Producer Reveals Plans to Unearth Worst Game Ever
Any gamer worth his or her salt knows that one of gaming's most infamous urban legends is actually true. In 1983, Atari dumped 10 truckloads of "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" for Atari 2600 in the New Mexico desert, but one film crew is now on the cusp of unearthing them as a historical study.
Gamers with a taste for the morbid may already be familiar with "Dumping the Alien: Unearthing the Atari Graveyard." This documentary film from Lightbox Productions and Fuel Entertainment chronicles filmmaker Jonathan Chinn's quest to track down the final resting place of the unsold copies of "E.T." Chinn held a panel at SxSW 2014 to give fans their latest look at the film's progress.
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"E.T." is widely hailed as one of the worst video games of all time, even though more than 30 years have passed since its initial release. This nonsensical action/adventure title had players guide the eponymous E.T. through a series of nondescript pits to collect pieces for a device to "phone home." It was ugly, repetitive, shallow, boring and entirely too difficult.
"E.T." was not only a disaster unto itself, but a portent of things to come, Chinn explained. As one of the first video games based on an existing, licensed property, it set a low standard for movie tie-in games that persists to this day. The game lost Atari more than $500 million in sales, and led to the company declaring bankruptcy.
Once Atari folded, the great video game crash of 1983 followed. Consumers spurned video game consoles, manufacturers were loath to produce them and gaming nearly disappeared forever. Only Nintendo's entrance into the market a few years later reversed gaming's fortunes.
This cataclysmic event which began as a single, bad game is what inspired Chinn to produce the film. Chinn himself is not actually a gamer; rather, he believes that the story has universal appeal. The story of "E.T." is a story of how corporate hubris nearly destroyed a multibillion dollar industry, he told the audience.
To save face (and warehouse space), Atari buried the unsold copies of "E.T." in the New Mexico desert, but never specified exactly where. Their fate has fascinated gamers for three decades, and Chinn believes he has discovered where to dig. If his information is good, the excavation could commence within a month or two.
When the dig begins, Chinn invited anyone and everyone to join him in Alamogordo, New Mexico to see what he turns up for themselves.
"Dumping the Alien: Unearthing the Atari Graveyard" will premiere once Chinn assembles his footage, exclusively on Xbox Video. You'll need an Xbox Live subscription if you want to see how Chinn's real-life saga ends.
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