E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (Atari 2600)

''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'' is a 1982 adventure video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. for the Atari 2600 and based on the film of the same name. The game's objective is to guide the eponymous character through various screens to collect three pieces of an interplanetary telephone that will allow him to contact his home planet.

The game was designed by Howard Scott Warshaw, who intended it to be an innovative adaptation, and Atari held unrealistic expectations for sales based on the international box-office success of the film. Negotiations for the game rights ended in late July 1982, giving Warshaw just over five weeks to develop the game in time for the 1982 Christmas season. The final release received negative reviews. The game is often cited as one of the worst of all time and one of the biggest commercial failures in video game history. It is cited as a major contributing factor to the video game crash of 1983, and has been frequently referenced and mocked in popular culture as a cautionary tale about the dangers of rushed game development and studio interference.

In what was once deemed only an urban legend, reports from 1983 stated that as a result of overproduction and returns, unsold cartridges were secretly buried in a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico, and covered with a layer of concrete. In April 2014, diggers hired to investigate the claim confirmed that the landfill contained several ''E.T.'' cartridges, among other games. James Heller, the former Atari manager who was in charge of the burial, was at the excavation and admitted to the Associated Press that 728,000 cartridges of various games (not just ''E.T.'') were buried. Marty Goldberg, co-author of the book ''Atari Inc.: Business Is Fun'', added that the dump was in fact a clearing out of the Texas Atari manufacturing plant's unused cartridge stock of a number of titles, as well as console and computer parts. According to the 2014 documentary '' Atari: Game Over'', only 10% of the approximately 1,300 recovered were ''E.T.'' cartridges.

Gameplay

''E.T.'' is an adventure game in which players control the alien E.T. from a top-down perspective. The objective is to collect three pieces of an interplanetary telephone. The pieces are found scattered randomly throughout various pits (also referred to as wells). There is no overall time limit. The player is provided with an on-screen energy bar, which decreases when E.T. performs any actions (including moving, teleporting, or falling into a pit, as well as levitating back to the top). To prevent this, E.T. can collect Reese's Pieces, which are used to restore his energy or, when nine are collected, E.T. can call Elliott to obtain a piece of the telephone, or the player can save the candy pieces for bonus points at the end. After the three phone pieces have been collected, the player must guide E.T. to an area where he can use the phone, which allows him to call his home planet. Once the call is made, a clock appears at the top right of the screen; E.T. has to arrive at the landing zone before it reaches zero. Once E.T. gets to the forest where his ship abandoned him and stands and waits in the designated area for the ship to come, the ship will appear on-screen and take him back to his home planet. Then the game starts over, with the same difficulty level, while changing the location of the telephone pieces. The score obtained during the round is carried over to the next iteration. E.T. has three lives and if he dies within those three lives Elliott will come in and revive him. E.T. can get a fourth life if the player finds a geranium in one of the wells. According to the manual, the game ends "when E.T. runs out of energy or when you decide to quit playing".

The game is divided into six environments, each representing a different setting from the film. To accomplish the objective, the player must guide E.T. into the wells. Once all items found in a well are collected, the player must levitate E.T. out of them. An icon at the top of each screen represents the current area, each area enabling the player to perform different actions. Antagonists include a scientist who takes E.T. for observation and an FBI agent who chases the alien to confiscate one of the collected telephone pieces, or candy. The game offers diverse difficulty settings that affect the number and speed of humans present, and the conditions needed to accomplish the objective.

Development

Following the commercial success of ''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'' in June 1982, Steve Ross, CEO of Atari's parent company Warner Communications, began negotiations with the film's director Steven Spielberg and its distributor Universal Pictures to acquire a license to produce a video game based on the film. Later that month, Warner announced its exclusive worldwide rights to market coin-operated and console games based on ''E.T.'' Although the exact details of the transaction were not disclosed in the announcement, it was later reported that Atari had paid ( when adjusted for inflation to ) for the rights, a high figure for video game licensing at the time. When asked by Ross what he thought about making an ''E.T.''-based video game, Atari CEO Ray Kassar replied, "I think it's a dumb idea. We've never really made an action game out of a movie." An arcade game based on the ''E.T.'' property had also been planned, but this was deemed to be impossible given the short deadline.

On July 27, 1982, after negotiations were completed, Kassar called Howard Scott Warshaw to commission him as developer of the video game adaptation. Kassar informed him that Spielberg asked for Warshaw specifically and that development had to be completed by September 1 to meet a production schedule for the Christmas holiday season. Although Warshaw had spent over a year working on consecutive development schedules for games (seven months working on ''Yars' Revenge'' and six months on ''Raiders of the Lost Ark''), he accepted the offer based on the challenge of completing a game in a short time frame and at Spielberg's request. Warshaw considered it an opportunity to develop an innovative Atari 2600 game based on a film he enjoyed, "provided we reach the right arrangement". Kassar reportedly offered Warshaw and an all-expenses-paid vacation to Hawaii in compensation. Warshaw was flown via private jet to Warner Brothers Studios to meet with Spielberg.

Warshaw used those days to design the structure and segmented the concept into four ideas: world, objective, the path to achieve the objective, and obstacles. He envisioned a six-sided world that players could "float" around as the setting, and adapted part of the film's plot, E.T. phoning home, as the goal. The player would need to gather parts for a phone to call his ship and arrive at a special landing site to achieve this goal. Warshaw considered obstacles as an element that would determine the success of a game, and experienced difficulties when taking into account the time constraints and technical limitations of the console. Inspired by the film, adults were implemented as antagonists that would chase the alien. Pits were devised as an element to hide the pieces of the phone as well as expand the game world.

Warshaw and other Atari executives presented this design to Spielberg, who did not express enthusiasm. According to Warshaw, Spielberg asked him, "Couldn't you do something more like ''Pac-Man''?" Believing the concept too derivative of a common game design, Warshaw proceeded with his concept, which he believed would capture the sentimentality he saw in the original film. In retrospect, however, Warshaw stated that Spielberg's idea might have had merit. He spent the remaining time programming. Atari anticipated enormous sales based on the popularity of the film, as well as the stability of the video game industry at the time. Due to time limitations, Atari skipped audience testing. Emanual Gerard, then co-chief operating officer of Warner, later suggested that the company had fallen into a false sense of security by the success of its previous releases, particularly its console version of ''Pac-Man'', which was commercially successful despite poor critical reaction.

Reception

Anticipation for the ''E.T.'' video game was high, and Atari was hoping it would be a sought-after Christmas gift. In early December 1982, ''The New York Times'' reported that video games based on successful films, specifically ''E.T.'', would become "an increasingly profitable source" for video game development. At first, retailers ordered more supplies than what was expected to be sold, but Atari received an increasing number of order cancellations as new competitors entered the market, which the company had not anticipated. John Hubner and William Kistner of ''InfoWorld'' have attributed the cancellations to changes Atari initiated in its relationship to distributors. On November 1, 1982, Atari informed them that their contracts were canceled and that exclusive deals would be established with select distributors. Hubner and Kistner believed the action prompted retailers to cancel orders, which Atari had not properly tracked.

''E.T.'' was met with initial commercial success, being among the top four on ''Billboard'' magazine's "Top 15 Video Games" sales list in December 1982 and January 1983. The game sold 1.5 million units upon release, and over copies by the end of 1982. However, at least 669,000 copies were later returned in 1983. Via One retailer said that "mostly grandmothers" bought the game; because of word-of-mouth, children preferred the best-selling ''Pitfall!''

Hubner and Kistner commented that the large number of produced cartridges may have resulted in excess inventory regardless of ''E.T.''s success. Even though the game was a bestseller during the holiday season, retailers still stated that its sales figures did not meet expectations. Warner Communications also expressed disappointment at the number of sales. Lower-than-expected sales figures combined with excess inventory, which produced a negative supply and demand event, prompted retailers to repeatedly discount price. According to Ray Kassar, about 3.5 million of the 4 million produced were sent back to the company as unsold inventory or customer returns. A popular rumor was that there were more ''E.T.'' cartridges produced than there were Atari 2600 units in existence. According to Lyle Rains, the most likely origin of this rumor was that Atari employees at the time widely believed that though the installed base of the Atari 2600 was over 20 million, the number of units still in active use was less than the number of ''E.T.'' cartridges produced. Despite sales figures, the quantity of unsold merchandise, coupled with the expensive film license and the large number of returns, made ''E.T.'' a major financial failure for Atari. As recently as 2004, the cartridges were still very common and offered at very low prices.

Critical response

While reviews of the movie were highly positive, the game was largely negatively-received by critics, with common complaints focused on the plot, gameplay, and visuals. In contemporary reviews, ''New York'' magazine's Nicholas Pileggi described it as a loser when compared to other games Atari could have released like ''Donkey Kong'' and ''Frogger'', and ''Video Games'' called it "really for kids (the littler ones)". In 1984 '' Softline'' readers named the game the second-worst Atari program of 1983, after ''Congo Bongo''.

Nevertheless, the game received some positive contemporary reviews. An editor for ''The Miami Herald

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