3 ms·

>“I ended up losing three months of my life, spending every waking minute at Atari, coming home at 1 a.m., going in at 6 a.m. The game got done.” This seems to

>“I ended up losing three months of my life, spending every waking minute at Atari, coming home at 1 a.m., going in at 6 a.m. The game got done.” This seems to be a one-sentence summary of nearly every Atari story I've ever heard (outside the epic buried-ET-cartridges saga).

zxcvbn4038 5y ago
There was another Atari game that had a similar fate that nobody talks about. There was a 3D shooter called “I, Robot” made in the early 80s - I only ever saw it once, in an arcade in Caesar’s Palace. It did not sell well and half the production run ended up being pushed off the side of a cargo ship, probably to recover production costs through insurance. MAME does emulate it.
- squigg 5y ago
  There were lots of I, Robot cabinets in the UK. I loved it - was mindblowing! Was also ported to various home computers
  - zxcvbn4038 5y ago
    I enjoyed playing it, the 3D graphics were pretty amazing for the era. I think it came out around the time the video game market imploded, so it could have been general panic inside Atari that triggered someone to dump it prematurely. Loading them onto a cargo ship and pushing them off the side seems really extreme.
rbanffy 5y ago
> outside the epic buried-ET-cartridges saga I'm sure developers also spent all their time working on it. Unlike Battlezone, unfortunately for them, the result was terrible.
- mysterydip 5y ago
  It was very close to being amazing (for the time), unfortunately an aggressive release deadline meant showstopping bugs. Check out this article from someone who fixed it: http://www.neocomputer.org/projects/et/ http://www.neocomputer.org/projects/et/
  - ASalazarMX 5y ago
    I think the bugs are grossly overstated. They weren't showstopping, it was a typical Atari-hard, nothing particularly unusual. It was playable and winnable even without the manual. Now the SwordQuest games, those belong in a landfill if not for the folklore that surrounds them.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  Howard Scott Warshaw, the developer of Yars' Revenge and Raiders of the Lost Ark, famously developed E.T. in a mere 5 weeks. E.T. being terrible is largely just a meme, though. It sold quite well, and had at worst a mixed reception: 'E.T. sold between 1.5 and 1.97 million cartridges,[3] according to various different figures. This would, in fact, earn it the not-too-shabby distinction of being one of the best-selling 2600 titles of all time. And despite what revisionist history may tell you, the game wasn’t actually critically panned on release! In actuality, it was… Well, actually, it was pretty mixed as it turns out. There were certainly those who found fault in the game, most tending to criticize it for lack of difficulty, of all things. Video Games magazine contributor Phil Wiswell wrote in a March 1983 review “E.T. is really for the kids (the littler ones),” before going on to extol the praises of Raiders.[4] But for every published negative review, there was either a positive or neutral score to balance it out. Kevin Christopher of Vidiot contended in March of ‘83 that the pits were “about the only flaw with an otherwise A-1 game.”[5] You can question his credibility if you will, but the fact of the matter is that not everyone was down on E.T. like the modern narrative claims they were.' --https://www.badgamehalloffame.com/et-the-extra-terrestrial/ https://www.badgamehalloffame.com/et-the-extra-terrestrial/ Footnotes for above excerpt: [3] The 1.97 million high estimate is taken from VGChartz, who are a bit dodgy at times when it comes to this sort of stuff. If anything, this figure is likely an overestimation though, rather than an underestimate. [4] Wiswell, Phil. “New Games From Well-Known Names”. Video Games. March, 1983: pg 69. Print. [5] Christopher, Kevin. “ET Phones Home for the Holidays”. Vidiot. February–March, 1983: pg 41–43. Print.

zxcvbn4038 5y ago

There was another Atari game that had a similar fate that nobody talks about. There was a 3D shooter called “I, Robot” made in the early 80s - I only ever saw it once, in an arcade in Caesar’s Palace. It did not sell well and half the production run ended up being pushed off the side of a cargo ship, probably to recover production costs through insurance. MAME does emulate it.

squigg 5y ago
There were lots of I, Robot cabinets in the UK. I loved it - was mindblowing! Was also ported to various home computers
- zxcvbn4038 5y ago
  I enjoyed playing it, the 3D graphics were pretty amazing for the era. I think it came out around the time the video game market imploded, so it could have been general panic inside Atari that triggered someone to dump it prematurely. Loading them onto a cargo ship and pushing them off the side seems really extreme.

rbanffy 5y ago

> outside the epic buried-ET-cartridges saga I'm sure developers also spent all their time working on it. Unlike Battlezone, unfortunately for them, the result was terrible.

mysterydip 5y ago
It was very close to being amazing (for the time), unfortunately an aggressive release deadline meant showstopping bugs. Check out this article from someone who fixed it: http://www.neocomputer.org/projects/et/ http://www.neocomputer.org/projects/et/
- ASalazarMX 5y ago
  I think the bugs are grossly overstated. They weren't showstopping, it was a typical Atari-hard, nothing particularly unusual. It was playable and winnable even without the manual. Now the SwordQuest games, those belong in a landfill if not for the folklore that surrounds them.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
Howard Scott Warshaw, the developer of Yars' Revenge and Raiders of the Lost Ark, famously developed E.T. in a mere 5 weeks. E.T. being terrible is largely just a meme, though. It sold quite well, and had at worst a mixed reception: 'E.T. sold between 1.5 and 1.97 million cartridges,[3] according to various different figures. This would, in fact, earn it the not-too-shabby distinction of being one of the best-selling 2600 titles of all time. And despite what revisionist history may tell you, the game wasn’t actually critically panned on release! In actuality, it was… Well, actually, it was pretty mixed as it turns out. There were certainly those who found fault in the game, most tending to criticize it for lack of difficulty, of all things. Video Games magazine contributor Phil Wiswell wrote in a March 1983 review “E.T. is really for the kids (the littler ones),” before going on to extol the praises of Raiders.[4] But for every published negative review, there was either a positive or neutral score to balance it out. Kevin Christopher of Vidiot contended in March of ‘83 that the pits were “about the only flaw with an otherwise A-1 game.”[5] You can question his credibility if you will, but the fact of the matter is that not everyone was down on E.T. like the modern narrative claims they were.' --https://www.badgamehalloffame.com/et-the-extra-terrestrial/ https://www.badgamehalloffame.com/et-the-extra-terrestrial/ Footnotes for above excerpt: [3] The 1.97 million high estimate is taken from VGChartz, who are a bit dodgy at times when it comes to this sort of stuff. If anything, this figure is likely an overestimation though, rather than an underestimate. [4] Wiswell, Phil. “New Games From Well-Known Names”. Video Games. March, 1983: pg 69. Print. [5] Christopher, Kevin. “ET Phones Home for the Holidays”. Vidiot. February–March, 1983: pg 41–43. Print.