The oldest DVD I own is from 1996 and it still works without any problem. Take care of them and don't let them get scratched up. Rip them and make a backup.
Meanwhile, the OP article is about games, Sony PlayStation games in particular. These games tend to be recorded on special media, with hardware-specific copy protection steps, requiring special actions for basic preservation (which become impossible with the passage of time), leading to specific issues, hence this article, which tries to influence legislation to prevent these.
Not all do. Games for a lot of systems can be read directly from the storage media.
> Likewise, the game isn’t usually 100% contained on disc.
Only for the couple most-recent generations. But even virtually all of my PS4 games (not to mention earlier generations) are actually on the disc, playable without a download.
> So the question in my mind becomes, do game companies have an obligation to support games in perpetuity? I think when phrased that way, the answer is an obvious no.
Agreed, but I also think that if they don't have that obligation, then society doesn't have the obligation to provide copyright protection when they drop support.