Ben-DutkaIt's one of those old cultural myths that gave everyone a chuckle.
…but what if it isn't a myth?
The "myth" says Atari once buried millions of copies of its infamous Atari title, E.T: The Extra Terrestrial , in a New Mexico landfill. Now, the Alamogordo News reports that the New Mexico Environmental Department has given a documentary crew the go-ahead to start excavating the site in question.
Yep, they're gonna look for the buried copies. Alamogordo city commissioners approved the search last June, but the project was put on hold because a waste excavation plan needed to be finalized. The proposal has now been accepted and the companies working on the documentary (Fuel Entertainment and Lightbox Interactive) can discover the truth. Xbox Entertainment Studios is funding this project, and the documentary will debut as a multi-part series on Xbox platforms later this year.
E.T. was quite the game…virtually unplayable but for some reason, oh so appealing. It released back in 1982 for the Atari 2600, and millions of copies were produced just because they figured the name would guarantee high sales. But it flopped big time and ever since, it has been blamed as being one of the catalysts for the video game crash of 1983.
Well, if those copies were buried, the crew will definitely find 'em. They're not exactly biodegradable and it wasn't that long ago.
I don't know if this game was the catalyst for the collapse of the great crash or not.
It was just one of the many MANY crappy games that was flooding the market at that time and it happened to be a game from a very popular movie.
Game companies were selling games for like 40 or 50 bucks a piece while black market games, and there were TONS of them, were selling theirs for 10 or 15 bucks. It was to my understanding that some companies made games for the Atari 2600 without even paying royalties or something.
But at the end of atari's life there was the Intellivision system (which I loved), Coleco vision, and a few more that was still there to play with.
The collapse was based on Atari. I don't think for a second that this game industry was dead. It just wasn't as big before Atari fell.
Nintendo came in and took it's place.
I did love Atari games. So many good games. YAR'S REVENGE!!!
Nintendo was actually going to help revive the Atari brand through the Famicom. They were in talks about releasing the 8 bit console together in the West. They were very close in reaching a deal.
However, Atari was more concerned with getting into fights with Coleco and the deal went nowhere. That's when Nintendo decided to release the NES without the help of Atari.
BTW, the whole concept of this new documentary is actually the whole plot of the upcoming ANGRY VIDEO GAME NERD MOVIE that is in post-production now.
Last edited by Bonampak on 4/4/2014 3:41:27 PM
I might still have a copy of that game, if my mom didn't throw everything away. she kept all the gaming system's for a long time. Hell she might even have an old "PONG"
Awesome, I always wondered if that was true, hope they find em!
Wouldn't it be funny if half way through the dig Atari said that they were buried at an other site. Or maybe I'm just a jerk.
There was an ET game?
this is ceratinly interesting i certainly don't know if i wud buy into this but maybe some people will like this
happy gaming =)
its sad that one of the most famous games out there has to be the game which almost ended the industry!
how apt timing too, the way this industries going were in for another crash very soon publishers keep churning out the same sh*t over and over again!