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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How many ET games were buried?

James Heller, the former Atari manager who was in charge of the burial, was at the excavation, and admitted to the Associated Press that 728,000 cartridges of various games (not just E.T.) were buried.
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Why did they bury the ET games?

They decided to bury the games in a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico, to prevent people from scavenging them. The Atari video game burial was a mass burial of unsold video game c... Why did Atari bury millions of copies of E.T.? Because they overproduced copies of the game for retail….
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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 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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Excavating the Atari E.T. Video Game Burial Site-Game|Life-WIRED

Is et 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 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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What video game was buried in a landfill?

Cultural symbolism and speculation. All of these factors led to wide speculation that most of the 3.5 million unsold copies of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial ultimately wound up in this landfill, crushed and encased in concrete.
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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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Did E.T. cause the video game crash?

It's also just totally, categorically wrong, like, 90 percent of the time. Case in point: You've probably heard that E.T. for the Atari 2600 was so bad that it crashed the video game industry. Turns out, that's not what happened—at least, not exactly.
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What Atari game was buried?

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. Thirty years was long enough for the dump site—and the truth behind the story—to be lost.
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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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How many copies of E.T. were returned?

According to Ray Kassar, about 3.5 million of the 4 million produced were sent back to the company as unsold inventory or customer returns. A popular rumor was that there were more E.T.
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What was the first video game?

Technician Robert Dvorak spent about two weeks building the device. After a little debugging, the first video game was ready for its debut. They called the game Tennis for Two.
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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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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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How much did Atari lose on E.T. 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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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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How many copies of E.T. were sold?

Racking up 1.97 million in global sales, “E.T.” far surpassed other games dubbed as commercial failures. Four games on the list didn't even sell 10,000 copies.
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What was the first video game death?

Berzerk was the first video game known to have been involved in the death of a player. In January 1981, 19-year-old Jeff Dailey died of a heart attack soon after posting a score of 16,660 on Berzerk.
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How long did it take to make E.T. atari?

After all, he accomplished what he set out to do. He made a functional E.T. game in five weeks that passed quality assurance and met every goal he was given, all while having the creative time of his life.
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What is the rarest video game?

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 any rare Atari games?

Atari 2600

Red Sea Crossing is among the absolute rarest video games ever to exist. Sold exclusively through the magazine Christianity Today in 1983, only two copies are known to exist, one of which, according to IGN, sold for over $10,000 at auction in 2012.
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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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