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As far as I understand, the "ET for Atari was so bad it killed the games industry" is kind of an exaggeration/misrepresentation. Which should probably be assume

by hbn 2y ago

As far as I understand, the "ET for Atari was so bad it killed the games industry" is kind of an exaggeration/misrepresentation. Which should probably be assumed from how simple the explanation is despite all the questions it brings - you can find plenty of people who had the game as a kid but not many that will recall it being so bad they never wanted to touch their Atari again. Someone can find some real sources, but I read an article a while back explaining that - from what I recall - what really killed the industry was supply issue that got out of hand. When the Atari started to take off, they didn't have the production capacity to keep up with orders stores were putting in. Stores were being sent about x% of the size of order they requested, so the stores started putting in much bigger order requests to get the amount of stock to actually fulfill demand for their store. Because of this, Atari figured there was way more demand than there was in reality, so once they finally scaled up production they were suddenly able to fulfill the giant order requests stores were putting in, which was way more than they could actually sell. Suddenly stores were overloaded with Atari cartridges, and putting them into bargain bins just to get rid of stock. From there, it seemed like the home console thing was just a fad that came and went. ET just happened to be the big game Atari was pumping out units of because of their overestimation of demand.

dylan604 2y ago
> From there, it seemed like the home console thing was just a fad that came and went lol. boy, is that an idea that didn't age well. I was too young to know about all of the business side of Atari, but I do know that me and everyone else like me never touched their 2600 after getting an NES. In my house, we went with the NES instead of the Atart 5200. We did get an Atari 7800 instead of the SNES, but I'm pretty sure that my dad decided on the 7800 because of the 2600 compatibility where the 5200 was not.
buescher 2y ago
The rumor had it they thought the movie tie-in would be such a hit that they produced more ET cartridges than there were 2600 consoles in existence. Supply chain whiplash sounds credible too though. My vague recollection is that coin-op was never quite the same after the crash, and you also stopped seeing as many coin-op machines in unlikely places. There was a fad element.
- dylan604 2y ago
  > they produced more ET cartridges than there were 2600 consoles in existence. in this manner, you only have to manufacture the game one time instead of having to order a second manufacturing run later since it was assumed Atari was going to keep making more consoles. it was quite the "cunning plan". the rest of the world was just not on the same page of their play book. i'm guessing MBAs were involved
  - 486sx33 2y ago
    Supply and command Ricky Make billions of sheets of paper, eventually demand for pens will go up.. right?
bluGill 2y ago
There were a lot of bad games for the 2600. ET because it was pushed hard became the poster, but there were a lot of other bad games at the time. Many were another variation of the theme with nothing else going for them once you have played one pac man clone you have played them all. ET did get a bad rap because of the bugs and it really wasn't fun. However the idea itself was sound and if they had spent another year in development (which would have been too late for many reasons, see above and other discussion) it probably would have been a fun game everyone remembers as a classic for how good it was - instead of one everyone remembers it for the bugs.
- caspper69 2y ago
  So many bad games that they (Atari) buried approximately 700,000 cartidges in the desert: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial
  - JetSetIlly 2y ago
    There's a recent homebrew for the 2600 called "Burying ET" about this very thing. Amusing. https://florentdeloison.itch.io/burying-et https://florentdeloison.itch.io/burying-et
- toast0 2y ago
  > However the idea itself was sound and if they had spent another year in development (which would have been too late for many reasons, see above and other discussion) I don't think any games were in development for a year at that point in time. Probably another month, maybe two, would be within the realm of possibility, but not a whole year. Unless maybe it got shelved and then reactivated later.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    That is itself one of the problems of the day.
- hakfoo 2y ago

by hbn 2y ago

dylan604 2y ago

> From there, it seemed like the home console thing was just a fad that came and went lol. boy, is that an idea that didn't age well. I was too young to know about all of the business side of Atari, but I do know that me and everyone else like me never touched their 2600 after getting an NES. In my house, we went with the NES instead of the Atart 5200. We did get an Atari 7800 instead of the SNES, but I'm pretty sure that my dad decided on the 7800 because of the 2600 compatibility where the 5200 was not.

buescher 2y ago

The rumor had it they thought the movie tie-in would be such a hit that they produced more ET cartridges than there were 2600 consoles in existence. Supply chain whiplash sounds credible too though. My vague recollection is that coin-op was never quite the same after the crash, and you also stopped seeing as many coin-op machines in unlikely places. There was a fad element.

dylan604 2y ago
> they produced more ET cartridges than there were 2600 consoles in existence. in this manner, you only have to manufacture the game one time instead of having to order a second manufacturing run later since it was assumed Atari was going to keep making more consoles. it was quite the "cunning plan". the rest of the world was just not on the same page of their play book. i'm guessing MBAs were involved
- 486sx33 2y ago
  Supply and command Ricky Make billions of sheets of paper, eventually demand for pens will go up.. right?

bluGill 2y ago

There were a lot of bad games for the 2600. ET because it was pushed hard became the poster, but there were a lot of other bad games at the time. Many were another variation of the theme with nothing else going for them once you have played one pac man clone you have played them all. ET did get a bad rap because of the bugs and it really wasn't fun. However the idea itself was sound and if they had spent another year in development (which would have been too late for many reasons, see above and other discussion) it probably would have been a fun game everyone remembers as a classic for how good it was - instead of one everyone remembers it for the bugs.

caspper69 2y ago
So many bad games that they (Atari) buried approximately 700,000 cartidges in the desert: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial
- JetSetIlly 2y ago
  There's a recent homebrew for the 2600 called "Burying ET" about this very thing. Amusing. https://florentdeloison.itch.io/burying-et https://florentdeloison.itch.io/burying-et
toast0 2y ago
> However the idea itself was sound and if they had spent another year in development (which would have been too late for many reasons, see above and other discussion) I don't think any games were in development for a year at that point in time. Probably another month, maybe two, would be within the realm of possibility, but not a whole year. Unless maybe it got shelved and then reactivated later.
- bluGill 2y ago
  That is itself one of the problems of the day.
hakfoo 2y ago