For many years it had been the stuff of gaming folklore that when the E.T. - The Extra Terrestrial video game was released back in the 80s for the Atari 2600, it was so bad and sold so few copies that the many unsold copies were buried in a landfill in New Mexico, USA.
And so on April 26th 2014 the excavation was begun at the rumoured landfill location in Alamogordo, New Mexico, a total of 30 feet were dug taking approximately three hours and, due to the city authorities only allowing digging for 24 hours, a mere 1,300 of the buried 700,000 games were recovered. The city’s mayor is now hoping to turn the site into a tourist attraction.
The story is truly fascinating, the whole thing has been made into a brilliant documentary, Atari : Game Over which, at the time of writing is available to enjoy on YouTube (https://youtu.be/O2vWvp8WXQI) and I highly recommend it.
700 games recovered will be sold by the Alamogordo City Commission, a further 100 were given to the film’s development companies and the rest given to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C., and local New Mexico museums for display putting to rest once and for all one of gaming’s longest running rumours.
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