Atari's Landfill Adventures, I now have the proof it's true.

[zzip]

4 minutes ago, kermit73 said:

As a kid, I knew nothing about the crash and had just come to accept that nearly all 2600 games were going to be inferior to their arcade counterpart.  As a kid, I looked past the game quality and was just happy to have Pac-Man (or whatever game) at home rather than waiting in line at an arcade to plunk a quarter in the machine.  I don't remember anyone at school talking bad of the game, except the one guy who bragged about how much better KC Munchkin was on his Odyssey.  We mostly bragged (or lied) about our high scores.

We had a pretty good idea of the limitations of the 2600 too.   However we also knew enough that we knew there was no technical reason for:

1. The color choices to be completely wrong

2. Pacman having an eye.

3. Pacman to be diamond shaped and not more round

4. passages being top and bottom not left and right

5. the "boing boing" sound instead of something  closer to "wakka wakka" when eating pellets/

 

Those were all design choices and we knew it.   It did not look or sound or feel like the arcade game.  It felt like they didn't even care to try to get it right, it was just a cash grab.

 

In addition there were some things that would require a little more memory, but not a lot more such as having the right tune, having fruits instead of a vitamin, have pacman face all four directions and not be animated when not moving and maybe having a maze that more closely resembled the arcade.

 

The Ms. Pac-man  converstion showed that the 2600 was capable of having a more worthy Pac-man,   and the later Pac-man 4K showed that most of the things above were indeed possible without increasing the rom size.

[moycon]

On 10/14/2021 at 11:16 PM, sciflyer25 said:

Although I disagree with your assessment of the discussion, and it seems that you have a tenuous grasp on the English language in general, I appreciate your full support mate!

It's not assessing any discussion, it's assessing the actual dig results. Hoping you provide additional information soon so we can prove once and for all that almost all the E.T. carts bought were returned and had to be buried because the game was so terrible. You and I both know E.T. caused the video game crash, but we need to get others on board mate.

[82-T/A]

7 hours ago, moycon said:

It's not assessing any discussion, it's assessing the actual dig results. Hoping you provide additional information soon so we can prove once and for all that almost all the E.T. carts bought were returned and had to be buried because the game was so terrible. You and I both know E.T. caused the video game crash, but we need to get others on board mate.

 

I have a hard time believing that a single Atari game could bring down an entire industry. I think if we're trying to be accurate, we should refine what we mean by "E.T. caused the video game crash." Do you mean it was the eventual catalyst for an avalanche waiting to happen? Such as Thomas Hobbs would say, it was "the final straw that broke the camel's back?"

 

Because if that's what we're saying, I think I can get on board; however, I don't particularly believe the game was so horrible that it in fact caused an otherwise healthy industry to be brought to its knees overnight.

 

I've been to Australia and the UK plenty of times too... so I'm going to end with mate as well, mates!

[zzip]

25 minutes ago, 82-T/A said:

 

I have a hard time believing that a single Atari game could bring down an entire industry. I think if we're trying to be accurate, we should refine what we mean by "E.T. caused the video game crash." Do you mean it was the eventual catalyst for an avalanche waiting to happen? Such as Thomas Hobbs would say, it was "the final straw that broke the camel's back?"

 

Because if that's what we're saying, I think I can get on board; however, I don't particularly believe the game was so horrible that it in fact caused an otherwise healthy industry to be brought to its knees overnight.

 

I've been to Australia and the UK plenty of times too... so I'm going to end with mate as well, mates!

It evolved like an urban legend.   The initial fact was that Atari pressed millions of ET carts, expecting that the game would sell a lot of 2600s.   And while the game did sell over a million, and would have been counted as a hit by any other metric,  Atari was still way off in their projection and had a ton of unsold carts.   The rumors of the carts being quietly shipped to a landfill added to the mystique.  

People like a good story so it changed from Atari produced more carts than they could sell, to "the game was so bad nobody bought it, and the few who did all returned it".   And it soon became associated with the Crash.  The game was so bad nobody bought it and caused the entire industry to crash because idk...  the stench of the ET cart was so terrible that nobody could venture into the videogame section to buy other games, and few who did lived to tell the tale?    The story does not make sense no matter how you slice it, but it makes for a good story so people repeat it.

 

Fact is, ET happened before the crash.   By all accounts the crash seems to have happened almost a year later in late 83.   Could it have been a factor?  Maybe,  but not the only one.

[Master Phruby]

It's amazing how ignorant people try to reinvent history that they never experienced.  My friends and I would do speed runs on E.T. We knew the ins and outs of the game pretty well. It was always bonus points for getting the Yar. It was one of our favorite games. 

[Bill Loguidice]

3 minutes ago, Master Phruby said:

It's amazing how ignorant people try to reinvent history that they never experienced.  My friends and I would do speed runs on E.T. We knew the ins and outs of the game pretty well. It was always bonus points for getting the Yar. It was one of our favorite games. 

ET is interesting. It's one of those things - of which there are plenty of examples in video games - where there's a modern push to say the "game wasn't that bad" or even that it was actually good, just misunderstood. It's like a backlash to the backlash, so now it's trendy to say such things. It's the same thing on the AtariAge Facebook page. There are weekly posts about ET that pretend they're making some bold statement by saying "it's not that bad" or "you just need to learn how to play." 

 

From my perspective, I'm tired of hearing about it. We all (should) know by now that neither ET or Pac-Man were directly responsible for the Crash, just high profile examples of some of the contributing causes. There's no reason to rewrite history and say it was a good game. It was not that good then and it certainly hasn't gotten any better with age. It's doesn't mean individuals can't like it for their own reasons, of course, but I think we can understand why it's generally not considered a good game for most people's tastes.

[towmater]

On 10/13/2021 at 6:44 AM, zzip said:

This exactly.    There are plenty of underwhelming titles for the 2600,  why weren't returns a problem for them?  Where's the landfill full of Swordquest games or Pac Man games?    The explanation that they overestimated demand for the game and produced far too many carts makes for more sense.

 

 

Every photo I've seen from the landfill retrievals has a price sticker on it (or residue from a removed sticker). This only happens at the retailer.

Edited October 20, 2021 by towmater

[+x=usr(1536)]

10 minutes ago, towmater said:

Every photo I've seen from the landfill retrievals has a price sticker on it. This only happens at the retailer.

Perhaps, but the photos of the landfill finds that have been widely circulated generally don't tell the whole story.  Atari also dumped unsold stock of more than just 2600 games at Alamogordo, in addition to damaged / unrepairable returns and other items that needed to be taken off the books.

 

This is something that just about every so-called 'documentary' regarding Alamogordo makes only passing mention of or outright ignores.  E.T. and Pac-Man destroying an entire industry by themselves makes for a more compelling recounting of events, even if it is provably wrong.

[zzip]

41 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

It's like a backlash to the backlash, so now it's trendy to say such things. It's the same thing on the AtariAge Facebook page. There are weekly posts about ET that pretend they're making some bold statement by saying "it's not that bad" or "you just need to learn how to play." 

It's not that at all.   A lot of us liked ET back in the day and we simply don't like the revisionism about the game spread by people who never played it or if they did, never bothered to understand it.

 

44 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

but I think we can understand why it's generally not considered a good game for most people's tastes.

Because people didn't read the manual?  Or people only wanted to play shooters/dot gobblers?  

 

If ET is bad game because people don't intuitively understand what they are doing and just fall into pits,  then Adventure would be a bad game because it's not clear what you are supposed to be doing and you keep getting eaten by "ducks".   I thought Adventure was a horrible game when I first played it.  It looked bad and made no sense.   But after learning it, it's now one of my favorite 2600 games.   But there are many other games 2600 games that required you to read the manual to get anywhere:  Raiders of the Lost Ark,  Swordquest series, Riddle of the Sphynx.   The 2600 carts simply didn't have enough storage to include tutorial modes or on-screen prompts.   So the manual was where all the details and lore was fleshed out that couldn't be included in the carts.

 

Among the "must read the manual" games, I'd rank ET behind Raiders and Adventure, but above Riddle and  well above "Swordquest".   Same as I would have ranked it back then.

 

At it's core, I believe ET is most similar to "Haunted House":  find 3 pieces of an object, and escape while avoiding the "Spooks".  Its gameplay has more features than Haunted House though and much better graphics.   I never see people complaining that HH is a bad game though.

[sciflyer25]

21 hours ago, moycon said:

provide additional information soon so we can prove once and for all that almost all the E.T. carts bought were returned and had to be buried because the game was so terrible. 

1.  that is not the basis for the "urban legend".

2.  my assessment that you indeed have a "tenuous grasp on the English language in general" is spot on.

Edited October 21, 2021 by sciflyer25

[sciflyer25]

13 hours ago, zzip said:

It evolved like an urban legend.   The initial fact was that Atari pressed millions of ET carts, expecting that the game would sell a lot of 2600s.   And while the game did sell over a million, and would have been counted as a hit by any other metric,  Atari was still way off in their projection and had a ton of unsold carts.   The rumors of the carts being quietly shipped to a landfill added to the mystique.  

People like a good story so it changed from Atari produced more carts than they could sell, to "the game was so bad nobody bought it, and the few who did all returned it".   And it soon became associated with the Crash.  The game was so bad nobody bought it and caused the entire industry to crash because idk...  the stench of the ET cart was so terrible that nobody could venture into the videogame section to buy other games, and few who did lived to tell the tale?    The story does not make sense no matter how you slice it, but it makes for a good story so people repeat it.

 

Fact is, ET happened before the crash.   By all accounts the crash seems to have happened almost a year later in late 83.   Could it have been a factor?  Maybe,  but not the only one.

Good assessment.  Atari overproduced too much of everything, mostly games.  I have read on many sites that the estimated production run was close to 5 million ET carts. 

The fact that someone on here suggests to prove "almost all the E.T. carts bought were returned and had to be buried because the game was so terrible" based on my comment earlier is comical.

Crashes don't occur without contributing factors prior to the actual crash, and the ET game absolutely contributed.

 

Edited October 21, 2021 by sciflyer25

[Bill Loguidice]

10 hours ago, zzip said:

It's not that at all.   A lot of us liked ET back in the day and we simply don't like the revisionism about the game spread by people who never played it or if they did, never bothered to understand it.

 

Because people didn't read the manual?  Or people only wanted to play shooters/dot gobblers?  

 

If ET is bad game because people don't intuitively understand what they are doing and just fall into pits,  then Adventure would be a bad game because it's not clear what you are supposed to be doing and you keep getting eaten by "ducks".   I thought Adventure was a horrible game when I first played it.  It looked bad and made no sense.   But after learning it, it's now one of my favorite 2600 games.   But there are many other games 2600 games that required you to read the manual to get anywhere:  Raiders of the Lost Ark,  Swordquest series, Riddle of the Sphynx.   The 2600 carts simply didn't have enough storage to include tutorial modes or on-screen prompts.   So the manual was where all the details and lore was fleshed out that couldn't be included in the carts.

 

Among the "must read the manual" games, I'd rank ET behind Raiders and Adventure, but above Riddle and  well above "Swordquest".   Same as I would have ranked it back then.

 

At it's core, I believe ET is most similar to "Haunted House":  find 3 pieces of an object, and escape while avoiding the "Spooks".  Its gameplay has more features than Haunted House though and much better graphics.   I never see people complaining that HH is a bad game though.

It's not revisionism to say that it was not a well-liked game upon release. It got its reputation early on for good reason (and let's also state that the Atari 8-bit version of ET was a far better game worthy of more notice, but kind of got caught in the collateral damage of the association). And if people bought the game back in the day, they had the manual, so that argument doesn't hold much weight with me. Raiders of the Lost Ark was far more complex, as were many other games on the 2600, and they were much better received, and I'd say with good reason. Again, I feel like some people have this incredible need to correct for the general (and yes, sometimes cartoonish) perception of ET (like 2600 Pac-Man, the Jaguar, etc.) in the other direction, that hey, it really wasn't a bad game and everyone who dislikes it is just a dummy who didn't read the manual or wanted something mindless. Give me a break on that one.

 

Of course it's OK for a vocal minority to both like and defend the game if they genuinely feel that way, but it doesn't mean the vast majority of people have to also acknowledge that it's a decent game. It was known almost universally as a poor game when it came out and time hasn't been any kinder to it.

[Rom Hunter]

3 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

It's not revisionism to say that it was not a well-liked game upon release. It got its reputation early on for good reason (and let's also state that the Atari 8-bit version of ET was a far better game worthy of more notice, but kind of got caught in the collateral damage of the association). And if people bought the game back in the day, they had the manual, so that argument doesn't hold much weight with me. Raiders of the Lost Ark was far more complex, as were many other games on the 2600, and they were much better received, and I'd say with good reason. Again, I feel like some people have this incredible need to correct for the general (and yes, sometimes cartoonish) perception of ET (like 2600 Pac-Man, the Jaguar, etc.) in the other direction, that hey, it really wasn't a bad game and everyone who dislikes it is just a dummy who didn't read the manual or wanted something mindless. Give me a break on that one.

 

Of course it's OK for a vocal minority to both like and defend the game if they genuinely feel that way, but it doesn't mean the vast majority of people have to also acknowledge that it's a decent game. It was known almost universally as a poor game when it came out and time hasn't been any kinder to it.

I think the biggest problem with E.T. back then was that the gameplay was not what most people expected it to be (a more action-packed game I guess) and that controlling E.T. out of the pits was not very intuitive for kids.

When I played it for the first time, I had already read a review about it that gave it a thumbs down, so I was expecting a really bad game, but I was pleasantly surprised when I played it.

 

But after reaching the mothership a couple of times, I started to loose interest in it.

 

It certainly isn't the worst VCS game (like Yars' Revenge certainly isn't the best VCS game) and you have to respect HSW for programming it in only five weeks.

[zzip]

9 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

Raiders of the Lost Ark was far more complex, as were many other games on the 2600, and they were much better received, and I'd say with good reason.

IDK, I've heard people diss Raiders too for being too complex or confusing.  I don't know what the general perception is of that game is, but in my book it was one of the very best 2600 game period.

 

10 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

Again, I feel like some people have this incredible need to correct for the general (and yes, sometimes cartoonish) perception of ET (like 2600 Pac-Man, the Jaguar, etc.) in the other direction, that hey, it really wasn't a bad game and everyone who dislikes it is just a dummy who didn't read the manual or wanted something mindless. Give me a break on that one.

It's one thing if a person genuinely didn't like it.  You can't argue against personal taste.   What I argue against are the claims that it "was the worst game ever made", and  "it single-handedly destroyed the industry",  which are both obvious nonsense, but get repeated frequently as gaming mythology.   When I ask people why ET was so awful, I'll typically get responses like "Well I never played it, I just heard it was bad",  or "I didn't know what to do so I gave up" or "It's too hard I kept falling in holes"

 

10 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

It's not revisionism to say that it was not a well-liked game upon release. It got its reputation early on for good reason (and let's also state that the Atari 8-bit version of ET was a far better game worthy of more notice, but kind of got caught in the collateral damage of the association).

Or maybe it shows that the general public just wasn't that interested in having an ET game in the first place, and that's why the game sales fell so far short of expectations?   It wasn't one of the arcade hits that everyone was clamoring for.

 

The 2600 disasters of Pac Man and Donkey Kong didn't destroy interest in 8-bit versions of those games.   But there is incredible apathy around "ET Phone Home" almost like people forget it existed.  I suspect that if the "worst ever" urban legend hadn't formed around 2600 ET, we'd have mostly forgotten about that one too.

[Bill Loguidice]

6 hours ago, Rom Hunter said:

It certainly isn't the worst VCS game (like Yars' Revenge certainly isn't the best VCS game) and you have to respect HSW for programming it in only five weeks.

While I respect HSW a great deal overall and have some sympathy for Todd Frye's own Pac-Man efforts, I think becoming millionaires from those lackluster efforts are all the respect they should ever need. It was a rewarding, mercenary effort and I'd rather give credit to HSW for insisting on an original idea (which he acknowledged he didn't have to do) rather than working under the compressed timeframe, which I think any sane person with his skills would have agreed to given the potential rewards. HSW in particular has been able to ride the infamy of the game to a type of notoriety he would have never gotten had it been merely an average title with a sober production run. Whether he wanted it or not, he has become considerably more famous (at least within the community) than he would have otherwise.

Again, the compressed timeframes, lack of care with making sure the final product was truly fun, overproduction, etc., were obviously all the real factors contributing to the Crash (and by no means the sole or even major factors--too many ill-funded or misguided companies entering the fray around the same time with not enough consumer demand to match on both the video game and computer sides was arguably the biggest factor). Games like ET and Pac-Man have merely become an easy shorthand for the larger issues facing the entire industry.

 

Regardless, I don't think a game like ET really needs a redemption arc. It's more just making sure the root cause narrative doesn't get repeated.

[Bill Loguidice]

13 minutes ago, zzip said:

Or maybe it shows that the general public just wasn't that interested in having an ET game in the first place, and that's why the game sales fell so far short of expectations?   It wasn't one of the arcade hits that everyone was clamoring for.

That's possible, but I consider it unlikely. You don't have what was the highest grossing movie of all time (at the time) and a merchandizing darling not be of interest for a video game adaptation. It just wasn't an interesting enough of a game (again, kudos for trying something different with the concept - such efforts don't always work out, like in this case) and Atari went into overproduction mode for some reason. With that said, even with the mediocre game, poor reviews, etc., it still sold what, an estimated 2.6 million copies? Doesn't that alone indicate there was plenty of demand for an ET game? Only a select few Atari 2600 games sold better, and only one other original title (Pitfall!). 

 

As has been said, if Atari didn't overproduce some of these cartridges to such a comical degree, there'd be no story here. ET would have merely been lumped in with all the other unremarkable titles in the library.

13 minutes ago, zzip said:

It's one thing if a person genuinely didn't like it.  You can't argue against personal taste.   What I argue against are the claims that it "was the worst game ever made", and  "it single-handedly destroyed the industry",  which are both obvious nonsense, but get repeated frequently as gaming mythology.

I never argue against personal taste. I've also always argued for the idea that I can not like a game, say even a legendary one like Super Mario 64, but acknowledge why others (or many others) would feel differently, i.e., even if a game is not for me I can see what makes it great in the eyes of others. Again, I've stated this earlier multiple times with ET, I absolutely acknowledge that some genuinely like the game for reasons of their own, but I find the argument that it's actually a good game and other people are just wrong about it a dubious one. There's just not enough there to elevate its status like that and I think those who don't like it make a far better case of why it's not a great game than those who do. The pit thing IS annoying and the gameplay itself is not especially compelling. I just don't see it deserving any more acknowledgement than dissociating it from the idea that it's the "worst game of all-time" or that it "caused the Crash". Both statements are obviously ridiculous, but those who are less informed about such things repeat the easy stuff because they don't know any better (or want to bother knowing any better).

 

The "worst game of all-time" is a whole other discussion and yet another of many narratives that needs to die. Just like you can't point to the single worst book, movie, or music of all-time, you obviously can't single out one game as the worst of all-time. I suppose with all kinds of qualifiers, one can single out a game like "Superman 64" as the worst game of all-time since it was a major release and truly dreadful from use of the subject matter to gameplay mechanics to technical execution, but obviously it's nowhere near as bad as so many other games we can point to. I suppose it's kind of like calling "Plan 9 from Outer Space" the worst movie of all time. It's terrible, sure, but is it truly the worst of the millions of films that have been made? Nope, not by a long shot.

[+thegoldenband]

3 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I absolutely acknowledge that some genuinely like the game for reasons of their own, but I find the argument that it's actually a good game and other people are just wrong about it a dubious one.

Wouldn't this require, though, that value judgments about what constitutes a "good" game can be objective? There's a big difference between saying "Other people are wrong to dislike E.T." -- which I would never say: how can anyone be "wrong" to dislike anything? -- and simply disagreeing with others by having a value judgment of one's own.

 

It seems like you might not be willing to recognize that the opinion of people who like the game is just as valid as that of people who don't like the game -- that you kind of expect people who like the game to be apologetic about it, or to offer a concession that amounts to "Hey, I know that offering this opinion means there's a defect in my judgment or character, but I like E.T."

 

I don't think that's appropriate to expect, or especially useful; I think this conversation can be had without casting aspersions (even subtle ones) on those who disagree.

 

Personally I liked the game as a kid. High score chasing has never been especially fulfilling to me, so I appreciated games like Raiders, E.T., and Superman that had a clear end goal and non-linear gameplay (even if E.T. ultimately is a score attack with only weak adventure elements, like the flower). I had no problem figuring out the pits or any of that.

 

3 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I suppose it's kind of like calling "Plan 9 from Outer Space" the worst movie of all time. It's terrible, sure, but is it truly the worst of the millions of films that have been made? Nope, not by a long shot.

I agree -- Plan 9 isn't even the worst film Ed Wood made, not even close. But I'd also add that some genuinely good, or even excellent, media properties have been singled out as the "worst of all time".

 

Heaven's Gate, for instance, was demonized because the director was a cokehead and bankrupted the studio, but it's a flawed but wonderful, beautiful movie if you're open to slow-moving epics (some people never will be and that's fine). Similarly, there have been albums, symphonies, books, plays that were reviled as reprehensible garbage when they came out, and are now viewed as all-time classics, or at least works of genuine value.

 

What I find exhausting is when people insinuate that having an opinion of one's own makes you some kind of revisionist hipster -- that you hold opinions because you find it titillating to engage in some sort of social performance of difference, rather than because you honestly hold a divergent opinion based on your experience and enjoyment of something.

[keithbk]

Let's be 100% HONEST about the evolution of the Atari 2600...

 

1 ) NOVELTY: "It's new, it's different, have you seen it???"

2 ) COOL: "I have an Atari, want to come and play?"

3 ) COLLECTIBLE: "They just released XXXX, I have to have it!"

4 ) COMPATIBILITY: "Our game will play on the Atari!"

5 ) COMPETITION: "Our system is better than the Atari!"

6 ) OVER-SATURATION: "Most of these games are just not worth having."

7 ) LIMITATIONS REALIZED: "Have you seen what my C-64 Computer can do???"

8 ) MARKET SHIFT: "Computers are the future. The Atari is boring."

 

Nintendo would revitalize the game console market by introducing games with additional depth, better graphics, and more long-term value (games that required hours of play to genuinely explore (Zelda), rather than hours of mere repetition (Space Invaders)).

 

Now, we're in the "NOSTALGIA" phase: "I remember loving the Atari as a kid... I wonder if I can program a game for it..."

 

Edited October 21, 2021 by keithbk

[zzip]

4 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

There's just not enough there to elevate its status like that and I think those who don't like it make a far better case of why it's not a great game than those who do. The pit thing IS annoying and the gameplay itself is not especially compelling.

But let's put gameplay in context of what was the norm for the 2600.   For instance lets take Activision..  for every masterpiece like Pitfall II, they had 2 or 3 very shallow games like Freeway or Skyjinks where you do one simple thing over and over.  Shallow games like that were a dime a dozen on the 2600.  ET had more complexity than that, so I would put its gameplay above average for the 2600

 

4 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

Both statements are obviously ridiculous, but those who are less informed about such things repeat the easy stuff because they don't know any better (or want to bother knowing any better

But it's not just individuals.  You will see gaming "news" sites that are supposed to know better repeat the ET crash mythology as fact

 

4 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

That's possible, but I consider it unlikely. You don't have what was the highest grossing movie of all time (at the time) and a merchandizing darling not be of interest for a video game adaptation. It just wasn't an interesting enough of a game (again, kudos for trying something different with the concept - such efforts don't always work out, like in this case) and Atari went into overproduction mode for some reason. With that said, even with the mediocre game, poor reviews, etc., it still sold what, an estimated 2.6 million copies? Doesn't that alone indicate there was plenty of demand for an ET game? Only a select few Atari 2600 games sold better, and only one other original title (Pitfall!). 

 Yes it should have sold well based on the title.  I suppose one of the problems was there were not many movie adaptations before it so not a lot of data to create accurate sales projections from.  Atari went high because the didnt know better and also everything they produced was flying off shelves up to that point so perhaps they were over confident

 

2.6 mil is a pretty impressive number still, but some sources claim up to half of those sales were returned.  That sounds crazy to me but Idk

[moycon]

On 10/20/2021 at 9:11 AM, 82-T/A said:

I have a hard time believing that a single Atari game could bring down an entire industry. I think if we're trying to be accurate, we should refine what we mean by "E.T. caused the video game crash." Do you mean it was the eventual catalyst for an avalanche waiting to happen?

Yeah it's sarcasm plain and simple. What I mean is, the myth was always nonsense, and the dig proved that. This is a long thread I know, but I was around when it was started, and in spite of my apparent terrible grasp of the English language in general my view has never changed, just read the thread there is plenty of great information for anybody that takes any time to actually read it. Atari 2600 E.T. was great game for it's time, you just had to be somewhat intelligent to play it and in spite of what you might have heard, there was never a day millions of the carts were buried because the game sucked, or was too confusing so most people returned it and it certainly didn't cause the video game crash. 

 

On 10/20/2021 at 10:47 PM, sciflyer25 said:

1.  that is not the basis for the "urban legend".

LOL Ok so you are now changing the legend, is that it? I'm not totally convinced that's how urban legends work, but sure, let us know what your version of the E.T. myth is so we can document it for future discussion.

[Bill Loguidice]

9 hours ago, moycon said:

Atari 2600 E.T. was great game for it's time, you just had to be somewhat intelligent to play it

An unpopular opinion, but certainly an opinion a minority holds (though "great" rather than just "good" might be in the super minority). Again, taking the contemporary reviews and general reaction of the time (no Internet, of course), it was not well-received. No amount of justification about RTFM or player being "too dumb" will change that. Similarly complex - or more complex games - were received better, so I just don't buy the complexity argument in terms of enjoying it.

[+Stephen]

Was it true that Atari produced more ET carts than the number of existing 2600s?

[moycon]

8 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

it was not well-received. 

Seems to me, people have taken all available vintage reviews and calculated average based on those ratings and reviews and E.T. wound up just that, an average reviewed game for the time. Based on that it was received just fine. It didn't get all glowing reviews for sure,  but it certainly didn't get a majority of dismal reviews, much less enough to qualify it as the worst game of all time, all that nonsense came later when people decided to invent the myth. I will agree with you about one thing though, I am super for sure, not unlike the game if a person can grasp the play mechanics.

[82-T/A]

I have to say, I am fascinated by the "psychology" of this. There are some really strong emotions on both sides of this discussion, and I think it's kind of interesting. I by no means am diminishing how this topic is cool or suggesting that someone's opinions don't matter... but I get such a kick out of seeing people take sides so strongly.

 

There are a bunch of examples of this in other message boards. For example... I have a Pontiac Fiero. There's an ongoing discussion on which is a better upgrade:

- Crane H272 Cam w/ 1.52:1 roller rockers

- Crane H260 Cam w/ 1.60:1 roller rockers

 

If you ask me, they are effectively exactly the same, the ratio comes out the same, but there's slightly less guide wear using the H272 and 1.52:1 rockers.

 

And another one... on the retirement board (now that I'm in my 40s, and retirement is only 2 decades away)... people have almost come to blows... outright shouting and insults, as they argue about whether it's better to take Social Security payments at... whatever it is, 59? or wait until you're 65 (or something). People get SERIOUSLY worked up over this.

 

Anyway, carry on... but I am very interested to know why either way, this is so important... I love the story, and love Atari... and visited Alamagordo, but decided against going to the landfill becuase it's not like I was going to start digging, and my wife was like.. let's go to the zoo instead... haha...

[moycon]

17 minutes ago, 82-T/A said:

I have to say, I am fascinated by the "psychology" of this. There are some really strong emotions on both sides of this discussion, and I think it's kind of interesting. People get SERIOUSLY worked up over this.  visited Alamagordo, but decided against going to the landfill becuase it's not like I was going to start digging, and my wife was like.. let's go to the zoo instead...

 

Maybe because people think their personal beliefs are the only correct beliefs and everyone else should think like them because then the world would be a better place?

I dunno.

It's hard for some people to grasp another person might have their own beliefs about ANY given topic and it be completely the opposite of theirs.

I personally think anyone's beliefs are the right ones for their little world and they shouldn't get mad at others for not thinking like them. That said. E.T. for the Atari 2600 is in fact one of the greatest games ever made, and I would have ditched the wife and grabbed a shovel.