You just sat down to play one of your favorite PS3 games (Maybe Grand Theft Auto?). You insert the drive and wait for it to load, but then disaster strikes. The game disc has been scratched and is no longer playable. Sounds like you’ll need new plans for the night.

The described situation is one of the many reasons why you should copy your PS3 games. PlayStation 3 games often cost upwards of $60, and replacement costs for damaged discs add up. An unfortunate fact about gaming is that no matter how careful you are with your game media, over time wear and tear can and probably will.

Until several months ago, copying PS3 games was a real chore and required the use of a PC with special hardware installed. The game backup process was cumbersome, as copy protections built into individual games had to be broken or bypassed. Very few people were able to successfully create a playable copy of a game. All that has changed now.

Feature-rich software has been developed for use on both PC and Mac that allows even the most casual gamer to effortlessly back up their entire video game collection, using nothing more than the click of a mouse. The software works by reading the original game disc and copying the contents of the disc into the system memory. Once there, the copy protection, if any, built into the game disc is parsed and bypassed if necessary. Then a copy of the disk can be made.