The causes of this effect vary from oxidation of the reflective layer, to physical scuffing and abrasion of disc surfaces or edges, including visible scratches, to other kinds of reactions with contaminants, to ultra-violet light damage and de-bonding of the adhesive used to adhere the layers of the disc together.
So if UV light is one of the things that causes disc rot, is disc rot on average more common the closer you get to the equator? Is bright sunshine coming through a window to a game box/jewel case enough to rot the game inside?
pepharytheworm wrote:I have 2345 disc based games and found only two with disc rot. One was Dracula SCD and the other was Zombie Revenge DC, both of which were somewhat scratched to begin with and still seem to play fine.
wip3outguy7 wrote:I went through most of mine last night and I would say around 90% of them have label "speckles" (as I have mentioned earlier in the thread). I found 4 (out of about 60) that had outright rot.
Austin is usually at least partially sunny, receiving nearly 2650 hours, or 60.3% of the possible total, of bright sunshine per year.
City Sunny Partly Sunny Total Days With Sun
Birmingham 99 111 210
Huntsville 100 101 201
Mobile 102 116 218
Montgomery 107 107 214
Percent sunshine yearly City % Sun
Birmingham 58
Montgomery 59
Judging by that, the annual sunshine in Huntsville is around 58.125% so the difference between the two cities doesnt see that dramatic, although Austin is further down South (~~100 miles?).
Naturally whether you keep your windows open or closed, do you have black plastic bags taped to your window to prevent the sunlight from getting in and are you storing your game collection down in a basement and other factors like that have a far higher significance than that.