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A post mortem for the ‘worst video game ever’

Molly Wood Apr 28, 2014
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A post mortem for the ‘worst video game ever’

Molly Wood Apr 28, 2014
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On Saturday, near the New Mexico town of Alamagordo, a group of video game enthusiasts, excavation specialists, and filmmakers started digging a hole in a desert landfill. Why? You may remember some months ago we talked about the legend that in the early 1980s, video game maker Atari secretly dumped tons of video games into a hole in the middle of the desert.

The reasons for this particular move remain a bit of a mystery, but certainly the game maker was in financial trouble. That’s in part because of one particular game — it was based on the movie E.T., and it did poorly. So poorly, in fact, that it’s still described as the worst video game in history.

The man who designed Atari’s E.T. game is Howard Scott Warshaw. He was there when the video game treasure trove was uncovered. Listen above for the post mortem. 

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