I didn't say anything about the disc drive. I said something has to be wrong with the disc.

I go for a mix of both. But then I dump them as either roms or isos and play them on a soft modded console. I swore off purchasing games digitally a while ago.

Discs can't just die because of how they're professionally pressed. Basically data on the disk is represented by tiny holes or pits physically present in the thread of the data layer. Something had to have happened to the disc if it's not working anymore.