The Story Behind the Worst Video Game Ever

[RARusk]

 

Honestly I don't think E.T. was that bad. It could've been better, yes, but to me the worst game on the 2600 was Pac-Man. That was a grand disappointment. But, of course, that is just my opinion.

[BydoEmpire]

Someone made a video about Airlock?

[Eltigro]

My first thought was "Superman 64"? Then, "Shaq-fu"?

[+frankodragon]

Everyone's going to have a different opinion of what was the worst video game was. "Action 52" IMHO was pretty bad and it seems to alter brain chemistry.

[Mayhem]

HSW said it was Charlie's Angels when I asked "famously" at SDCC a couple years back

 

http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/26/5939559/atari-et-buried-howard-warshaw-nolan-bushnell

[omegadot]

I always feel bad when all that guy really did wrong was tackle a bad task at the wrong time with youthful bravado. I watched the landfill unearthing documentary movie and it seemed like that kicked off a pretty sad part in his life.

 

Glad he seems happier now.

Edited December 16, 2016 by omegadot

[mbd30]

Everyone's going to have a different opinion of what was the worst video game was. "Action 52" IMHO was pretty bad and it seems to alter brain chemistry.

 

Action 52 might well be the worst game of all time when you factor in price. Say what you will about ET, but at least it didn't retail for $200, and it was playable.

[+madman]

My first thought was "Superman 64"? Then, "Shaq-fu"?

Those are indeed much worse than ET. I can't imagine anyone deriving any amount of fun out of Superman 64. When my buddy got ET we played quite a bit of it, although we were just dumb kids at the time it managed to keep us entertained.

[high voltage]

Friday the 13th, Bad Street Brawler, Back to the future (II & II), Home Alone 2, The Incredible Crash Dummies, Jaws, Mighty Bomb Jack, Milion's Secret Castle, Motor City Patrol, Slalom, Taboo The Sixth sense,

Tag Team Wrestling, Where's Waldo

 

a small selection of very bad NES games.

[high voltage]

anyway, time to post this again:

young girl can manage ET.

wrong company name courtesy of DP

 

Edited December 17, 2016 by high voltage

[Jim Pez]

it is kinda sad how the guy lost his job when he was just doing what the company asked him to do. it not his fault he had to rush the game.

[mr_me]

Lots of people in video games were losing their jobs by 1983 through no fault of their own.

 

Edit:

I didnt know about the bug in ET and I understand it has been recently fixed/hacked. Is the hacked version any good?

 

I also didnt know that unlike atari pac-man they gave the et project to an experienced game developper with prior success.

Edited December 17, 2016 by mr_me

[bradhig1]

Pacman and ET failed because Atari over payed for rights to them.

[mr_me]

Pacman and ET failed because Atari over payed for rights to them.

How much did they pay for these licenses?

[RARusk]

For E.T. I heard it was between 22 to 25 million dollars which is absolutely insane when you consider that this is 1982 money. I can only imagine what that number would look like in 2016 dollars. Atari probably paid more for the rights than it cost to make the movie in the first place. As for Pac-Man, my memory is a little fuzzy but I think they didn't overpay - they actually got it cheap prior to it being released in the arcades since everybody thought that Pac-Man would flop and Atari got lucky when the game blew up. The company fumbled it of course when they released the home version. Compounding matters was that they grossly overproduced thinking that everybody with a 2600 would buy the game and those who didn't would buy a console just to play it.

Edited December 17, 2016 by RARusk

[lazzeri]

For E.T. I heard it was between 22 to 25 million dollars which is absolutely insane when you consider that this is 1982 money. I can only imagine what that number would look like in 2016 dollars. Atari probably paid more for the rights than it cost to make the movie in the first place. As for Pac-Man, my memory is a little fuzzy but I think they didn't overpay - they actually got it cheap prior to it being released in the arcades since everybody thought that Pac-Man would flop and Atari got lucky when the game blew up. The company fumbled it of course when they released the home version. Compounding matters was that they grossly overproduced thinking that everybody with a 2600 would buy the game and those who didn't would buy a console just to play it.

 

According to two different sites (like http://www.in2013dollars.com/1982-dollars-in-2016?amount=22or http://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?amount=22&year=1982), we can say something between 55 and 60 million 2016 dollars.

[TPA5]

I've never thought E.T was that bad actually. Was it good? No. But to me, there are far worse games than that. I think lazy gaming journalists perpetuated the idea that E.T was the "worst game ever" by cranking out shit articles when they had no other ideas for the day. Which, to be fair is most journalism.

[+save2600]

Soooooo sick of people saying E.T. is the "worst" game ever. Same with 2600 Pac-Man. Could fill a book with titles across many a system, that are much worse, before and since these two ever arrived.

[mr_me]

Soooooo sick of people saying E.T. is the "worst" game ever. Same with 2600 Pac-Man. Could fill a book with titles across many a system, that are much worse, before and since these two ever arrived.

Were the others heaviliy marketed selling millions of copies? Maybe so, not sure what you had in mind.

[+frankodragon]

If you haven't already, I'd suggest you watch Atari: Game Over on Youtube. I watched it before but this upload doesn't have part of the picture cut off.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Urd9JbjLmbY

[enoofu]

Superman64 is 100 X worst then ET

 

I don't even think Superman64 is even beatable do it large amount of bugs

[mr_me]

If you haven't already, I'd suggest you watch Atari: Game Over on Youtube. I watched it before but this upload doesn't have part of the picture cut off.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Urd9JbjLmbY

So ET only made up 10% of the cartridges in the landfill. There was everything there including Centipede, Adeventure, and Yar's Revenge cartridges. I can understand why these games had to be trashed in 1983 the Atari 2600 technology was two generations old and these games should have never been manufactured. I know when Mattel Electronics closed in 1984 its stock of games were sold and those games contnued to sell (first by mail order) and when that stock sold out they manufactured more. What happened to Atari 5200 and Colecovision games? Were they trashed?

[+frankodragon]

Telegames bought the rights to ColecoVision as mentioned here. But whatever was in their warehouse in 1994 was destroyed in a tornado. As for Atari 5200 games, I'm not certain if Atari dumped those as well.

[lushgirl_80]

Personally told HSW directly that E.T. is one of my favorite for the VCS. He is certainly very proud of it despite it being pegged as the "worst VG of all-time". IMO it certainly isn't. My theory is that the reason why it got such a bad reputation is because many people tried playing it headfirst without even reading the instructions.

 

I love the ending to the game E.T. . It rules and is actually fun to beat using the 2600 remote joysticks.Compared to many bad unplayable NES games,at least E.T. definitely has replay value, that is if you actually understand what to do in it(or else you'll keep falling into pits lol).

 

My HSW interview again for those that missed it..

 

http://www.radiovalencia.fm/wp-content/plugins/wryShare-widget-pack/scripts/streamer.php?id=14482