E.T. "Worst Video Game Ever" Discovery

[OverlandMan]

Read this article tonight. Being an Atari 2600 owner back in the day I enjoyed the read. Had to post it here when I saw someone apparently had a DeLorean Time Machine out there. Haven't looked for the photos. Curious if the owner is a member here.

http://http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2014/04/27/atari-et-game-cartridges-unearthed-in-new-mexico-desert/?intcmp=features (http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2014/04/27/atari-et-game-cartridges-unearthed-in-new-mexico-desert/?intcmp=features)

[Dangermouse]

Haha. Just finished reading that too and was going to post in the morning when I got to a computer. Was in my local Sunday paper.

[ALEXAKOS]

Interesting story. But why bury all those games?
Was there a bug or something in the game hat would create an issue?

Can't imagine a product being that bad to wanting to hide it from the market.... :angry_whip:

There is always that Delorean out there that will make it in the story:biggrin:

[LordFly]

Haha, I had this game back in the 80s. Still have it. I don't know if I'd call it "the worst game ever", but it was pretty bad. You really couldn't play if for much more than 15-20 minutes without getting pissed off and switching to another game.

[ALEXAKOS]

Really? Was it too hard or too lame?

[EdR5150]

Had to post it here when I saw someone apparently had a DeLorean Time Machine out there. Haven't looked for the photos. Curious if the owner is a member here.

Author Ernie Cline was out there in his Delorean time machine, and tweeting:
26824

http://twitter.com/@erniecline

[DMCVegas]

Interesting story. But why bury all those games?
Was there a bug or something in the game hat would create an issue?

That's a really good question. I know that the game was awful. Horrible programming that led to it being an absolutely frustrating experience for gamers. Lots and lots of people who bought the games returned them and they were in turn sent back to Atari. As some of the stories have reported, the average development time for an Atari title back then was 6 months to include writing, programming, testing, etc. ET was rushed in 6 weeks. It's an absolutely awful game for a more experienced gamer, so you can imagine the living hell a younger child (ET's target audience) must have went through playing it.

Given ET's popularity and the video game industry's increasing problems at the time, Atari was really banking on this title among others. But yeah, the question that I always had too, was why the secret burial? Atari did all of this at night, and their higher-up employees always denied that it ever happened. Which is why of course it was always listed only as an urban legend instead of fact, until now. But why hide it? Maybe Atari was just that embarrassed by the whole thing. 14 trucks full of these games that wouldn't sell, production, manufacturing, & distribution rushed so that they could turn a profit doesn't look good on a board member's resume.

[Flicky]

They did it because of the nasty move to what came next. A generation of Captain Planet loving, granola crunch'n, hippy-licking weasel twerps that felt that Sega had it right with their little disk things instead of the gloriousness that carts are. All I recall of this game was that you hit the button and ET's neck would grow longer like a perverted alien Pinokio, coupled with some weird moaning noise.

Looking back, best game ever!

[OverlandMan]

I guess I would have to argue that this is the worst game I've ever played:

Journey Escape for the Atari 2600.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFVEtVEYtBw

[ALEXAKOS]

I bet you a copy of that now has some serious value after all that publicity!!!! Hehe

[Jonathan]

Didn't the BTTF game for NES get some votes for worst game ever? I never played it back in the day but did score a copy at a yard sale still in the box and still in the plastic wrap. It's worth at least $2... easy!!

[Kane]

BTTF NES is pretty bad, but not as bad as Atari E.T.

BTTF:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6J_xFS_n4s

[Kane]

E.T.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Bn192kSsMw

[DL4567]

I thought this article does a much better job at explaining the story. It also shows the DeLorean in the video.

http://www.wired.com/2014/04/atari-et-dig/

[ALEXAKOS]

Okay. The delorean is stock and not BTTF replica as it was mentioned on that other article.....:mad2:

I betcha Atari is planning a big comeback and used this gig as a promotional event to attract attention for making her the ultimate hip gaming company hehehe.

Very weird those guys found the exact spot to dig in a desert... Unless they used that "Breaking Bad" hoax thread like they found the barrels with money...

[Michael Babb]

I guess I would have to argue that this is the worst game I've ever played:

Journey Escape for the Atari 2600.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFVEtVEYtBw

Have to agree - I can still hear that annoying sound when you got trapped under a stage, and the other things on the screen all these years later.

Though, hate to admit that BTTF was pretty bad . . and I thought ET was pretty awful also . . .

[RammJaeger]

As a professional game developer/designer and a child of the 80's that played the heck out of this game, I don't see how it could be labeled one of the worst games ever. I actually really enjoyed the ET game and it was one of my favorites at the time. In a time when most games were just an endless loop of the exact same thing with no ending and just a "high score" as a goal, ET had some really revolutionary gameplay. It was the first game that I can remember playing that actually had and ending and you could "beat" or finish the game. And it had many of the base elements that made Zelda so great a few years later, like collecting pieces of an object to finish the game. Yeah it had its issues, and it was hella hard, but it was a great sense of accomplishment when you got all the radio pieces, phoned home, and got picked up by the spaceship. Atari collapsed from bad business practices, not from ET. From what I have heard they manufactured so many copies of ET that every person with an Atari 2600 console would have needed to buy about 3 copies of the game for them all to sell!

P.S. I've actually had dinner with Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari. His biggest regret - Steve Jobs came to him and asked him to invest in Apple when it was a startup. He could have gotten a third of the company for $35,000 and passed on the deal. 30% of Apple computer!!! Imagine how much that would be worth now.

[Michael]

I have a complete Atari 800 with a lot of extras and about 300 games. ET is one of them and trust me, it's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Truth is there were a lot of bad games out there in the early 80's. ET, I give a 5 or 6 on a scale of 10.

[vps3922]

I just watched "Atari: Game Over" on Netflix and, like stated in this thread, there is a DeLorean owner driving to the dig. Awesome documentary and "Yes" there are definitely worse games than E.T.

The documentary is helping to understand that E.T. was not the reason Atari went down, but probably one of the worst decisions they ever made (completing a game in 5 weeks). Great developer though. It is sad that his name got tarnished with the E.T fiasco.

[spedlot]

I watched that video last week just by happen chance. While I was more of an nes person I did have a cousin who had the 2600 and we did play it. I agree. It wasn't the game. It was the industry itself that sent Atari to the graveyard. My parents owned an arcade in Texas at that time and even the arcade industry started to fall. Consumers were wanting more than what the game developers were bringing to the table in the console or arcade version of games.