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[MrCunningham]

E.T. is not the worst game by a long shot.

E.T. isn't even the worst Atari 2600 game and it wasn't the game that single handily crashed the console industry in north America. In 1982 really bad ports of games like Pac-Man and the flood of terrible third party titles were already souring the Atari 2600 fan base really badly. E.T.'s high profile nature was the final nail in the coffin for the 2600, but things were already going south before this.

But with that said, it is still hard to deny the impact that E.T. had on the industry. It really was one of the first games with a huge marketing budget thrown behind it, and the large number of people who bought it ended up being frustrated with it.

If this was still the same game without the E.T. license attached to it, it would be no where near as infamous or hated as it became. From a game play point of view, it was actually cleverly designed given how many limitations Howard Scott Warshaw had to work with. The scoring system is pretty unique for the game. I would never rank it as one of my favorite 2600 games though. It was just kinda... ehh.

But I remember having a copy of ET for the 2600 as a kid, and back then I had no idea how to play it at all. It was a weird ass game staring ET where you fall down pits, and fly back up them. My 5 or 6 year old brain just couldn't comprehend how to play it. I had more fun with Pac-Man on the 2600, even though that was a really shit port. My parents even had Adventure for the 2600, and that was even less cryptic than ET without an instruction book.

The people expecting Big Rigs, how old are you?

If we are comparing Big Rigs with ET... ET actually has defined goals,obstacles, and a functional scoring system with some depth to it that can add some replay value to the game. Big Rigs was a completely unfinished game that was shoveled into a box to make some money. It doesn't even really function as a game.

 

[tuffymon]

netflix had/has (still does? doesn't? /shrug) a documentary on this, it was actually really good. he was given literally no time for this, and doing what he did by himself pretty much is impressive...

 

[PetriP-TNT]

This quote is pretty hilarious:

"I actually prefer it when people do identify it as the worst game of all time because I also did Yars Revenge and that's frequently identified as one of the best of all time. So between the two, I have the greatest range of any designer in history!"

I guess it can be argued that ET isn't the worst game in the history technically, but how many other games can you recall that took down the entire video game industry

 

[liquidtmd]

So we had another development system installed in my house so that I would never be more than two minutes away from working on the code except when I was driving

Behind the scene footage of E.T development

I said goddamn dude

 

[danmaku]

There was a manager who was assigned to make sure I was eating so that I'd be able to keep going.

Damn, Atari was really swimming in money if they could afford to give a manager such a stupid task. Also, nice to see that awful working conditions were a staple of the industry even back then.

 

[Shuggananas]

That's not Big Rigs.

Even if it's not intentional you can have fun in big rigs, as broken as it is
ET on the other hand is a fucking disgrace, just a waste of time

 

[yatesl]

Saw this on my Google Now feed. Good to see that publishers have always chased the latest hit.

"Couldn't you do something more like Pac-Man?"

 

[NumberThree]

Behind the scene footage of E.T development

I said goddamn dude

I wonder if he had one of these:

 

[John Wick]

5 weeks to design and program a game??? That is ridiculous!

 

[SAiLO]

Good read on the tube journey to work this morning. It surprised me that the article made it to number 1 Most Read on BBC website.

Lesson to be learned for everyone.

 

[feint_ruled]

Someone hast to explain this to me.

They pay $21 million in 1981 for the rights, which is almost $52 million today adjusted for inflation.
Then they give the project to just one guy to work on for only five weeks? And Spielberg didn't even like what he made? Like...that doesn't make any sense. Why not a few more people? Maybe try making more than one and take the best one? Apparently it made sense back then, but it sounds ridiculous.

How many lines of code is that game even? If you add Atari's production costs, that's probably one of the worst lines of code-to-cost ratios ever in commercial software.

edit: Found it

Lines of code is never a great metric (especially on an old system like that because it has a ceiling!), but that aside old school development didn't really scale that well. Probably the only realistic way of getting a game out in 5 weeks was to give it to your star programmer to solo it. Everything was at such a low level that if you sent one guy off to do the graphics and another off to do the menu system or whatever, the integration when it came would take as long again. These things were so resource constrained, every byte would count, anyone writing software for it needed to have the big picture.

Of course, that's not to say he couldn't have used SOME hlep!

 

[eyeball_kid]

Someone hast to explain this to me.

They pay $21 million in 1981 for the rights, which is almost $52 million today adjusted for inflation.
Then they give the project to just one guy to work on for only five weeks? And Spielberg didn't even like what he made? Like...that doesn't make any sense. Why not a few more people? Maybe try making more than one and take the best one? Apparently it made sense back then, but it sounds ridiculous.

Pretty much all Atari games (both arcade and 2600) were coded by one or two people.

As for the money, Atari had been bought by Warner Communications by then, and they were given relatively free reign because they were making huge profits on the 2600. Unfortunately, Warner weren't exactly hip to the videogame industry (and they had forced out founder Bushnell), so they didn't see there was a bubble coming similar to what happened in the dot-com crash and it was about to pop. If Bushnell hadn't been forced out, Atari might not have nosedived in quality and stagnated in innovation. Keep in mind the 2600 was released in 1977, so it was almost six years old when E.T. came out. By then more powerful consoles Intellivision and ColecoVision were out and made 2600 titles look a generation behind. Most of Atari's demise can be blamed on bad management – hubris, ignorance, inability to see key developers as valuable assets, and poor planning for future products.

E.T. was just the last in a series of mediocre, high-profile games for the media to hang their stories on. Add to that the urban legend of the E.T. landfill which persisted over the years, and E.T. grew to be this mythically terrible and industry-crushing game. Which is just complete BS, but even people in this thread are still buying that narrative.

 

[SinCityAssassin]

Someone hast to explain this to me.

They pay $21 million in 1981 for the rights, which is almost $52 million today adjusted for inflation.
Then they give the project to just one guy to work on for only five weeks? And Spielberg didn't even like what he made? Like...that doesn't make any sense. Why not a few more people? Maybe try making more than one and take the best one? Apparently it made sense back then, but it sounds ridiculous.

The holiday shopping season is the golden egg of all companies and it's enough to blind them to actual sense.

 

[mnz]

Well thanks for the answers, still sounds nuts.

 

[petran79]

This quote is pretty hilarious:

I guess it can be argued that ET isn't the worst game in the history technically, but how many other games can you recall that took down the entire video game industry

MK4 was the final nail in the coffin for western arcades
Such powerful hardware (10x the power of a Nintendo64, according to Midway), yet such mediocre and expensive game

 

[Vitten]

I always felt the Atari 2600 was simply too limited to offer a good gaming experience.
It was my first console but I have like zero nostalgia for it.. Even at that time all the games looked like crap compared to what was out there and there were only a handfull of games that could keep my intrest. The diference with the NES was like night and day.

 

[DryvBy]

It's not the worst video game in history. It's the most popular worst game. I think Afro Samuari 2 may hold that honor. That thing didn't even function.

 

[Boogdud]

Big Rigs? Must be a generational thing, that game is just a glitchy cut and paste mess of someone else's work.

The reason ET is regarded as the worst is the difference between the game (it's really not that horrible) and the expectations that the publisher put forth through immense advertising and hype. Combine that with the insane goal of getting the game out in time for the holiday season and programming it in 5 weeks (even by a genius like Warshaw), you can begin to see how far it was off the mark, and how it got it's reputation.

Big Rigs had nothing of the sort in either the expectation or the industry generated hype.


At the time this was something with the marketing of Destiny/Halo/CoD touting the best game ever, only to release something like The Slaughtering Grounds in it's place.

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

That's not Big Rigs.

Desert Bus and Crazy Bus are even worst and that is saying a mouthful.

 

[Morinaga]

Someone hast to explain this to me.

They pay $21 million in 1981 for the rights, which is almost $52 million today adjusted for inflation.
Then they give the project to just one guy to work on for only five weeks? And Spielberg didn't even like what he made? Like...that doesn't make any sense. Why not a few more people? Maybe try making more than one and take the best one? Apparently it made sense back then, but it sounds ridiculous.

I think perhaps this was the general reason why Atari ended up in a landfill. Not that the game was actually bad, just the management of the business was bonkers.

 

[UncleSporky]

Wow, I thought this thread was going to be about The Letter.

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

Desert Bus and Crazy Bus are even worst and that is saying a mouthful.

They do what they are supposed to though. They were designed like that especially Desert Bus.

E.T. was down to shitty management all the way along. Guy was a star for putting something out in such a messed up environment.

 

[Zombine]

He made the best game he could under the completely asinine deadline he was given. Dude's record for good products was insane, yet they allowed him to take the blame for this failure which wasn't even his fault and it ruined his career. Good on him though for finding his niche now though.

 

[HGH]

This guy seems incredibly pleasant. I'm glad he landed on his own two feet after all that.

 

[Clear]

Pretty much all Atari games (both arcade and 2600) were coded by one or two people.

As for the money, Atari had been bought by Warner Communications by then, and they were given relatively free reign because they were making huge profits on the 2600. Unfortunately, Warner weren't exactly hip to the videogame industry (and they had forced out founder Bushnell), so they didn't see there was a bubble coming similar to what happened in the dot-com crash and it was about to pop. If Bushnell hadn't been forced out, Atari might not have nosedived in quality and stagnated in innovation. Keep in mind the 2600 was released in 1977, so it was almost six years old when E.T. came out. By then more powerful consoles Intellivision and ColecoVision were out and made 2600 titles look a generation behind. Most of Atari's demise can be blamed on bad management – hubris, ignorance, inability to see key developers as valuable assets, and poor planning for future products.

E.T. was just the last in a series of mediocre, high-profile games for the media to hang their stories on. Add to that the urban legend of the E.T. landfill which persisted over the years, and E.T. grew to be this mythically terrible and industry-crushing game. Which is just complete BS, but even people in this thread are still buying that narrative.

Yep. It always amazes me that despite the actual facts of the story not being at all difficult to find out, the media to this day still pushes the same distorted narrative. Mainly I assume because "the great crash of '83" is such a juicy myth for demonstrating how the sky could fall in on the business at any given time.

Utterly bogus of course, given how the nature of the business has evolved over the years since to be a far more diverse and international endeavour. But hey, "it bleeds, it leads" is still the goto strategy for a lot of outlets and commentators. Ironic reallly, given how "professional" games media seems far higher on the endangered species list these days, with the rise of Youtube etc.

 

[Always-honest]

He's a legend.

 

[UncleSporky]

I think a lot of people consider ET to be so bad because they've seen footage of it or read reviews/articles about it in a vacuum, and aren't aware of how most Atari games actually were back in the day.

It's honestly pretty par for the course.

 

[DeepEnigma]

I think a lot of people consider ET to be so bad because they've seen footage of it or read reviews/articles about it in a vacuum, and aren't aware of how most Atari games actually were back in the day.

It's honestly pretty par for the course.

This is true. It only got the stigma, because it was attached to one of the biggest/iconic movies of all time at gaming's infancy of the push to mainstream saturation.

Then the urban legend started, Nintendo entering the ring, and it ballooned from there to make it out to be a villain that was to destroy gaming, and Nintendo the savior to mask their draconian publisher practices.

 

[Zojirushi]

TRUTH: The man who sold the vidjagames.

 

[Paltheos]

Topics like this make me interested in the demographics of GAF. The first reply and the general acceptance (not that it's wrong, just that the posters don't seem aware of the general stigma that's existed around ET) make me think the median age is lower than mine, even though I don't consider myself particularly old.

 

[SeanTSC]

Yep. It always amazes me that despite the actual facts of the story not being at all difficult to find out, the media to this day still pushes the same distorted narrative. Mainly I assume because "the great crash of '83" is such a juicy myth for demonstrating how the sky could fall in on the business at any given time.

Utterly bogus of course, given how the nature of the business has evolved over the years since to be a far more diverse and international endeavour. But hey, "it bleeds, it leads" is still the goto strategy for a lot of outlets and commentators. Ironic reallly, given how "professional" games media seems far higher on the endangered species list these days, with the rise of Youtube etc.

While blaming ET for the entire crash is some seriously silly hyperbole, I don't think it's unreasonable to point to it and go: "Yeah, that was the very very last tiny piece of straw that broke the camel's back." I think that outright dismissing the role it played at the end there is pretty silly too.

 

[satriales]

One guy makes a game from scratch in 5 weeks and it sells 1.5 million copies, and that's still not even half of what was needed to make a profit?

I think Atari's business model was to blame, not the guy who made the game.

 

[UncleSporky]

Topics like this make me interested in the demographics of GAF. The first reply and the general acceptance (not that it's wrong, just that the posters don't seem aware of the general stigma that's existed around ET) make me think the median age is lower than mine, even though I don't consider myself particularly old.

But the stigma around ET is a relatively newer fabrication. People old enough to have experienced it would tell you that the game just came and went at the time and wasn't a huge deal (as several people in this thread have said).

In fact that was the the problem for Atari, they needed it to be a smash hit and not just another release. It could've been the best game of all time and their estimates were still vastly overblown. They made more copies of the game than consoles had been sold!

So if anything it's the opposite, you're young enough that you bought into the myth without knowing the truth.

 

[MrCunningham]

One guy makes a game from scratch in 5 weeks and it sells 1.5 million copies, and that's still not even half of what was needed to make a profit?

I think Atari's business model was to blame, not the guy who made the game.

It's kind of impressive when you look at it that way. But it wasn't so much the sales that were the problem, it was the backlash from the huge volume of returns from unhappy customers. Retailers pretty much swore off stocking Atari 2600's or game systems in general because of this disaster. This is where the cartridge dumping came into the picture. And not only did it damage Atari, but their competitors as well.

 

[UncleSporky]

It's kind of impressive when you look at it that way. But it wasn't so much the sales that were the problem, it was the backlash from the huge volume of returns from unhappy customers. Retailers pretty much swore off stocking Atari 2600's or game systems in general because of this disaster.

You may have misunderstood references to "returns" when it comes to ET - the returns were primarily retailers returning unsold stock, because Atari massively overproduced. Not from unhappy customers.

 

[MrCunningham]

You may have misunderstood references to "returns" when it comes to ET - the returns were primarily retailers returning unsold stock, because Atari massively overproduced. Not from unhappy customers.

Oh that's right, I forgot about the unsold overstock, that would have been an even bigger killer for retailers. But I could only imagine there being a lot of returns as well.

 

[Clear]

While blaming ET for the entire crash is some seriously silly hyperbole, I don't think it's unreasonable to point to it and go: "Yeah, that was the very very last tiny piece of straw that broke the camel's back." I think that outright dismissing the role it played at the end there is pretty silly too.

The fundamental issue is that the actual quality of the game was irrelevant to the outcome.

Atari in effect made a corporate bet that *anything* with the E.T. branding was guaranteed to be their biggest selling title ever, and it absolutely had to be given the massive cost of acquiring the license. The whole situation was insane on so many levels.

 

[Lindsay]

Wow at that licensing cost. Has any book/movie/whatever to game license surpassed that?

Pac-Man met a same fate: Atari wanted it asap and it suffered hard

Maybe I was a really dumb kid who didn't know any better but I played the heck outta Atari Pac-Man, thought it was fun!

I think most people who say E.T. is a "bad game" have never even played it. It's not bad.

Reallys? I played it, even had the instruction book but could not for the life of me get anywhere or figure out how ta do anything. Maybe the dumb kid thing applies here to?

 

[FStop7]

Blackwater is the worst video game in history. Not only is it a technical mess, it's genuinely offensive.

E.T. was just busted.

 

[Nabbis]

Expected more bullshit from Randy Pitchford.

 

[bryehn]

Just read this article on the BBC about the infamous ET game and thought it was interesting. Funny how very little has changed in terms of publisher enforced deadlines and games being rushed out for various reasons all these years later.



More at the link, I recommend reading the whole article:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35560458

I saw this guy talk about the game and that digging up the old carts thing. He's a psychologist now and quite an engaging speaker.

 

[BumblebeeCody]

Brilliant and insightful read.

 

[Imbarkus]

ET was not completely bad.
and it can be fixed.

http://www.neocomputer.org/projects/et/

Play the modded ROM you can get from this site (provided of course you legally own some original copy of ET, right?).

Marvel at how the gameplay is so improved by proper collision detection of an apparently isometrically rendered ET who doesn't fall down a pit when his extended head touches said pit! Wonder at the lower res FBI guy and scientist sprites that are necessary for this tradeoff!

Came to see if this link was posted, left satisfied by Ranma.

 

[SugarDaddy]

The Atari: Game Over documentary is pretty good, it's about fall of Atari in general but its main focus is on the production and failure of E.T. There are some interesting interviews with Howard Scott Warshaw about the culture of working at Atari at the time - weed, random freak-out parties, extremely chill atmosphere. That all vanished after E.T. and Warshaw spent the rest of his life hunting down the same level of work satisfaction.

This is a really interesting tidbit, especially if you've watched the cartoon Codemonkeys lol

 

[KRaZyAmmo]

that was an interesting read. I wasn't surprised it came down Atari management of the game and it's very quick deadline of five weeks. I think you can say a lot of bad games that are on Steam Early Access or so for being worst than E.T.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

That was a good read. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Eclectic Jabber Monkey]

It's kind of impressive when you look at it that way. But it wasn't so much the sales that were the problem, it was the backlash from the huge volume of returns from unhappy customers. Retailers pretty much swore off stocking Atari 2600's or game systems in general because of this disaster. This is where the cartridge dumping came into the picture. And not only did it damage Atari, but their competitors as well.

As a 10-ish year old kid cartridge dumping was amazing to me. My brother and I picked up a lot of games for a few dollars each, although many of them were pretty bad. We paid a bit more for E.T. because it was an Atari published game, but still managed to play it and enjoy it enough at the time. I still have the original box, game and receipt for it (which I placed in the box at the time), haha.

 

[LoveCake]

Five weeks to create a game from scratch, what where Atari thinking!

It isn't the worse game ever & Howard did really well with the game all things considered.

 

[BuckRobotron]

It never was the worst game ever. Remember playing it at the time. Wasn't very good either, but like the iffy 2600 Pac-man you could have fun with it at the time.

 

[ghibli99]

E.T. wasn't all that bad. Even as a young kid, it made sense to me, and taught me a lot about paying attention to the symbols/surroundings, and I thought it was cool that it had an actual end goal. Plus, it was rare for any game to have a title screen, so it was pretty shocking (in a good way) to see one when you powered up the game. I liked it more than Raiders of the Lost Ark, which even years later, never made all that much sense to me.