Is daylight bad for your game boxes?

I am moving to a new house soon. Have a nice room with lots of shelves perfect for my game collection. The room has one bigger window but during the day letting in some direct sunlight. Planning to put UV filter plastic on the window and place a net curtain in front of the window also. So only some lightbulb light (LED) and some daylight will enter the room.

Do you guys think my game boxes will not discolour? Or is a complete dark room a better option?

 

Any direct light will eventually fade them so the best you can do is slow down the progression. I use blackout curtains in the room with my games and the lights are only on when I am in there. It might seem like paranoia but my younger years in retail showed me the horrors of what even indirect light will do. LEDs will supposedly cause fading too but no first hand experience to back up the claim.

 

Sunlight will absolutely fade a game box. I wouldn't even chance it for a few hours.

 

UV filters slow things down, they don't prevent sunfading though

 

Interesting read here - http://www.ukiyoe-gallery.com/sunfade.htm
pic related

 

Might depend on where you live to, might be somewhat less hazardous in say Seattle compared to Florida. Either way UV rays are terrible on everything, look at any 20 year old car that's been sitting outside in a sunny location most its life.

It's funny I was just thinking about this, since I just let my stuff sit on the shelf, no curtains or nothin. However direct sunlight doesn't hit any of it, just indirect. Even if it's just the spines getting light, so far so good. Most have been there for a few years now and I can't tell the difference between the front of the box and the spine that sees light. However a UV filter in windows sounds like a good idea..

 

I keep my game consoles covered with a towel or dust cover when not in use.
I keep my games in bankers boxes and not displayed at all.

 

I had a box that was mostly obscured by a cupboard. It was there for years, maybe since 2004 or so. The exposed part wasn't exposed to direct, strong sunlight, since the box was kept a distance from the only window.
Fast forward to 2018, and the box has a "tan" on its print, where sunlight never shone on.

As Austin wrote, you should also pay attention to controlling moisture and dust exposure. These things can also cause discolouration, indirectly or directly.
Mold is also a horrible thing.

I believe collectables are meant to be enjoyed and loved, in the moment when they're still in good conditions. The only things that will truly stay the same from day 1, are photographs. Which is why I take good photographs of everything that I collect.

 

Yeah it will discolour sooner or later no matter how well you hide it from artificial and natural light. I recently put some expensive stuff inside metal boxes hidden inside a wardrobe, if that doesn't work I don't know what will. Gotta store them on the dark side of the moon, it's dry, cold and no sunlight.

Also pay attention to humidity. I had a perfectly white Saturn console wrapped in a black bag and stored in a dark room with a dehumidifier. Less than three months later I took it out to check and the whole back was yellow. This was both on the top and bottom parts, so it's not like a bad plastic part (think SFC yellowing), it's well uniform across different parts. I guess even indirect sunlight and 50-60% humidity is not good enough.

Like the comment above just said, these things are meant to be enjoyed "fast". They were never meant to be museum paperweights. Even if you could avoid 100% of sunlight and humidity damage, time will eventually damage them (plastic will brittle and break, paper will fold/change colour, discs will rot and they're plastic anyway, electronic components will fail etc). It's just a matter of time, there is no way out

Oh and we need a thread to show the worse damage done by neon lamps. these lamps are the absolute worst nightmare of a game collector. i've seen boxes turn completely white+grey from sitting under a neon lamp for many years. it's like an invisible worm sucking the colours off a box.


edit:
https://assemblergames.com/threads/things-that-you-regret-you-sold.24020/page-25#post-971346
as you can see from these comments, even ps1-era plastic is already starting to crack like an egg

 

No sunlight gets in my room AT ALL.

Everything is pristine because of it.

 

thats too bad, its a nice room for displaying if I can find a proper solution, maybe some tips?

 

Wow that’s a nice room

 

Put curtains on the windows?

 

But I gonna use this room as my office so some daylight / view is also nice.

So I was planning to us UV stickers, LED light and a net curtain but that seems still not enough protection =(

 

Put the curtains over the shelves instead of the windows then?

 

Maybe you could rig something clever like that

 

I keep my precious in a dark cave. Well a dark storage room at least. Absolutely helps prevent box fading. Also makes it easier to manage dust and humidity. And easier to manage the wife. Although if I had them sprawling all over the house making the place look like a toy store like some of the pictures I've seen I'm sure I wouldn't even have to worry about a wife.

 

Not game box related, but this is my experience from my record collection. I have a full complete set of Nirvana Slivers in all the colours, and paid a stupid amount to get the records and sleeves all mounted and framed for my office. After 6 months of display, three of the sleeves had gone considerably yellowed, and another 2 had had all the magenta ink fade away. Never doing that again. I had to buy a load of cheap pink second presses and cheap black first presses to replace the sleeves.

Now anything that I deem collectable, I just keep in Swann 7" boxes. They are great for CDs and UK PS1 games and DVD sized games too if you ask for extra dividers when you order them. The actual Swann CD cases are too small for anything but a standard CD.

edit: Cardboard is a bitch to keep new. Even some of my still sealed Psygnosis games are faded on the one side that was exposed.

 

That's it, we're gonna have to do something about this "sun" character. It must be destroyed before it destroys all our precious games!

*Whip sounds*
If you're not allowed a game room she's probably being a bitch.

 

I have both a den and study in this house. There's a big difference between setting aside a room for yourself and turning your entire 2 room flat/room/basement into a Toys R Us/otaku shop.