The part about Atari being stuck with tons of copies of E.T. and having to dump them is true. The bit about three guys with shovels digging them up? That's the part I'm doubting. It still makes a great story, though.
The story is true up until the point of guys with shovels digging up the games. Actually the games were bulldozed dumped into a hole and then filled with concrete to prevent people from digging them up. The games are buried in a town called Alamogorodo (which is also the place where the first atomic bomb was tested) because the landfill across the border in Texas would not take them. It is actually a bit of a seminal moment in the early history of video games. The whole story is discussed in Kline's book called Digital Gameplay. (As a side note, just found this blog, and I enjoyed reading many of your posts.)
Thanks, Dave. Something tells me the bits with the guys singing into the camera and the pixellated ET walking across the desert are artistic license, too.
You've got a great domain name, Dave.
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I don't know if this is all true or not, but I remember having this game as a kid and not being able to ever beat it.
The part about Atari being stuck with tons of copies of E.T. and having to dump them is true. The bit about three guys with shovels digging them up? That's the part I'm doubting. It still makes a great story, though.
The story is true up until the point of guys with shovels digging up the games. Actually the games were bulldozed dumped into a hole and then filled with concrete to prevent people from digging them up. The games are buried in a town called Alamogorodo (which is also the place where the first atomic bomb was tested) because the landfill across the border in Texas would not take them. It is actually a bit of a seminal moment in the early history of video games. The whole story is discussed in Kline's book called Digital Gameplay. (As a side note, just found this blog, and I enjoyed reading many of your posts.)
Thanks, Dave. Something tells me the bits with the guys singing into the camera and the pixellated ET walking across the desert are artistic license, too. You've got a great domain name, Dave.