How bad was ET for Atari?

E.T. was supposed to be a major success, and because of that, Atari had millions of cartridges ready to ship to stores for the holiday season. Once people got their hands on the game, though, word quickly spread that it was terrible. Stores canceled orders of shipments and Atari was left with a huge amount of E.T.
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Why was E.T. on Atari bad?

the Extra-Terrestrial, designed in a record five weeks by a single programmer. The game was a commercial failure due to its poor quality and difficult gameplay. Atari struggled to recover from the poor sales of E.T. and never recovered its reputation among the gaming community.
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Is E.T. in Atari worth anything?

A few years ago, they dug them up — an event chronicled in the documentary “Atari: Game Over“. And a whole bunch of them, plus some other games that were buried at the same site, just sold for a total of $107,930.15. A copy of ET was the highest selling item, fetching more than $1,535.
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What happened to the E.T. Atari game?

In September of 1983, Atari found itself with a surplus of game cartridges that they needed to remove from its warehouse in El Paso, Texas. They decided to bury the games in a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico, to prevent people from scavenging them.
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Why did Atari decide to skip testing E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial?

Atari decided to skip testing due to time limitations. They wanted the game released during the holiday season. It was: E.T. was released in December of 1982. The game sold very well at first.
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Inside the Worst Video Game Ever

How much did Atari lose on ET game?

With customers returning unsold cartridges in their millions, E.T. posed an immediate problem for Atari. A game with an RRP of $49 was being sold for a dollar in bargain baskets, and by the time Atari pulled the plug, losses of $100m were being mooted.
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How many Atari ET games were buried?

Contrary to the urban legend that claims millions of cartridges were buried there, Heller stated that only 728,000 cartridges were buried. Remnants of E.T. and other Atari games were discovered in the early hours of the excavation, as reported by Microsoft's Larry Hryb.
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What is the rarest Atari games?

Top 10 Most RARE Atari 2600 Games as of 2024
  • Extra Terrestrials:
  • Gamma-Attack: ...
  • Video Life: ...
  • Atlantis II: ...
  • Killer Satellites: ...
  • Red Sea Crossing: ...
  • Save Mary: Save Mary, a prototype, is another rare title for the Atari 2600. ...
  • Birthday Mania: Birthday Mania is a rare and sought-after game for the Atari 2600. ...
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What company buried 700000 video games?

In 1983, rumors circulated: Atari was bankrupt, and was dumping truckloads of games into a New Mexico landfill. Victim to the "Video Game Crash," the company buried 700,000 cartridges in the desert. The story became an obscure pop culture legend -- until "The Atari Tomb" was unearthed in 2014.
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What company buried 700000 unsold video games in 1983?

Atari emptied out a warehouse and paid Alamogordo to dump nearly 800,000 games in its city landfill in 1983, according to Joseph Lewandowski, who was on site when it happened and later bought the garbage company that buried them.
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What is the best-selling Atari game of all time?

The best-selling video game on the console is Pac-Man, a port of the arcade game of the same name programmed by Tod Frye. Originally created by Toru Iwatani and released in 1980, Pac-Man was later ported to many home video game consoles, beginning with the Atari 2600 in 1982.
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What Atari game is worth $10000?

Red Sea Crossing

The only known ad for the game was in Christianity Today. Red Sea Crossing is the most expensive Atari 2600 game when it is cartridge only, by about $10,000. Air Raid sells for more when it comes with a box.
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Who programmed E.T. for Atari?

Howard Scott Warshaw (born July 30, 1957), also known as HSW, is an American psychotherapist and former game designer. He worked at Atari, Inc. in the early 1980s, where he designed and programmed the Atari 2600 games Yars' Revenge, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
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What was the worst Atari game?

Well, then E.T. for the Atari 2600 remains the worst game ever." —The Escapist's Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw on the game's infamy.
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Why was E.T. banned?

In Sweden, the censorship board decided to ban E.T. for children under the age of 11 not because of E.T. himself, but because the film “portrays adults as enemies of children.” We can assume that they were referring to the mysterious government agents who show up and pursue E.T.
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Why was E.T. the video game such a failure?

This game has infamously been regarded as the worst game of all time and resulted in such a huge loss for Atari that the games ended up being buried in the middle of the desert. E.T.'s rushed development schedule, overproduction of stock, and horrendous gameplay led to the biggest disaster to ever shape the industry.
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What was the saddest death in gaming history?

Saddest Video Game Death of All Time - Aerith

“Final Fantasy VII” (1997) There aren't many deaths in video games that can match Aerith's from “Final Fantasy VII.” With her bubbly demeanor, her compassion for others, and her incredibly useful healing capabilities, Aerith quickly became a fan favorite character.
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Why did Atari fail?

The combined impact of the underperforming sales and poor quality of Pac-Man and E.T. reflected on Atari as it caused consumers to become wary of the company's future products, leading to a slowdown in sales entering 1983.
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What video game was buried in a landfill?

(It was bad. Very bad.) Legend has it that Atari buried millions of unsold and returned copies of E.T., and perhaps other titles, in a New Mexico dump as the company struggled to stay afloat.
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What is the rarest game ever?

Game attack for the Atari 2600 is possibly the rarest video game ever produced. Only one cartridge was produced by gaming company Gammation. The cartridge is owned by collector Antony DeNardo.
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Are there fake Atari games?

There were knockoff Atari cartridges, ersatz “100-in-1" NES games, and enough PlayStation CD-Rs to reach the moon and back during their time. But those bootlegs were easily identifiable by their shoddy quality. More to the point, most people buying them knew they were fake. They just wanted to play the games.
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Does Atari exist anymore?

In 2008, IESA completed its acquisition of Atari, Inc.'s outstanding stock, making it a wholly owned subsidiary. IESA renamed itself Atari SA in 2009. It sought bankruptcy protection under French law in January 2013. As of 2023, the current Atari's focus is on "video games, consumer hardware, licensing and blockchain".
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Were Atari E.T. games found in the landfill?

The myth had been half true. More than 1,300 cartridges were found at the dig. Former Atari manager James Heller was at the excavation, and confirmed that 728,000 games had been buried there, many of them successful titles, as well as inoperable spare parts. It was a warehouse dump by a company in trouble.
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Which game was considered so violent that a ratings system was introduced?

Two games of this era were specifically cited in the hearings for their content; the fighting game Mortal Kombat featured realistic, digitized sprites of live-action actors, blood, and the ability to use violent "fatality" moves to defeat opponents, while Night Trap featured 90 minutes of FMV content, with scenes that ...
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What was the last game made for Atari?

Atari released the last batch of games in 1989–90 including Secret Quest and Fatal Run. By 1986, over 20 million Atari VCS units had been sold worldwide. The final Atari-licensed release is the PAL-only version of the arcade game KLAX in 1990.
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