It has been a really long time since I saw this, and I just read a bunch of it and I don't think that I replied before but...

To offset the claim of blowing in carts does damage to them, while I agree that there could be some changes to the cartridges visually, evidence that I can point to as a potential data point to say that it doesn't really do any long term damage is this...

In running the GOAT Store now for more than ten years, I would guess that minimally we have had 10,000 NES carts pass through our hands. NES carts were the most likely to be blown in because of the crappy NES connectors, as has been pretty well established. In that time that we've been selling, I can honestly say that I have never checked the cartridges that we have gotten in for damage, and because we go through so much stuff on a regular basis and unfortunately we don't make enough money for the store to be a full time job, I'm also certain that 3/4ths of those carts or more I did not get a chance to physically try before they left our hands...

But, while NES carts are easily one of our top sellers, we have never had any returned because they weren't working. We've had a few bad games here and there for the 2600, Genesis and SNES, but for whatever reason I have yet to have any returns on literally thousands of NES carts through the years.

To me, this is a pretty strong data point that while some slight changes to the cartridges may appear to take place, whatever those changes are do not seem to affect the cartridges enough that in a 25 year span that many of them are failing. I'm sure that our zero issues is a pretty unique case, but at the same time... it's a pretty strong data point.

I do appreciate the test, but I also don't think that people should be too worried about it... as long as you aren't licking your cartridges, that story was gross.