Disc Rot - Has this actually happened to you?

[What's His Face]

Have you ever experience the dreaded disc rot? In an age where companies are trying to force their customers to adopt the rental standard of digital download/streaming for all of their electronic entertainment (movies, music, gaming) and tout disc rot as a prime reason to abandon physical media...has disc rot ever actually happened to you?

 

[Nebulon_Galaxy]

Its a hoax made by Big Disc to sell more discs!

 

[dkpopman]

It's only happened to me with some CDs that I left in my old car when the temp got over 100 fahrenheit. Disc rot seems to be a little bit of an exaggerated issue. From what I've seen, as long as you store your discs indoors in climate control and run a dehumidifier if you live in a jungle, you should be fine.

Even cheap rewriteable discs that my mother made decades ago and stored in various different bad places still read fine.

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

Only once, but I can't say I was taking good care of it...

 

[Kremiso]

a couple of times, always Gamestop preowned thing (not so much bad shape as OP image btw);
returned as fast as i could

 

[Vardalis]

Never. Granted, I don't look at my old discs very often, but I buy used DVDs a lot and never had any with that issue regardless of the age. The bigger issue is dirt of scratches.

Edit: I even buy DVDs from a guy who keeps boxes of them baking in the sun each year at a market. Never found one rotted yet.

 

[BejitabroFZ]

It's never happened to me at all. As long as you take care of your games, keep them in their cases when not in use and don't store them in hot/humid areas then your games will survive longer than you will. Scratches, label damage & failing disc drives tend to be much bigger issues

 

[skramz]

a ripped cd i made like 14 years ago developed cd rot, my official discs are a-okay though

 

[R_Zero]

Happened once to my twisted metal 2 cd lol

 

[MegaDrive1987]

I have Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms and NWA - Straight Outta Compton on CD and they've both rotted.

 

[Anim8rDude Anim8rDude]

The only time I've seen this "disc rot" happen was this one occasion I went to buy this PS2 game lot off of marketplace, but the bloke pulled out his "collection" from a cardboard box from his shed & went "Oh, looks like water got into it".
Yeah some of those discs were in this condition that I have never seen before, not to mention the gross bugs that have managed to seep into the game cases.

 

[Lena CE]

I know it is inevitable, but I've been fortunate enough to not have had to deal with it as of yet. Ideally by the time it finally becomes an issue for my collection I'll already have all my systems modded so it won't matter anymore.

 

[BrawlMan]

All of my discs still works fine.

 

[ArchienineZXAdventArchienineZXAdvent's icon]

No, anyways i barely have discs

 

[Graw]

I haven't really looked at any of my discs for probably ten years or so but last time I looked they were good.

 

[NeonKnights]

Yes, but it has mostly happened to my burned CD-R discs from the early 2000s, and some of my older anime ost's that have been used a ton (Hanenone, Departure, and a Cowboy Bebop Blue bootleg cd.).
As for games I have only seen the top refelective layer delaminate from scratching.

 

[TruxtonTatsujin]

Disc rot is a myth, just like dry land.

 

[ThunderBoy]

It's only happened to me twice.
Once with a music CD, and another time with a movie DVD.

It's never happened to me with the hundreds of video games on disc that I own.

And I'm starting to think that even if this discrot thing is real, it's been greatly exaggerated.
Like some kind of corporate conspiracy to scare customers into switching to digital.
Ahem, Sony

 

[diet_orange]

I have CDs as old as I am that despite more than a few knicks and scratches over the decades still work fine. All my original PS1 games do as well

 

[cubixtwister09]

Not for me as far as I know, but I might need to check

 

[rugal]

have never happen to any of my games

but a few music cd did get that problem

 

[iamthemilkman]

Nope. I have had an Xbox One game's layers start to separate. It was Stubbs the Zombie so I had to buy a replacement.

 

[Sunnyside]

Never, and I own well over 100 games from as far back as the late 90's. Though a better example would be my CD collection because I rotate through those regularly. Somewhere between 400-500 albums, still have yet to run into any playback issues that a quick clean couldn't fix. Treat media with proper care and it'll last.

 

[Dyne]

Not that I know of.
But I have a bunch of discs I havent tried to play in over a decade

 

[G.L.a.D.O.S.]

Never personally, generally for commercially pressed disc 30 years is the lifespan, but it also factors in how well it's cared for, humidity, and other environmental factors as well. Of course, a place like Las Vegas will have much lower humidity than Singapore, and in Vegas, the discs will last longer due to that. But again, I have never even seen disc rot myself, aside from photos, mind you.

I have original bought PS2 discs and burnt discs from the same time, and neither are showing signs of it.