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For more information, visit GotTheGold.com... I'm your host, Justin two-point-oh... This is Game Theory. Today we're talking E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for Atari. Gaming's worst disaster. Now let's get into it...

The Setup — Summer 1982

• Steven Spielberg's E.T. movie was a massive hit in summer 1982
• Atari wanted a game for the Christmas season
• They secured the license in July
• That gave developer Howard Scott Warshaw five weeks to design, program, and ship a game
• Most games took six to nine months

The Developer

• Howard Scott Warshaw was a talented programmer
• He created Raiders of the Lost Ark and Yar's Revenge for Atari
• But five weeks wasn't enough

The Game Was Broken

• E.T. fell into pits constantly
• The objective was unclear
• The gameplay was repetitive and frustrating
• It wasn't fun — it was a chore

The Commercial Disaster

• Atari manufactured 5 million cartridges, expecting a massive hit
• It sold 1.5 million copies
• That left 3.5 million unsold cartridges
• Stores returned them — Atari had nowhere to put them
• So they buried them in a New Mexico landfill
• Literally millions of cartridges in a desert grave

What E.T. Represented

• Everything wrong with the early gaming industry:
• Publishers prioritizing movie tie-ins over quality
• Impossible development timelines
• Shovelware flooding the market
• No quality control

The 1983 Video Game Crash

• By 1983, the video game market crashed
• Revenues dropped 97%
• Companies went bankrupt
• Retailers stopped stocking games
• The industry was dead
• E.T. didn't cause the crash alone, but it became the symbol of it

The Lessons Learned

• Nintendo learned from Atari's mistakes
• When they released the NES in 1985, they implemented the Nintendo Seal of Quality
• Games had to meet standards before release
• They controlled third-party licensing
• They limited how many games publishers could release per year
• Quality over quantity

The Cautionary Tale

• E.T. is a cautionary tale about greed, hubris, and corner-cutting
• Atari believed the brand was enough
• They thought people would buy anything with E.T. on the box
• They were wrong
• Players care about quality — always have, always will

The Legend Confirmed

• In 2014, archaeologists excavated the New Mexico landfill
• They found the cartridges — proof the legend was real
• The worst game ever made, buried and forgotten
• Teaching an industry how not to fail

That's Game Theory. Subscribe if you haven't already, and visit GotTheGold.com for more... Make it a great day!