Since I've made the decision to go back into collecting after selling hundreds of games a few years ago, I've been wrestling with this issue as well. A big factor of me selling off my collection I had up to that point (other then helping out the 'ol family with house expenses), was being afraid of my collection decaying, wearing out, etc. Not just my CD-ROMs either; cartridges wear out even faster since they are more "mechanical" then compact discs.I've got a question about the future of our hobby. What going to happen in 12 years when our first round of cd based games turn 25 years old? Is'nt that the expected life span of disk based media? Are all my sega cds going to crap out on me? Kinda makes me think that this hobby dosent have much of a future.
So, for the last couple of years, I've been playing with emulators on and off, but it just wasn't the same. I just can't say I authentically beat the pants off of an NES game unless I'm playing on the actual console, holding the actual controller, and playing on a TV screen. It just felt too fake after a while to me. So, I finally decided to go back to collecting full time because I baby my games so much, I'll most likely pass on before my games start dying. But, then again, electronics have that nasty habit of just going kaput one day, no matter how much you take care of it. That still scares me.