Many video game fans know of the 'E.T.' legend. The story goes that in 1983, Atari released a video game based off the popular movie E.T. The game was so terrible, lost so much money, and discouraged gamers so much that it helped lead to the video game crash of 1983 (when people began to believe that video games were a dying media and the market saw one of it's lowest points of quality and revenue). All of this is confirmably rue. However, the legendary part of the story is that Atari, so embarrassed by their failure, buried as many as 3.5 million unsold copies of the game in a landfill. For more than 30 years this was nothing more than a rumor. However, as of saturday, the rumor has now been confirmed. While digging in a landfill in New Mexico, a film crew discovered loads of E.T. cartridges.
I have to say I was extremely entertained by the news that the legend following the worst game in history was actually true. I guess it's just nice to know that a company that seemed as powerful as Atari (which though I think may still be in business, I know are not releasing new titles) was ashamed enough to actually hide their failure in the middle of a landfill. It's hysterical.
link: http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-atari-cartridges-new-mexico-20140426,0,5770595.story#axzz306EahC5f
That's really funny/disturbing to think that the best idea that they had to get rid of them was to bury them. I'm sure they're worth a lot more money now than they were back then!
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