The video game crash of 1983 and what Atari buried in the desert.

[Auriiya]

From landfill to Smithsonian collections: "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" Atari 2600 game

americanhistory.si.edu

 

[fake-kun]

The Japanese refer to this event as "Atari shock" which is a pretty cool name for a such terrible event.

 

[INTIMIDAT3R]

My Dad was stationed at Holloman AFB, just a few miles from Alamogordo.

The whole burial thing Atari did at the landfill was never mentioned in the local news.

It only made news a few decades later when the documentary about Atari's downfall came out.

 

[DanVzare]

I prefer to call it "The American Console Game Crash of 1983".
Since it was localized not only to America, but specifically to the console games. Apparently from what I've heard, Arcades continued to do quite well during that time. And I'm pretty confident that here in Britain where computers were king, this "crash" wasn't even felt.

Unless someone has knowledge of the contrary though.
It happened before I was born, so I can only go based on what I've read or heard.

 

[Gorse]

It's a pretty bad game, but compared to some of the other tripe that was coming out back then, I don't really think it could reasonably be called the worst one of all time or anything. I listened to a very interesting (but, now, sadly-unfindable) podcast with Howard Scott Warshaw, the guy who programmed it, and he's clearly a very passionate, skilled, intelligent guy. (He was a very high-ranking developer at Atari who also created Yar's Revenge.)

Warshaw actually had a lot to say about the game's world design, which was extremely ambitious at the time (it's a cube of seven screens that "wraps around" itself), and he really did seem to think that with just a bit more time, it would have been well-received. I don't know if that's true, but it definitely wasn't just some slop knocked off by people who didn't care.

And, seriously – what the F were people expecting from a game based on E.T.!? Some kind of video masterpiece!? Even that stupid Atari Indiana Jones game makes you use two controllers at once! I consider the 2600 port of Pac-Man far more offensive.

 

[DanVzare]

It's a pretty bad game, but compared to some of the other tripe that was coming out back then

I have slowly been going through all of the Atari 2600 games, trying my best to play every single one. There's a lot, and they're very bad, so it's been tough.

I'm about two thirds of the way through so far, and I can safely say that E.T. is in the top 50, if not top 20 best Atari 2600 games. Which I think says a lot more about the games on that console in general than it does about E.T.
By the way, the good games usually end up being ports of arcade classics, such as Defender and Crystal Castles. In which case, you may as well just boot up MAME and play the original version of it. So if I was to remove any game that isn't an Atari 2600 exclusive, E.T. would probably be in my top 10.

 

[Bonkers225]

How many lives, and families were destroyed because of E.T? Tragic.

 

[Strategist]

The thing was that Atari didn't fully go away after this crash. I wonder if they were liquidating inventory or what but I recall plenty of Atari consoles growing up. The wood paneling and the black joystick with one orange button is ingrained in my mind. Then around 1989-1990 it was all about Nintendo.

And Atari tried to do a comeback with the Jaguar, the first 64 bit console. That didn't go so well.

 

[Auriiya]

I read 500.000.000 dollars and upward of 700.000 carts and I know that isn't everything.

How many lives, and families were destroyed because of E.T? Tragic.

 

[Waffles]

And, seriously – what the F were people expecting from a game based on E.T.!? Some kind of video masterpiece!?

There are a couple of really good games on Atari 2600, but you absolutely can't combine a rushed development cycle with the limitations of that system and expect anything good... frankly, most of the really good games on the platform were either devishly simple or had a lot of time to adapt to the hardware's shortcomings.

 

[Gorse]

The thing was that Atari didn't fully go away after this crash. I wonder if they were liquidating inventory or what but I recall plenty of Atari consoles growing up.

Yessir! Even after the crash, they kept their skin in the game right up until the mid-90s with consoles like the 5200, the 7800 (an NES/SMS competitor), the Jaguar (+ the Jaguar CD), and the Lynx, the first full-colour handheld (competed with the GB/GG, and which even had a "console update" of its own in the Lynx 2), all with their own unique libraries of games (and some cross-console franchises, like Blue Thunder). They of course couldn't hold a candle to the Japanese guys, but they absolutely were still a console presence almost 15 years after the E.T. debacle.

They left the market when they hit another bankruptcy in the late '90s, and have been bought out by a succession of holding companies since then. Today, Atari is simply a brand name and a logo that they slap on any old bollocks.

 

[Auriiya]

I seen they released a 2600+ recently and something about a line of hotels. Hmm I'll have to research it now haha

 

[TrixieMoanz]

I love how this was just an urban legend for the longest time until the site was finally excavated. Some people might scoff at them being in a museum but the Crash of 83 was a very important part of videogame and electronic history even if ET wasn't solely to blame for the crash (It was just general oversaturation)

 

[Azuris]

I just want to throw in:
This is only for the US, the rest of the world was ok.
Thats why it just needed an outsider to come in, as Nintendo.

 

[Sayo]

Generally speaking, E.T was an obtuse game but not a terrible one, there were far worse titles on the 2600. I just believe it had the misfortune of releasing at the wrong time.

 

[Parasite_Steve]

Not to be a party pooper but I’ve always questioned the narrative of the video game crash of 83 and how then Nintendo swooped in and saved the medium from extinction because here in Europe gaming was totally fine, even booming during that period. Ditto with Japan afaik.