Indiana Jones and the Landfill of Lost Cartridges

A fabled tale from my childhood about the fate of thousands of unsold E.T. video game cartridges turns out to be true:

Back during the so-called video game crash of 1983, a struggling Atari was stuck with truckloads of the game and other unsold hardware. With little recourse and a crashing interest in video games in North America, the company decided to dump its excess merchandise into a landfill, according to reports at the time. The story was never confirmed, however, and it’s carried on as a legendary tale from a time when video games were near worthless. It reportedly cost Atari millions to get the rights to produce a video game tie-in to the incredibly successful Steven Spielberg film, but the resulting E.T. game was a massive flop and it’s considered one of the worst titles of all time.

My buddy Chris had a copy and I can confirm it was the Worst. Game. Ever.