Atari Releases E.T., Often Called the Worst Video Game Ever Made

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is an adventure video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. for the Atari 2600 video game console. It was based on the film of the same name, and was designed by Howard Scott Warshaw in 1982. In E.T., players must control E.T. through various screens and obtain three pieces of a device that allows him to phone home. They are found scattered randomly through pits. With few exceptions, critics and gamers alike feel that it was a poorly produced and rushed game that Atari thought would sell purely based on brand loyalty to the names of Atari and E.T. Owing to the lengthy negotiations to secure the rights to make the game, Warshaw only had six weeks before its scheduled release to develop it.

E.T. is seen as marking the beginning of Atari's downfall and is often viewed as one of the biggest commercial failures in video gaming history, as well as the worst video game ever made. E.T. was a contributing factor to Atari's massive financial losses during 1983 and 1984, and a glut of unsold copies of the game helped contribute to the video game crash of 1983. As a result of overproduction, hundreds of thousands of unsold cartridges were buried in a New Mexico landfill.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Ter...