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

[ColecoGemini]

For anything hated there will always be those who defend it.

and everything "hated" is based in legend more than fact as time goes on.

 

The ET game isn't nearly as terrible as the bandwagon fanboy street preachers make it out to be.

 

The truth, as always, is somewhere in the middle.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Here's a picture of the souvenir t-shirt given out:

 

Got any 2XL you want to sell me??? I want the loot; just can't justify driving/flying 2000 miles to be there.

[Mirage]

I don't care what I think of it today. I haven't plugged it in in probably 10 years at least. What I DO know is that back in 1982, I had a lot of fun with it. After about 10 minutes, I had no trouble getting out of the pits and I enjoyed the game after that. Wasn't a great game, but certainly not a game deserving of the derision it receives today.

 

The dump was of a bunch of unsold and unwanted stock after demand dwindled significantly. It isn't about E.T. much more if any more than it is about other games.

 

That said, I would probably buy an E.T. (or maybe other game) from the landfill to add to my collection just for the heck of it. Why not. But not if it's over $10 (+ship) as the City of Alamagordo has estimated them to be worth. It would be the only piece of literal garbage I've ever bought. My wife would beg to differ of course!

[Andromeda Stardust]

Endless debate: is ET a bad game? Maybe someone should start a poll.

 

EDIT: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/224815-poll-is-et-as-bad-as-people-claim/

 

Vote away...

Edited April 28, 2014 by stardust4ever

[atarilovesyou]

I gotta stop looking at this thread I'm waiting for the doc to come out, any timeline as to when, and how? Will it be on Discovery channel or something like that?

[doctorclu]

 

Lol never seen that before COOL. Here I have properly embedded it.

 

http://youtu.be/8Rt_3_bQVJU

 

That video captured the urban legend quite well, but I am amazed that they had such a stack of Atari cartridges for the video.

 

Before I made the E.T. section at my web site, it seemed like hardly anyone was speaking up about how they liked E.T. Everyone was supposed to hate the game. There were articles encouraging people to destroy every E.T. cartridge they could find. After all these years, "E.T. is the worst game in HISTORY" is still a greater cliche than "E.T. is NOT the worst game in history" because the E.T. hate infection keeps on spreading, even to people who have never played it. People hear that everyone is supposed to hate the game, so they grab a torch and pitchfork and join the angry mob.

 

A lot of popular games today don't just let you dive in and play. There are skills you have to master before you can even start playing the actual game and hardly anyone complains about that. E.T. is like those kinds of games. You have to spend a few minutes learning a couple of skills, then you can have fun finding the zones and phone pieces that you need. Once people take a few minutes to master the wells, the game goes from frustrating to fun:

 

youtube.com/watch?v=zh4U3BwlTcY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh4U3BwlTcY

 

I love your website BTW, and I totally know what you're up against from my experience with Bubsy. It is popular through the internet to say "Bubsy is the worst video game mascot ever." No, like Captain Jack Sparrow, Bubsy is the worst mascot remembered, but he IS remembered.

 

But as for the E.T. game, I think this is an unfair treatment of the game over the years, but I will touch on that in moment.

 

"The game's finding came as no surprise to James Heller, a former Atari manager who was invited by the production to the dig site. He says in 1983 the company tasked him with finding an inexpensive way to dispose of 728,000 cartridges they had in a warehouse in El Paso, Texas. After a few local kids ran into trouble for scavenging and the media started calling him about it, he decided to pour a layer of concrete over the games.

"I never heard about again it until June 2013, when I read an article about E.T. being excavated," he remembers. He was not aware of the controversy and never spoke out "because nobody asked.""

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/04/26/diggers-find-ataris-et-games-in-landfill/8232609/

 

So I guess 728k is the magic number, and not millions as some have speculated.

 

728K... some good facts, thanks for sharing!

 

 

That reminds me, I'm going to an Air Supply concert in a couple of months.

 

I like Air Supply, let me know how it goes.

 

I don't care what I think of it today. I haven't plugged it in in probably 10 years at least. What I DO know is that back in 1982, I had a lot of fun with it. After about 10 minutes, I had no trouble getting out of the pits and I enjoyed the game after that. Wasn't a great game, but certainly not a game deserving of the derision it receives today.

 

The dump was of a bunch of unsold and unwanted stock after demand dwindled significantly. It isn't about E.T. much more if any more than it is about other games.

 

That said, I would probably buy an E.T. (or maybe other game) from the landfill to add to my collection just for the heck of it. Why not. But not if it's over $10 (+ship) as the City of Alamagordo has estimated them to be worth. It would be the only piece of literal garbage I've ever bought. My wife would beg to differ of course!

 

Preach it! You know I was thinking about this today. E.T. is not a bad game at all. I plugged it back in (after I bought a $2 copy from a local video game store) and it's been a great reunion after all these years.

 

I believe the ONLY reason E.T. is looked at so poorly is due to this urban legend. "E.T. was a big corporate stinker, so they had to bury millions of copies in the desert." No... it wasn't. Like Mirage and many others I rushed out to get the cartridge when it first came out, and played the hell out of it. It was a surprise to me as a kid really into Atari that games including E.T. were buried in the landfill. I was actually saddened by that.

 

Over the years since no information was really given by Atari the legend grew and grew that it was all about E.T. or at least E.T. was the biggest part of it.

 

People wonder "Well what did this dig accomplish?" Well, they accomplished showing that games were buried in the landfill, but... surprise surprise, not only did they find E.T., but also Defender, Circus Atari, Yars Revenge, and other titles. In other words, they liquidated stock because storage of merchandise costs money. Period.

 

It was never just about E.T. and that is what this dig accomplished as well.

 

Endless debate: is ET a bad game? Maybe someone should start a poll.

 

I was thinking today that it would be great to know what the experienced Atari gamers of Atariage REALLY thought of E.T.

 

I know it is well established to not be the worst Atari 2600 (VCS) game of all time so just narrow it down to Good or Bad, and let the poll speak!

[doctorclu]

The poll has started!!

 

Poll: Is ET as bad as people claim?

[SpaceDice2010]

Wow. E.T. Carts are on fire on Ebay. I am officially out of stock now. (Never thought I would get rid of all the carts I had.)

 

Amazing.

[doctorclu]

Wow, that is amazing. I know when all this happened I ran out and bought me another copy at a local store, and that was their last copy.

 

I wonder if this might also inspire people to watch E.T. the movie again?

[joelm]

I was looking for an open example with the box and manual... I will probably have to wait a year or so to buy one at a decent price now.

[Mirage]

It's one of the most common carts there is. I can't even remember how many I've given away and sent to Al for homebrew shells (once he started accepting silver ones). If anyone is paying any more than for Asteroids or Defender, they're crazy. Fool born every minute!

[fiddlepaddle]

T-shirt going for $55 on ebay, loose ET over $20...

[Miss 2600]

Wow. E.T. Carts are on fire on Ebay. I am officially out of stock now. (Never thought I would get rid of all the carts I had.)

 

Amazing.

 

That's cool! How many did you sell?

[high voltage]

ET is becoming another million seller, great.

 

22 bids, up to $57 and rising:

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 281319139700

Edited April 28, 2014 by high voltage

[Bruce Tomlin]

I know for a fact that ET is not the worst game in history, or even the worst game ever on the 2600.

 

How do I know this?

 

Because Mythicon did not make it.

[chas10e]

ET is becoming another million seller, great.

 

22 bids, up to $57 and rising:

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 281319139700

what's "New in open box" mean & why is it 8 dollars to ship?

 

EDIT: ... oh it's in Venezuela

Edited April 28, 2014 by chas10e

[Joeh1974]

Got any 2XL you want to sell me??? I want the loot; just can't justify driving/flying 2000 miles to be there.

I wish I did. It was strictly one per person. If they had given them out after the wind had started and many people gone, it would probably have been easier to pick up more than one.

[Kulp]

can someone please help me make a list of all games/boxes confirmed to be found? proof by picture or video is basically needed.

in no specific order

-------
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
Centipede
Pac-Man
Superman
Space Invaders
Yar's Revenge
Warlords
Star Raiders
Circus Atari
Missile Command
Asteroids
Swordquest: Fireworld
Berzerk
Defender
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Air-Sea Battle
RealSports Baseball
(Ms. Pac-Man)
(Pele's Soccer)
(Baseball)




which ones am I missing?
post a link to the video or picture where you saw it as proof.

[+Random Terrain]

can someone please help me make a list of all games/boxes confirmed to be found? proof by picture or video is basically needed.

 

in no specific order

 

-------

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

Centipede

Pac-Man

Superman

Space Invaders

Yar's Revenge

Warlords

Star Raiders

Circus Atari

Missile Command

Asteroids

Swordquest: Fireworld

Berzerk

Defender

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Air-Sea Battle

RealSports Baseball

(Ms. Pac-Man)

(Pele's Soccer)

(Baseball)

 

 

 

 

which ones am I missing?

post a link to the video or picture where you saw it as proof.

 

I bet they found more Yars' Revenge games/boxes than Yar's Revenge games/boxes.

[Andre81]

Superman and Air-Sea-Battle surprises me. I don't think there was a huge overstock of these games.

 

I would have expected Battlezone and Joust down there because there is still a huge overstock from the Atari Inc era today.

[Gary from OPA]

I gotta stop looking at this thread I'm waiting for the doc to come out, any timeline as to when, and how? Will it be on Discovery channel or something like that?

 

Later on this summer, it will include interviews and talks about the rise and fall of Atari and this 'little one-dig' will be part of the whole doc, and sadly it will air exclusively on Xbox One and Xbox 360 in 2014 and will be available globally in all markets where Xbox Live is supported.

 

I am sure after a year of playing on Xbox Live, it might move to 'other markets', or of course various 'pirates' will make it available in underground channels after it airs on Xbox One later on this summer.

'

[Rybags]

It'll be up as a torrent probably 15 minutes after airing.

[ApolloBoy]

I would have expected Battlezone and Joust down there because there is still a huge overstock from the Atari Inc era today.

Those were released in late '83 so I doubt they'll find games from that particular era there.

[cybermarco]

It was nice to see that anyone of interest showed up in time for the dig :-)

 

[Ward Shrake]

Pretty cool that they did what they did; even if it's just an exploratory dig, in a sense; and didn't satisfy everyone's cravings.

 

(And even if the gist of what they found was pretty much known to long-time Atari fans, all along.)

 

Cool to see (as others have recently mentioned) solid confirmation that it wasn't just that one specific cartridge that was buried. Kinda sad, at the same time ... but cool and interesting, on some level, to see that a bunch of different titles were all buried there when the market switched; and when things like the Commodore 64 home computer (and many other much-more-powerful machines) were becoming more and more popular, on the home entertainment / gaming market at the time. I for one loved "the crash" and the resulting super-low prices it caused in places like Toys R Us, once upon a time.

 

Lastly: others may have mentioned these points already, but one reason that particular city in New Mexico probably did some of what they did, contract-wise, might relate to the state's constitution having banned any governmental agency being able to "donate" anything of value to pretty much anyone or any organization. From my perspective (as a person who has lived in another small town in New Mexico for about a dozen years now) that's what it sounded like the city's attorney may have been talking about; in those quotes a few pages back. Once people started talking about how valuable this stuff might be, I could see a municipality's attorney warning city officials that they could possibly get into some potential hot water, legally speaking. The purpose of that law was basically (as I understand it, anyway; as a non-lawyer) to try to cut down on governmental corruption and such, and doesn't really apply to something as one-off as this scenario ... but still, you'd think that the job of a municipal attorney would be to warn their clients about potential dangers ... even if the dangers in question are not something super-likely to happen. (Keeping in mind that global attention being put on people digging up trash from a landfill isn't super-likely, either: it's worth a mention, I'd think, to the municipal clients! Kind of an "If that can happen, then maybe this could, too; so ..." sorta thing.)

 

As for some of the earliest comments in this particular thread: some doubt was cast on how the old newspapers that Spud had scanned in or whatever, actually looked. (Questions politely came up as to print quality / layout / etc. and how much it didn't look like a big, professional newspaper might look; from a much more populous place. Or how a writer might also be a photographer -- as if that wouldn't happen, normally.) Just for future reference, when the next mystery comes up: a lot of small towns in this state have newspapers which would probably seem like some random high school's paper, in terms of production quality -- even now, I mean. Heck, I worked for a summer around 2008 at a now-defunct (after 124 years in print) newspaper called the Raton Range. Their printing presses would never cooperate very well when you tried to run color, but were good enough / reliable enough in black and white that a few smaller papers, from 100 miles away or so, would bring their hand-laid-up pages to us. We'd use a heated wax device to stick their (too small, by our standards) pages onto larger sheets, set up for the system we used for our twice-weekly newspaper. We'd use a process camera and film negatives and all of that Old School stuff, in all of those cases. Tools that all the big cities presumably dumped ages ago!? And we'd print their small print runs for them, in a matter of minutes. They'd carry the printed materials back to their home city; all loaded up in their personal cars or whatever. The drive to get to us was a lot more time spent, than the actual print run itself took! But it was economical for them, to not have to own much machinery. Back when I lived in places like Los Angeles, stuff like that would be unheard of -- but out here in the middle of nowhere, people still use whatever's available. And yeah, writers often take their own photos; even these days.

 

Anyway ... kinda cool seeing all that stuff being dug up ... while being kinda sad, too.

 

And definitely weird, that technology that's only a few decades old, and is still fresh in many of our memories, is now "archaeology" in a very literal sense!

 

(Those t-shirts definitely rock, by the way!)