When Atari released their picture game adaptation ofE.T. The Extraterrestrialin 1982 , they thought it would buoy their mark and facilitate them compete with the growing base computing machine mart . Instead , it help contribute to their demise . For Atari , E.T.became a symbol of failure . For children of the ' 80s , it was just considered a very big game . But how did Atari end up create a telecasting game that was so monumentally and infamously unpopular ?
allot to the game ’s programmer , Howard Scott Warshaw , the game ’s bankruptcy came down to a mix of too much ambitiousness and too small time . In recent interviews with theBBCandThe Guardian , Warshaw explained that he was asked to make theE.T.video game after creating a popular Atari adaptation ofRaiders of the Lost Ark. Warshaw , who idolized Stephen Spielberg , enthusiastically agreed to work on the game . There was only one problem : Atari needed it finish in metre for Christmas , which meant that Warshaw only had five calendar week to make it . At the time , most game take six month .
But rather than play it safe and construct off of existing video secret plan format , Warshaw need to make something that was suitable of his hero . “ I knew it was a flock to inquire . But I did n’t just think , ‘ I ’ll give it a go . ’ If you ’re gon na bite it off you might as well take a big bite , " he toldThe Guardian .
Warshaw worked on the game non - block for week , even receive a second work station build in his plate so he could make at all hours . He managed to complete the secret plan by the deadline , but though the finished game was original , most players did n’t think it was much fun . It was widely considered too hard and too full of unexpected traps . Its problems were n’t in the plot ’s codification , but in its conceptualization .
E.T.didn’t just disappoint , it bombed — dramatically . In the end , Atari wind up up with so many unsold copy of the game , they buried them in the New Mexico desert . And Warshaw , discouraged by the game ’s dramatic bankruptcy , end up leaving the video game industry totally . After smatter in actual acres and film , he now wreak as a therapist in Silicon Valley , where , agree to BBC , he advertise himself as “ liquid in both English and dweeb . ”
[ h / tBBC ]
