This game is considered by many to be the worst video game in history. This is the game that is often blamed for the video game crash of 1983. While there were already signs that the crash was coming the release of this game did help to bring about the crash faster. For being considered by many to be the worst game ever and certainly being the worst Atari 2600 game ever this is one of the most talked about video games from the Atari era. All you have to do is check on wikipedia and you will see how much is written about this game compared to other Atari games of the time there is so much more information.
Rumor has it that the deal to get the licensing rights to E.T. for coin operated and console games was between $20-25 million which at that time was an unheard of sum of money for such a deal. Howard Scott Warshaw designed E.T. at the request of Steven Spielberg because Warshaw had designed the Raiders of the Lost Ark game. When negotiations were finalized on the deal there were only 6 weeks to make the game so that it would be out in time for the Christmas season. Warshaw had made some notable games before this such as Yars Revenge but for Yars Revenge he had been given 5 months to complete the game. The story goes that Warshaw was paid $200,000-$1,000,000 to make the game and a trip to Hawaii depending on where you here the story the lower number seems to be more accurate however.
Originally Warshaw had intended to make a grander story based game but decided to scrap many of the ideas and went with what would be possible to develop in such a short time. The code was only 6.5kb but then so were most of the other Atari games. Atari decided it did not have the time have it be tested before release, this was partially due to high sales of games which did not have much critical success but high sales such as the also much hated Pac-Man port which some would say was the cause for the crash with E.T. being the straw that broke the camels back.
Ultimately many factors would come into play in the disaster that was E.T. First the cost to license the game was high, not enough time to develop the game, and lower sales because of more competition then the previous year all were part of the failure of E.T. E.T. did in fact sale quiet well being the 8th top selling Atari game of all but it was not enough to turn a profit. To be fair to the game there are many devoted fans of the game to this day. E.T. was also the first game to credit a graphic artist, which could be found through an Easter egg along with a credit for Warshaw, perhaps they should have spent more time in developing a better game then placing Easter eggs.
Another classic myth is that there were more cartridges of E.T. made then consoles that is an obvious urban legend. A final myth that appears to hold at least some truth to it that always comes up during a discussion of this game is that loads of unsold copies were buried in a New Mexico land fill. The first time this story came out was in a local New Mexico newspaper. Warshaw has stated this could not be along with some others who have done some digging in the area but Warshaws theory is that they would have reused the materials but the cost to take apart packaging and remove parts from a game does not seem economical especially to anyone who has some electronics experience and knows how time consuming it can be to get parts that have already been soldered into place out.
As for the actual game it has you play as E.T. and looking for three parts to a phone, to phone home with. There are recess pieces and a health item that allows you to phone Eliot and he will bring you a piece of the phone. The phones are found in pits and you have to slowly levitate out of the pits once you find them. There are scientist and FBI agents you have to avoid. Once you have the phone pieces you have to return to the forest and phone home and wait for the spaceship to pick you up. The title screen, which has a Sprite of E.T. and the name E.T. on it is mockingly considered the best part of the game by many.
