When I was a child I would play a lot of PC video games that would play both game and music off the CD-ROM laser. I also scratched a lot of my CD's and was playing them while scratched. Most of these games would run like a console (off the laser), I went through a lot of CD ROM drives back then.
I believe that the constant running of background music, was part of the cause of this. On some older late 1990's PC games. In which played and ran music while the game played.
But it also probably had something to do with playing them when scratched.
I think PC games no longer use the CD-ROM for in-game music. Ever since hard-drives were able to play the music. Therefore saving a lot of lasers work. Unfortunately consoles don't have this option I don't think as of this post.
What do you think? I am leaving a lot of space for discussion about my theory, of preserving the laser.
I did mention this before on a different post today (in a previous edit), but I figured I start a thread about this topic alone.
(Edit) I will admit that games like Gran Turismo I still probably keep the music playing because a game is pretty much dull without music