Gaming Historian tackles the Atari landfill myth. Recently, the Atari landfill was uncovered in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Back in 1983, Atari cleared out their El Paso, TX plant and dumped a bunch of their product into a landfill.
The actual dumping of product is not legend, Atari even admitted they did it back in 1983. The real legend was that they dumped nothing but ET cartridges. This excavation proved it was exactly what Atari said it was over 30 years ago.
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For more detailed information, check out the book "Atari Inc.: Business is Fun" by Marty Goldberg and Curt Vandel.
All background music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Excavation footage courtesy of IGN.com
Thumbnail image via Taylor Hatmaker (http://readwrite.com/2014/04/28/atari-et-dig-alamogordo-game-list#feed=/author/taylor-hatmaker&awesm=~oCUGol9gb4p8zM)
游戏界有一个流传多年的都市传说 雅达利在新墨西哥州垃圾场 掩埋了大量滞销的《E.T.外星人》和雅达利2600
（一部由雅达利公司为雅达利2600开发的游戏） 2014年4月26日 挖掘人员在阿拉莫戈多市这片著名的雅达利填埋场里 挖掘出雅达利游戏机、摇杆和游戏卡带残骸 包括《E.T.》 这次挖掘工作由Fuel Entertainment和微软出资赞助
（一家加拿大电影制作公司） 全程被拍成纪录片
（即《雅达利：游戏结束》） 媒体争相报道 Kotaku评论说 “臭名昭著的游戏界传闻原来是真的” Polygon形容这次挖掘 “证实了雅达利填埋数百万滞销《E.T.》卡带的30年传闻” 可是，他们说得…… 不完全正确 1983年臭名远播的掩埋事件 真相其实是这样的 雅达利当时在德州埃尔帕索有一座工厂 专门生产游戏卡带 但上世纪80年代初，雅达利业绩不佳 1983年二季度 公司亏损超过3亿美元 雅达利因而做出重大改变 将卡带生产转移到台湾 把旧工厂改造成回收站 旧工厂仓库里仍有一堆闲置物品和滞销卡带 雅达利决定全部丢弃 为避免抢掠，货车驱车一个半小时来到新墨西哥州阿拉莫戈多 卸下了库存 新墨西哥州
法律禁止市民在垃圾场“淘金” 雅达利希望暗中进行 可事与愿违 当地居民发现后无视法律，开始抢掠雅达利垃圾 雅达利请来保安看守现场，并用水泥覆盖部分区域 事情很快被媒体报道，进而全国皆知 一名雅达利发言人证实了新闻 他们的确掩埋了德州埃尔帕索工厂的库存 包括卡带、主机、摇杆等不能用的东西 这事反映了游戏行业残酷的一面 世界知名游戏公司倾倒积压库存？！ 这不是个好兆头 同年，美国游戏业陷入大萧条 因而又有谣言说 雅达利在垃圾场倾埋数百万份滞销《E.T.》卡带 的确，雅达利是对滞销的游戏进行了清理 但无人知道具体地点 最可能是在加州森尼威尔，雅达利前总部附近的区域 所以，2014年4月26日的开挖活动 其实没啥特别的 活动只是证实了雅达利30年前的说法 公司的确在垃圾场倾埋了大量滞销库存 也就是后来挖掘人员找到的东西 这并没证实什么谜团 只是证明了雅达利所言属实 本期“游戏史学家”就到这 感谢收看
Comments
This house was built on a video game burial ground. Now the characters from the games haunt the living. THAT should have been the back story to Pixels.
2:27 That’s the most outrageous thing I’ve ever heard 100% cotton miniskirt for $17.95
This is the first level-headed response I've seen posted about the story. Everyone else was busy freaking out and sensationalizing. Thanks for the video!
To be fair, the landfill stock did contain copies of ET.
So, in other words, it proved the truth behind the myth...which, in an odd way, actually does prove the myth true to a certain extent.
What I would like to know is why Atari never used the excess stock in "buy one get one free" deals on Atari games still for sale. Even as bundles with new consoles. Surely that would have helped shift stock by enticing customers to buy games. And why not sell it to a third party as "liquidated stock". (I'm forever seeing liquidated stock of old PS2, PS3 and Wii games in the game industry magazine MCV)
My dad used to work at Atari in El Paso! I remember he brought home a large trash bag full of cartridges! Hundreds if not thousands were in that bag! He burried the bag in our Back yard! Both my brothers and myself remember perfectly!
I always thought the story was fun because the game was so bad it had to be sealed in concrete to cleanse the world of it's taint. I never doubted E.T. was dumped or that it was dumped with tons of other Atari junk. I just liked telling the story to non-gamers about the legendary game so bad it was treated like toxic waste. Personally I never thought the game was as bad as people make it out to be. It sucks, but it's playable. It isn't fun, but it isn't broken. It was very disappointing to all those kids on Christmas who loved the movie, but no more so than opening up socks.
I don't think it was popular so much as a myth, but rather as a unique course of action that you wouldn't expect from other game companies.
It still pretty much confirms the ET Myth though. Because we now know for certain that Atari was in the practice of dumping excess stock into landfills. We know that they made millions more ET games than they sold. It's a fair assumption that all those ET games were dumped and buried. Just maybe not all in one mythical ET landfill.
I'm such a fan of this series. Theres a million different ways to celebrate retro gaming and this "Matter of factually" Reporting is information gold. Keep up the good work :)
The Truth is Out There.
The whole thing was such a waste. They could have donated those systems and games to places like hospitals, daycare centers, etc. Hell, if they had opened the warehouse doors and put up a sign saying "Free video games!" people probably would have emptied it out in a couple days. It really saddens me that a company would rather destroy unsold merchandise than give it away.
As disappointing as this is, I'm still glad what was uncovered tells at least part of an important story. I find the Video Game Crash of 1983 really interesting.
Excellent video. Was glad to see what we wrote in the book based on interviews and documentation turned out to be spot on. Something else that came out recently as well: These were all returns from stores (store overstock returned for credit) not even Atari's own stock.
Great stuff Norm, thanks for clearing this up for me.
So to summarize/clarify (I think): The myth was that Atari specifically dumped unsold copies of E.T. In actuality they dumped a variety of excess stock that happened to include some copies E.T. I assume then that the E.T. myth partially revolved around how horrible said game was, bolstering the notion that it sold horribly (which I don't even know for sure).
So YouTubers are more competent researchers than so called journalists at Kotaku and Polygon? Inconceivable!
Thanks Norm, I've been trying to explain this to my friends, this video is way more succinct than I am.
That is both hilarious and depressing.