Not just a myth: It's now confirmed that Atari dumped thousands of unsold E.T. games in the New Mexico desert in the '80s

[Dan Druff]

http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/26/56...i-games-in-new

The legend was that, in 1983, Atari buried thousands of E.T. cartridges, after the game was a flop.

They were supposedly buried in a New Mexico landfill, but many people doubted the story over the years, and it was relegated to urban legend status.

Not quite.



It's real.

[lewfather]

Isn't this the basis of the Angry Video Game Nerd movie?

[BCR]

Chazmental phone home? Wasn't that the same town?

[BeerAndPoker]

I saw this on TV earlier briefly but didn't catch the whole thing since I was just randomly channel flicking around news hour.

LOL @ dumping them like that when their are better things you can do such as hand the game out for free or include it in a promo with another game but they cared so much about their image I suppose.

[Crowe Diddly]

http://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sho...139#post239139

[SrslySirius]

Isn't this the basis of the Angry Video Game Nerd movie?

That was the first thing that came to mind when I heard this news. That is indeed the basis of his movie, which has been in production for a few years now. This kinda sucks for him, but it's cool to see that the urban legend has been true all along.

Also sucks for collectors with this game in their possession, as it will probably devalue significantly.

[zealanddonk]

http://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sho...139#post239139

Micon doesn't read his own site.

[simpdog]

Please move thread to Atari thread

[Daly]

Isn't this the basis of the Angry Video Game Nerd movie?

That was the first thing that came to mind when I heard this news. That is indeed the basis of his movie, which has been in production for a few years now. This kinda sucks for him, but it's cool to see that the urban legend has been true all along.

Also sucks for collectors with this game in their possession, as it will probably devalue significantly.

There isn't a more worthless game for a collector. There are still millions of copies of this game out there.

Still a cool story though.

[BeerAndPoker]

These cartridges sold for about $108,000 in total:

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/natio...323336681.html

[Dan Druff]

These cartridges sold for about $108,000 in total:

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/natio...323336681.html

I can't believe there was much interest for these.

They are likely not playable after 30 years in the dirt, even if you have a working Atari 2600.

They aren't that interesting of a collectors' item because hundreds were found, and they are identical in appearance to non-buried ET cartridges.

I managed to force myself to get enjoyment out of the ET game in 1982 as a 10-year-old, but I found certain elements really frustrating, and later I learned that these frustrating elements were exactly why it was considered such an awful game.

Atari also rushed their "Pac Man" game to market, which was also considered a huge disappointment. They forced the developer to package a prototype as the real thing -- something the developer (Tod Frye) still regrets reluctantly agreeing to.

Decades later, a few nerds developed a good Pac Man game that could have run on the Atari 2600 hardware.