Long Buried E.T Cartridges Unearthed at New Mexico Landfill

Hey, remember that old rumor claiming that Atari ACTUALLY BURIED hundreds, maybe thousands, of copies of E.T: The Game after its poor sales a huge return percentage? If not, that's pretty much the entire backstory.

The game was programmed by one guy in a very short, and rushed development time. Before, Howard Scott Warsaw, had single-handedly made one of the best Atari 2600 games on his own through passion, proper time constraints, and a good budget to keep morale high. Atari sought out Warsaw and gave him the task of developing the game adaptation of E.T: The Extra Terrestrial... in less than five months. This title would become the most promoted title on the Atari 2600 as well as forever stain the name of Warsaw and even led to the second crash of the gaming industry after a long history of pollution and poor quality upon release due to its widespread, poor quality. Consider it the final nail in the coffin and a direct parallel to why Atari ain't so hot anymore. In response, rumors spread widespread across both magazines, newspapers, and schoolyards that Atari FLIPPIN' BURIED leftover copies of E.T: The Game.

After THIRTY-ONE years, these cartridges have been dug up. The rumors have confirmed to be true.

We got him!

Source and full story

 

This story horrifies me from an environmentalist perspective... I imagine there are far better ways to dispose of technology than burying them in the ground. So at least it's good that they're digging them up now.

 

The dwarves delved too greedily and too deep...

It was more out of curiosity rather then concern for the environment but yeah, good to get them out now I suppose even if it is just for the purposes of a documentary.

 

Aaaahahahaha this is like the video game version of finding a dinosaur preserved in ice

I feel like such a heel for laughing, but I can't help it. The fact they actually did that... I wonder of any of 'em still work.

 

See, I think if I was old enough to have been around when this happened, i might've cared about this discovery. The problem is, it's like telling me they buried a poor selling, limited edition Beatles album in Phoenix, Arizona and after decades, they've found it.
I suppose I should care more since it's a part of gaming history, and I probably will when the documentary about this is out but, yeah, well done for finding plastic bricks, fellas.

 

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I think this is hilarious...

I grew up on this rumor and myth. To find out it's true makes me just laugh. I wonder how much money Atari spent on dumping these in the first place.

 

So instead of putting the games in storage or recycling the materials, they decided to bury the lot.

This is actually my first time hearing about this rumour, but to find out it's true is quite funny. I wonder what the people who buried them are thinking at the moment.

 

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