+Defender_2600 Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 Wow. All I can say right now is I'm glad that they finally found the loot. Now we all can sit back, watch the drama unfold, and eat popcorn. ..the Alamogordo ET Atari dig with the Benny Hill Show Theme Tune? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 If these games are currently valued at $10 each, that's still way less than the retail price in 1982, and probably less than the wholesale cost written off by Atari, especially considering inflation. Hype could inflate their value, though. Wait for all the L@@K RARE!!! Ebay auctions from alamogordocity(0) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rasch_C Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 Very exciting stuff. I for one would love a game from this history for my collection (there will definitely have to be a proper certification process in place, though) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nathan Strum Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 Well, I guess I was wrong. Microsoft gets a thumbs up for doing something right the first time. Actually, they're just using it as a cover to bury their enemies. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarilovesyou Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 ...and I'm going to stop reading anything further on the matter, in anticipation for the documentary to follow!...and HELL YES I'm going to buy an ET cart from the landfill, if they decide to sell them Why?...I won't let common sense get in my way! 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 We'll probably find out that Zak Penn is a fake name and it's a big hint that Penn Jillette is behind this late April Fools' hoax. We'll find out that they planted this stuff and nothing was actually dug up from the real landfill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bradhig Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 Anyone else decide to play ET today in honor of the carts being found? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarilovesyou Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 Anyone else decide to play ET today in honor of the carts being found? FUCK no, why would anybody want to do that?...on purpose, nonetheless? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+xucaen Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 I think I tried it once when I was a kid. A friend of mine got it new. I heard there was a hack that fixed the bugs, I wouldn't mind trying that one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 Anyone else decide to play ET today in honor of the carts being found? No, it's too hard. Nobody can get out of the wells and nobody can finish a round. youtube.com/watch?v=mcAoIThBDyA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAoIThBDyA I think I tried it once when I was a kid. A friend of mine got it new. I heard there was a hack that fixed the bugs, I wouldn't mind trying that one. I link to it near the bottom of this page in the related links section: randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-et.html 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Tomlin Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 I'm also not entirely convinced that they were crushed by Atari. The mere act of piling them on top of each other and burying them will cause much of the damage seen in the pics. Had they been intentionally crushed, Atari or their contractors would have made a much better job of it IMO. They were "crushed" by running the dozer over them in the landfill. There was no point in doing any other sort of crushing, as you can now see, they were in a non-saleable condition, good enough for tax write-off purposes. And it is kind of funny that they are being pulled out of a pit. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christianscott27 Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 I like seeing Atari back in the news for sure, but it's really a stretch to make this dig into a real event. It's not like they're unearthing some Egyptian tomb that will rewrite our understanding of history. For christsakes the guys who dumped the carts in the hole are still alive. I'm jaded by stupid History Channel shows like the Oak Island Mystery (it's a frigging natural sinkhole) or the American Pickers where they dig up a totally rusted motorcycle - who needs it? It's like if you found a whole new play by Shakespeare vs finding a Penguin Classics copy of Macbeth Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 RT, if you or someone can hack ET to work with AtariVox, I'll play it. The commentary on that vid was hilareous. 31 years ago, a bad game about ET falling in pits was made. ET doesn't sell and falls in a pit. Bulldozers bury it. 31 years pass. Commense operation rescue ET from pit. Operation rescue ET is successful. Mission complete. Somebody please pop the champagne. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moycon Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 So I'm confused. The legend was that a million (actually I'm thinking more like 2 or 3 million) E.T carts were buried because everyone hated the game, and most people that bought it returned it, and the rest never sold so they were worthless, and they were buried in an Alamogordo landfill. But here was the the news headline I saw...".A film production company finds hundreds of buried "E.T." cartridges in a New Mexico landfill" So the legend just kind of changes depending on who is investing? Now it was just a a few hundred E.T.s that were buried? Didn't some one here on AA investigate and get to the bottom of this, and they totally dispelled the legend (after claiming the legend was something other than what it has always been since since the 80's, again changing the legend) , and then even stating that the burial sight wasn't Alamogordo? I'm telling you, millions of E.T's were never buried. They might have been claimed to have been buried for a tax write off, but until I see a headline that states "Millions of ET carts found" and not "hundreds of buried "E.T." cartridges" I'm not buying it. I have no doubt Atari buried SOME carts that year, it was the first year they were actually losing cash hand over foot. There is a HUGE difference between a few hundred and a few million. Did I miss something? Did they find a literal "sea of E.T's" (The game that caused the industry to crash) or did they find like a few pallets of ET's? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wickeycolumbus Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 So I'm confused. The legend was that a million (actually I'm thinking more like 2 or 3 million) E.T carts were buried because everyone hated the game, and most people that bought it returned it, and the rest never sold so they were worthless, and they were buried in an Alamogordo landfill. But here was the the news headline I saw...".A film production company finds hundreds of buried "E.T." cartridges in a New Mexico landfill" So the legend just kind of changes depending on who investing? Now it was just a a few hundred E.T.s that were buried? Didn't some one here on AA investigate and get to the bottom of this, and they totally dispelled the legend, even claiming the burial sight wasn't Alamogordo? I'm telling you, millions of E.T's were never buried. They might have been claimed to have been buried for a tax write off, but until I see a headline that states "Millions of ET carts found" and not "hundreds of buried "E.T." cartridges" I'm not buying it. I have no doubt they buried SOME carts. There is a HUGE difference between a few hundred and a few million. Did I miss something? Did they find a "Sea of E.T's" In all fairness, that's how the news works. They're not experts, things get distorted. The story was distorted in the newspaper when it happened, and now it's being distorted again. We don't have a clear answer yet about what was found (that I've seen anyway). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StanJr Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 Enough. E.T. is not a bad game. Enough. There is plenty of crap for the VCS this is not one. Let's not sully an otherwise very fun topic with such nonsense (oh no, I'm not bright enough to navigate around a hazard in a video game, this game sucks ) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moycon Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 We don't have a clear answer yet about what was found (that I've seen anyway). And the higher up at Atari back in the day want to keep it that way because they wrote off millions of carts, that they never buried millions of. But maybe they buried a pallet or two! StanJr is right, ET isn't a bad game, It's an AWESOME game! I knew it the day I got it for Christmas the year it was released! I would have never demand it be returned! LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cimerians Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 Sick of this garbage. Thank god this is over, now to get back to important things in life. Like gaming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kamakazi Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 Wow. All I can say right now is I'm glad that they finally found the loot. Now we all can sit back, watch the drama unfold, and eat popcorn. I say, "Welcome Home, E.T.!!" If I had the game I would play it. It wasn't that bad of a game. Yea I got my a** stuck in the pits from hell but it was still a fun game. I wonder, though, just how it effects all of the ET Carts that survived? I don't care what the non-believers or any other person that goes against what they did has to say...I find it interesting. Whether or not a legend is laid to rest who cares. I say more power to those involved (besides M$). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joeh1974 Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 Hello all, I've visited this forum in the past as a reader, but registered today. I would have posted earlier, but it took some time after registering before getting posting privileges. I live about an hour away from the dig site, so I decided to visit the dig today. I'll shed some light on what I saw/heard from today. I arrived at the site at 9:30am this morning. There were approximately 150-200 people standing in line waiting to get in. We were required to sign releases prior to entering. Lightbox handed out t-shirts as the digging began. Black t-shirts with a green 8-bit depiction of E.T. on it, along with the coordinates of the dig site. Very nice. They also provided free food and drinks all day long. I overheard Howard Scott Warshaw giving an initial interview. He stated that he didn't believe anything was here as he couldn't see the logic of Atari spending all that money to haul and dump the games when they were already deep in the red already. Coincidentally, I didn't know he was also the programmer for Yar's Revenge (a game he's very proud of btw). First announcement came at about 30 minutes after the digging began. We were told that they found a newspaper clipping from 1983, so they believed they were in the right spot. Second announcement came when one of the spectators found the top to an Atari joystick on this way to the outhouse. It was incredibly windy today (really a normal spring day in NM though...), and probably 2/3 of the spectators left prior to the first game being found. The found E.T. in an original box. Crowd cheered. Zak Penn was pretty relieved that they actually found something. They stated that they had found quite a few more games, and would be digging them up soon. Quite a few centipede boxes still in shrink-wrapping were found. I also noted combat, Yar's Revenge, Circus Atari, Breakout, Berserk, and Missile Command. They dug up about 8 more crane loads and then stopped to allow the "archaeologists" to catalogue and note everything they've found so far (they did categorize the dig as an archaeological excavation the entire time). You could see various games (with and without boxes) in each pile. It definitely wasn't just E.T. buried here, but a multitude of games. I hung around until about 3pm MDT to see if by chance, they would give away souvenirs, but no such luck. It appears that the city is keeping much if not all of what was found. A couple of interesting points in my few minutes of talking with Zak Penn: They had been searching for approximately 2 days prior to Saturday's dig. They wanted to make sure they were in the right spot for today. He confirmed that the first shipment of games were dumped in the landfill without any type of extra security measures other than a security guard keeping watch. After reported looting of the games, the remaining shipments had concrete poured over them. They found the concrete first, but since they knew those were not the first shipment of games, they decided to search nearby to see if they could find the first dump. Ultimately, they did. This means that there are games dug up in tact, AND games buried under concrete. The landfill has a very low water table. Because of the lack of moisture in the desert, as well as the lack of oxygen so far down underground, the games came out looking almost like when they were originally buried. They are on the hunt for the prototypes. Apparently around 5000 were made and possibly dumped there? Again, they stopped after digging up 8-10 crane loads from the hole. There were a ton of games found in each pile. I don't know about the "millions" of games claimed to have been dumped, but I could definitely conclude the thousands to be likely. Feel free to ask if you have any other questions. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joeh1974 Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 Some pics... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joeh1974 Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 Pics #2. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WildBillTX Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 I'm glad they found some cartridges.. I hope it was worth all the trouble and money.. (shakes head...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karokoenig Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 Two comments on this whole thing: 1. Those carts and boxes look much better than most of the mouldy, beat up Atari scrap that's being sold on german ebay. 2. I wonder if the AVGN now has to rewrite or bury (pun intended) his movie. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joeh1974 Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 (edited) Sorry, getting the hang of the forum. It looks like the photo bucket links look a lot cleaner. Sorry for the large uploads before! Edited April 27, 2014 by Joeh1974 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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