Il videogioco ET per Atari 2600
In 1982 a film was published, E.T. the Extraterrestrial. It soon became a worldwide hit. In an attempt to ride the success of the film, Atari decided to publish a videogame for its video game console, the VCS or 2600, that made use of the character of E.T. The adaptation was given to Howard Scott Warshaw, that had made other best selling games before, like Yar’s Revenge and Raiders of the Last Ark. However, not a long time to develop the game was accorded to him because the management of Atari wanted to take advantage of the presence of the film into the cinemas, so Warshaw was only able to realize a game that wasn’t at the same level of his 2 previous works. The game was criticized so heavily both from game magazines and 2600 owners for its poor story and gameplay that Atari had to retire the game from the shelves and refund the customers that had buyied the copies of E.T. and returned them to the game shops asking for their money. Moreover, it had to destroy millions of unsold cartridges in a landfill in New Maxico, with enormous economic losses for Atari itself.
During the years E.T. has preserved its bad reputation and there’s no gamelist over the internet that doesn’t include the title in the very first position of the worst games ever, a label that its author has always rejected strongly: in fact he thinks that E.T. is in any case a good game, the best game he could made with the short time he had to develop it.
In 2004 Beep! Bop! Boop! made an interview to Howard Scott Warshaw where he explained his own point of view over E.T. and the Atari crack. The site is no more accessible but a copy of it is available through Web.archive.org at this page.
