In 1982, Atari released the video game adaptation of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial - a game that infamously became one of biggest financial flops in gaming history and is regularly described as one of the worst games ever made. Now, the game has managed to make one US town tens of thousands of dollars.
A bit of background is necessary here. In 1983, Atari were in serious financial trouble, about to feel the effects of a major collapse that had a devastating impact on the still-young games industry. The company undertook to dump truckloads of unsold video games in the city of Alamogordo, New Mexico. Among them were many copies of E.T.
Despite the fact that it was covered in the media at the time, the 'gaming landfill' nonetheless took on the status of urban legend over the years, a source of fascination and curiosity for many gamers.
The site was dug up last year, as part of a documentary called Atari: Game Over. More than 1,000 game cartridges were recovered during the dig, including of other famous games like Space Invaders.
While many of the games were archived or sent to museums - including a copy of E.T. ending up in the Smithsonian museum - hundreds of others were sold on eBay: and it seems a lot of people were keen to get their hands on a piece of gaming history.
As reported by the Alamogordo News, the sale of the games made $107,930 (almost €95,000). More than half of that will go to the town itself, while $16,000 (€14,000) will be given to the Tularosa Basin Historical Society. The remaining money was spent on expenses and shipping.
Operational Consultant Joe Lewandowski told the paper, "there's 297 we're still holding in an archive that we'll sell at a later date when we decide what to do with them. I might sell those if a second movie comes out but for now we're just holding them."
It seems the E.T. game has finally somebody some money.
