and so on. New to me ist the GBA, DS, 3DS and Switch run out somewhen.
I have functional music CDs from 1983 and gaming CDs on the Sega CD forward.
Most commercial CDs and DVDs are expected to last about 25 years, although they can last a lot longer than that depending on the quality of the manufacturing process, how the discs are stored, and how they are handled. Keep CDs and DVDs away from heat and light, keep them away from high humidity, and minimize flexing or bending them as much as possible. When discs flex, the polycarbonate layers can split and separate – even just a tiny bit – and moisture can get in. Once that happens, the disc will degrade faster.
Source: Am an optical media nerd and enthusiast and still use optical media every week.
