Urban legend really is the lowest game "E.T." ever found in the "graveyard of video game"

In Alamogordo City, New Mexico, USA, "Video game graveyardThere is a reclaimed land called "The Land". Although the graveyard of the video game monopolized the home game machine market from 1970 to the first half of the 1980's, the game which will be called the biggest commercial failure failure in game history in 1982E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial"The company was to be divided due to poor sales of"Atari"It was supposed to be a place where we discarded a lot of unsold Rom cassettes and game machine bodies and buried them.

Some people thought the video game graveyard as an urban legend due to the fact that the scale of waste disposal was too large and because of the intersection of information,Fuel EntertainmentWhenXbox Entertainment StudiosCo-produced "Tomb of the Video Game" Urban Legend Verification Project, the excavation work of the landfill was started on April 26, 2014, and ET The Extra-Terrestrial which was legend was filled with I have found it.

Landfill excavation unearths years of crushed Atari treasure [Updated] | Ars Technica
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/04/landfill-excavation-unearths-years-of-crushed-atari-treasure/

Atari In 1976Warner CommunicationsIt was acquired by 1977 by a home game machine "Atari 2600Released. The initial sales of the Atari 2600 was not good, but we released program specifications, made it possible for third party to develop and sell game software, and excellent graphics and sound functions were popular , At one time it caused a whirlwind that about 17% of American households own Atari 2600.

ByAssociation WDA

Atari Inc., in 1983 the movie "E. T."E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" which games was released. As a result of having made games of movies popular all over the world, the company manufactured millions of cartridges, but since it was only given a development period of 5 weeks to make it in time for the Christmas season, development The completed game is very low in completeness, it is significantly below the expected sales and a large amount of inventory occurred. Later, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial was published by PCWorld as "Ten worst game titles ever"Has been chosen.

"E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial"Was not only a big moss, but also as a popular arcade game at that time"Pacman"Atari 2600 games that were ported to Atari 2600 were unpopular, and Atari fired 1,700 employees. Later, Atari was sold from Warner Communications and decided to split the company.

ByErik Abderhalden

In 1983New York Times"We are discarding E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial in inventory that Atari was holding a lot and other games to the landfill in Alamogordo city, New Mexico, USA," but the developer of E.T. The Extra-TerrestrialHoward Scott Warshaw"It is doubtful whether the inventory of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, which has millions of trash, was truly abandoned or not, Atari would have reused parts of the cartridge to save money"What you mentionedOr, as information intersected, it was sometimes considered as an urban legend that "Atari discarded inventory in a landfill site".

About 30 years later, in April 2014, Fuel Entertainment and Xbox Entertainment Studios began excavation work on the landfill in order to verify whether the graveyard of the video game is an urban legend, to photograph it and to produce a documentary. Although the work site was only visible as a mountain of garbage, the workers repeatedly drilled the ground with a hydraulic excavator and the workers checked whether there was a game in it.


According to Ars Technica accompanying the excavation work, in this work the parts of the controller of the Atari 2600 and the newspaper of the time were excavated, but even if it took several hours it was not found "ET The Extra-Terrestrial" did. However, at 12:30 pm, a worker in the mountain of garbage "I found ET The Extra-Terrestrial, a lot more games are buried in the back," said a loud voice, ET The Extra-Terrestrial Besides "Catalog of Atari 2600" and "Arcade game"Centipede"Was found together.

It is reflected in the following image "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" which is famous as the lowest game in history, and the package can be confirmed on the left hand of the worker.


After that work continued, and many game cartridges were excavated. Andrew Rainhard, who was in charge of the work, said, "Some of the games found are less damaged and may work properly," said the game which disappeared from the world for a while at about 30 years It suggests that it may come back to modern era over time.


Although the planned timing of the documentary of "video game graveyard" is not decided yet, it is scheduled to be broadcasted by the TV program distribution service Microsoft distributes for Xbox One.

◆ December 17, 2014 16 o'clock and 54 minutes postscript
The excavated "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" is the AmericanSmithsonian MuseumIt is one ofNational Museum of American HistoryIt was added to the collection of.

From landfill to Smithsonian collections: "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" Atari 2600 game | National Museum of American History
http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/landfill-smithsonian-collections-et-extra-terrestrial-atari-2600-game