Atari Video Game Burial

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Atari Video Game Burial
date September 26, 1983
place World icon Alamogordo , New Mexico
Involved Atari, Inc.
city ​​of Alamogordo
Excavation date April 26, 2014

As Atari video game burial (English for Atari video game burial ), the mass deposition and burial will unsold computer game cartridges , game consoles and computers in a landfill near the city of Alamogordo , New Mexico , referred that the US video game maker Atari had given in 1983 in order. It was widely believed that the discarded items were several million unsold copies of the console game ET the Extra-Terrestrial , one of the greatest commercial failures in computer game history and often referred to as one of the worst games of all time, as well as the Atari-2600 -Ports from Pac-Man .

Since the first press reports there have been doubts about the correctness of these reports and the scope of the disposal campaign, which for a long time led parts of the public to believe that this was a modern legend . Nevertheless, the event became a symbol and memorial for the video game crash , the drastic collapse of the North American computer game market in 1983. Among other things, this was the result of a disastrous financial year, at the end of which the long-standing market leader Atari was split up and sold by the parent company Warner Communications has been.

In 2014, Fuel Industries, with the support of Microsoft and in collaboration with the government of the state of New Mexico, began work on documentation to confirm the occurrence of this landfill operation and to investigate the contents of the landfill. Excavations began on April 26, 2014 and soon revealed the existence of several discarded computer games and hardware products.

Accompanying events around the burial

Atari's financial troubles

Atari, Inc. was acquired by Warner Communications in 1976 for $ 28 million and had grown in value by 1982 to $ 2 billion. At the time, the company controlled about 80% of the video game market and contributed more than half of the parent company's sales, about 65-70% of operating profit. In the last quarter of 1982 growth of around 50% was expected. In fact, on December 7, 1982, the company announced earnings growth of just 10-15%, well below expected numbers. The next day, Warner Communications' shares fell a third and the quarter ended with Warner earnings down 56%. In addition, Atari's managing director Ray Kassar was later the focus of investigations by the stock exchange regulator into possible insider trading , as he had sold around 5,000 Warner shares just 30 minutes before Atari's unexpectedly low key figures were announced. Kassar was later acquitted of any wrongdoing, but was forced to resign from Atari in July 1983. Atari, Inc. caused a loss of 536 million US dollars in 1983 and was split up by Warner Communications the following year and the greater part sold as Atari Corporation to Commodore founder Jack Tramiel .

Problem title

Atari's approach to porting arcade games to its home console has resulted in some of its most successful games, including porting the proprietary title Asteroids and licensed versions of Taito's Space Invaders and Namco's Pac-Man . When the latter was ported to the Atari 2600 , Atari was certain that sales would be high and therefore had twelve million modules manufactured, although at that time only ten million copies of the Atari 2600 were on the market. Assuming that gamers would be dying to play a home version of Pac-Man , it was believed that the game would be successful enough to make not only about $ 500 million, but also the sales of the console itself to increase several million. However, the finished product, which was released in March 1982, was panned by critics for its poor gameplay, and while it became the console's best-selling game with seven million units sold, Atari was left with over five million unsold modules - a problem that exacerbated by the high number of returns.

Sketch of the user interface of ET the Extra-Terrestrial

Atari had further problems due to the balance of the computer game adaptation for the film ET - The Extra-Terrestrial (English: ET the Extra-Terrestrial ). The game, also named ET the Extra-Terrestrial , was the result of a contract between Warner Communications and director Steven Spielberg . The concept of a computer game that was based on a film and was not ported from an arcade machine to a console or built on an already established franchise was still new at the time. It was later revealed that Warner had paid $ 20-25 million for the rights, which at the time was a large sum for a computer game license. Atari produced five million modules of the game. When the game was released in December 1982, however, it sold just 1.5 million times, which means that Atari, similar to Pac-Man , was left with more than half of all modules. The game received scathing reviews and is considered one of the worst games of all time today. Earl Paige of Billboard magazine reported that a large number of unsold ET games, combined with increasing competitive pressure in the gaming market, caused retailers to put pressure on manufacturers to withdraw their unsold units.

Those failures were eventually cemented by the aftermath of Atari's 1981 business conduct. With enormous confidence in high sales, the company had instructed its distributors to place their pre-orders for 1982 all at once. In fact, the sales figures declined in 1982, so that distributors who had ordered en masse in anticipation of high sales were compelled to return large quantities of unsold goods to Atari. As a result, Atari was now sitting on several million game modules that had ultimately become useless and that the company could no longer sell. These also ensured that Atari ultimately suffered great losses and never really gained a foothold even after the video game crash.

deposit

In September 1983, the local newspaper reported Alamogordo Daily News of Alamogordo in a series of articles that the content of 10 to 20 tractor-trailers with Atariboxen, modules and console hardware from an Atari warehouse in El Paso (Texas) shredded and in a landfill within the Urban area had been deposited. It was Atari's first business agreement with the landfill operator and came about because no excavations were allowed there and the garbage was shredded and buried at night. The reason given by Atari was that the company was switching from games for the Atari 2600 to the newer Atari 5200 model ; this was later contradicted by a worker. Atari spokesman Bruce Enten stated that Atari had mostly shipped defective and returned goods to the garbage dump in Alamogordo and that it was “largely non-functional material”.

On September 27, 1983, the UPI news service reported that “ people watching the operation said it included cassettes of the popular video games ET , Pac-Man , Ms. Pac-Man , the consoles used to convey the games to television screens and high- priced personal computers ”(German:“ People who had observed the process said that cassettes for the popular computer games ET , Pac-Man , Ms. Pac-Man , as well as consoles that are used to display the games on the television screen , and high-priced personal computers were among them ”). The news service Knight-Ridder also reported the looting of the dump on September 28th by children from the area, literally “ kids in this town of 25,000 began robbing the Atari grave, coming up with cartridges of such games as ET , Raiders of the Lost Ark , Defender , and Bezerk ”(German:“ Children from this 25,000-strong city began to rob the Atari grave, where they found modules from games like ET , Raiders of the Lost Ark , Defender and Bezerk ”).

On September 28, 1983, The New York Times also reported on Atari's deposit operation in New Mexico. An Atari spokesman confirmed the action to the newspaper, stating that the deposited material came from Atari's El Paso factory, which was to be closed and converted into a recycling factory. The reports also stated that the landfill area was guarded to prevent journalists and the public from confirming the contents of the tipping operation. The Times article never mentioned specific game titles that had been destroyed, but subsequent articles generally referred to the well-known failure of ET in connection with the disposal operation . Also the headline "City to Atari: 'ET' trash go home" in one issue the local newspaper Alamogordo News seemed to indicate that it was game modules from ET . However, only a humorous interpretation of the word ET as "extra-territorial" followed, while the game itself was never mentioned directly.

Beginning on September 29, 1983, a layer of concrete was poured over the shredded material, a rare measure for waste disposal. An anonymous worker gave the reason for concreting: “ There are dead animals down there. We wouldn't want any children to get hurt digging in the dump ”(German:“ There are dead animals down there. We don't want children to be injured digging in the garbage. ”) Finally, the city protested against Atari's large amounts of garbage one, a city commissioner stated that the region does not want to become "an industrial dump for El Paso". The local manager shortly thereafter ordered the end of the deposit. As a result of Atari's unpopular dumping action, the city later passed an Emergency Management Act and set up an Emergency Management Task Force in order to limit the garbage company's ability to accept jobs for the landfill outside the normal business framework for monetary reasons. Alamogordo's mayor at the time , Henry Pacelli, commented on this as follows: “ We do not want to see something like this happen again ” (German : “ We don't want something like this to happen again .”)

reception

All of these factors led to riotous speculation that the majority of the 3.5 million unsold copies of ET the Extra-Terrestrial ultimately ended up in this landfill, shredded, and cast in concrete. It has also been reported that prototypes of the planned Atari Mindlink controller system , a prototype of which is owned by Curt Vendel at the Atari Museum, had been dumped at the site. The contradicting information about the deposit ultimately led to this " ET disposal" being declared a modern saga , which in turn led to a certain degree of doubts about the correctness of this disposal history itself and the relevance of this action in connection with the subsequent collapse of the Market led. In October 2004, Howard Scott Warshaw , the programmer responsible for ET the Extra-Terrestrial , expressed his doubts that the destruction of millions of copies of this game had ever taken place. Warshaw also believed that Atari's demise was the result of their business practices - such as the alleged for distributors to bundle less successful titles with successful ones - rather than the failure of any game. That view was echoed by Travis Fahs of IGN Entertainment , who believed that Atari's problems, including their huge surplus of unsold merchandise, arose from overestimating the sustainability of their Atari 2600 sales rather than the result of the individual quality of the published Games was. In his contribution to the Pacific Historical Review , John Wills described the burial as a modern saga and described it as “ widely acknowledged but rarely substantiated ” (German: “widely recognized, but hardly documented”). Wills believed that the alleged location, due to its proximity to the Trinity test site and the alleged UFO landing site at Roswell, contributed to the popularity of the story in the public imagination.

The incident has been cited as something of a representative cultural symbol for the video game crash in the North American market in 1983 and often cited as a cautionary example of the overestimation of bad business practices, although there are dissenting voices that the dumping allowed the company that disposed of it Write off material as a loss and thus receive tax breaks. The legend of this disposal campaign also received references in pop culture. The music video of their song When I Wake Up shows the band Wintergreen traveling to the landfill to dig up the discarded game modules. The clip's director, Keith Schofield, had previously worked on music videos related to computer games. The narrative Lucky Wander Boy by DB Weiss contains a scene that plays outside of Alamogordo, two of the characters talk in a car park, which was built on the site. The plot of the film Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie unfolds around the disposal campaign.

Excavation and documentation

Image of the opening of the landfill. Packs of Yars' Revenge , Star Raiders , Pac-Man , Space Invaders , Defender and Warlords are visible.
Evidence of ET , Centipede, and other Atari materials uncovered during the excavation.

On May 28, 2013, the Alamogordo City Commission granted Canadian entertainment company Fuel Industries six months' access to the landfill to shoot a documentary about the disposal operation and to carry out excavations on the site. The company was supported by the console manufacturer Microsoft , who planned to broadcast the documentation via its Xbox Entertainment Studios exclusively for the console systems Xbox One and Xbox 360 in 2014 in the form of a multi-part documentary series designed by the British-American company Lightbox. Although the planning for the excavation was temporarily halted due to a complaint from the New Mexico Environmental Protection Division Solid Waste Bureau due to possible hazards, these problems could be eliminated in early April 2014 and the preparations thus continued.

The excavation itself began on April 26, 2014 as a public event. The designer of ET the Extra-Terrestrial , Howard Scott Warshaw , and director Zak Penn took as contributors for documentation about the original disposal action part in the event, as well as local residents as Armando Ortega, a municipal employee who in 1983 with other children at the Looting of the landfill had participated. (Ortega stated that he and his friends found dozens of functional games at the time, but that they soon passed on the ET game modules because the “ game sucked… you couldn't finish it ” (German: “ Spielte nicht ... you couldn't break up")). James Heller, the Atari manager responsible for disposal at the time, was also on site during the excavation. Heller stated that it was originally he who had requested that the area be covered with a layer of concrete. Unlike the legend that millions of game modules were buried, Heller stated that there were only around 728,000 modules of various games.

The remains of ET and other Atari games were found in the first hours of the excavation, according to Microsoft's community manager Larry Hryb (Major Nelson). According to Mayor Susie Galea, only around 1300 of the estimated 700,000 game modules were removed because the remaining materials were deeper in the ground than expected, making access more difficult. The excavation site was refilled and sealed after the excavation. A portion of the secured materials will be given to the New Mexico Museum of Space History for exhibition , while 100 copies will be given to the documentary producers, Lightbox and Fuel Entertainment. According to Galea, the remaining 700 game modules are to be processed and sold with the help of the Museum of Space History. Considerations are currently underway to design the area for tourist use.

The computer game museum Vigamus in Rome used finds from the excavation to design an exhibition entitled ET The Fall: Atari Buried Treasures , which opened on October 29, 2014. At the beginning of November, around 100 cartridges from the excavation, including a certificate of authenticity from the city of Alamogordo, were auctioned on the online auction platform ebay . The highest price was achieved for an ET module that changed hands for $ 1,537. Microsoft announced the release of Atari: Game Over on November 20th.

Web links

Commons : Atari video game burial  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ John Hubner, William F Kistner Jr: What went wrong at Atari? . In: InfoWorld . 5, No. 49, December 5, 1983, pp. 145-155. Retrieved September 10, 2011.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Barbara Mikkelson, David P Mikkelson: Buried Atari Cartridges ( English ) In: Snopes.com . May 10, 2011. Retrieved September 10, 2011.
  3. ↑ a b Editor: From the Archives: Atari Inc . In: Retro Gamer . No. 93, August 2011, p. 88.
  4. ^ John Hubner, William F Kistner Jr: What went wrong at Atari? . In: InfoWorld . 5, No. 48, November 28, 1983, pp. 151-158. Retrieved September 10, 2011.
  5. ↑ a b c Editor: What the hell happened? . In: Imagine Media (ed.): Next Generation Magazine . No. 40, April 1998, p. 41.
  6. ↑ Steven Kent: The Fall . In: The Ultimate History of Video Games . Three Rivers Press , 2001, ISBN 0-7615-3643-4 , pp. 227-228.
  7. ^ Danny Goodman: Pac-Mania . In: Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games . 1, No. 1, spring 1983, p. 122.
  8. ↑ Levi Buchanan: IGN: Top 10 Best-Selling Atari 2600 Games ( English ) In: IGN . August 26, 2008. Archived from the original on July 26, 2011. Retrieved on September 10, 2011.
  9. ^ Nicholas Pileggi, The Warner Case: Curiouser and Curiouser . In: New York Magazine . 16, No. 4, January 24, 1983, p. 26.
  10. ↑ Emru Townsend: The 10 Worst Games of All Time ( English ) In: PC World . October 23, 2006. Retrieved September 19, 2011.
  11. ^ Earl Paige: Video Game Firms Ready Formal Returns Policies . In: Billboard . 95, No. 1, January 8, 1983, pp. 1, 21.
  12. ↑ a b c d Marian McQuiddy: City to Atari: 'ET' trash go home . In: Alamogordo Daily News , September 27, 1983. “The number of actual trucks which have dumped locally was not known. Local BFI officials put it at 10. However, corporate spokesmen in Houston say it was closer to 20; and city officials say it is actually 14. " 
  13. ↑ Marian McQuiddy: Dump here Utilized . In: Alamogordo Daily News , September 25, 1983. "Moore said the truck drivers told him the reason they were dumping the games is that they are changing from series 2600 to 5200 games, due to excessive amount of black marketing." 
  14. ↑ a b c Marian McQuiddy: City cementing ban on dumping: Landfill won't house anymore 'Atari rejects' . In: Alamogordo Daily News , September 28, 1983. “He identified himself as being from Atari, but would not give his name. He also said the burial of the items did not mean a move away from the 2600 series of Atari games towards just offering the Atari 5200, and said the items buried were just cartridges. " 
  15. ↑ UPI UPI: City dump gobbles Pacman . In: The Hawk Eye , September 27, 1983. 
  16. ↑ Knight-Ridder Knight-Ridder: ' Pac Kids' gobble up dumped Atari cartridges . In: Chronicle-Telegram , September 28, 1983. 
  17. ^ Atari Parts Are Dumped ( English ) In: The New York Times . September 28, 1983. Retrieved June 25, 2014.
  18. ↑ Shelley Smith: The 1983 Atari Titanic is rising . In: Alamogordo Daily News , April 12, 2005. 
  19. ^ Curt Vendel: The Atari Mindlink ( English ) In: Cartridge Consoles . The Atari Museum. 2008. Retrieved November 24, 2013.
  20. ↑ Nick Montfort, Ian Bogost: Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System . MIT Press, 2009, ISBN 0-262-01257-X , p. 127.
  21. ↑ Michael Heim: Exploring America's Highways: Minnesota Trip Trivia . Travel Organization Network Exchange, Inc., 2004, ISBN 0-9744358-1-3 , p. 171.
  22. ↑ Kate Berens, Geoff Howard: The Rough Guide to Videogames . Rough Guides, September 16, 2008, ISBN 1-84353-995-0 , p. 7.
  23. ^ Keith Phipps: Howard Scott Warshaw | Interview | The AV Club ( English ) In: The AV Club . February 2, 2005. Retrieved September 10, 2011.
  24. ↑ Travis Fahs: Revising History: The Crash of '83 ( English ) In: IGN . December 18, 2008. Retrieved September 12, 2011.
  25. ^ John Wills: Pixel Cowboys and Silicon Gold Mines: Videogames of the American West . In: University of California Press (Ed.): Pacific Historical Review . 77, No. 2, 2008, pp. 273-275. doi : 10.1525 / phr.2008.77.2.273 .
  26. ↑ John C Dvorak: Is the PCJr Doomed To Be Landfill? . In: InfoWorld . 7, No. 32, August 12, 1985, p. 64. Retrieved September 10, 2011.
  27. ↑ a b Simon Jary: HP TouchPads to be dumped in landfill? ( English ) In: PC Advisor . August 19, 2011. Retrieved September 10, 2011.
  28. ↑ James Kennedy: Book Review: Super Mario - WSJ.com ( English ) In: Wall Street Journal . August 20, 2011. Retrieved September 10, 2011.
  29. ↑ Keith Schofield / Wintergreen ( English ) Keithschofield.com. Retrieved September 11, 2011.
  30. ^ Damon Brown: Reset for Life . In: Spin . May 2006, p. 99. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  31. ^ DB Weiss : Lucky Wander Boy . Plume , 2003, ISBN 0-452-28394-9 , pp. 177, 193-195.
  32. ↑ 'Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie' - Trailer ( English ) Cinemassacre Productions. November 10, 2012. Retrieved November 11, 2012.
  33. ↑ Alex Goldsmith: Alamogordo approves Atari excavation ( English ) In: KRQE . LIN Television Corporation. May 30, 2013. Archived from the original on June 1, 2013. Retrieved May 31, 2013.
  34. ↑ Kevin Chieng: Documentary Debut on Xbox Will Explore ET Atari Landfill ( English ) In: GameTrailers . December 13, 2013. Retrieved April 27, 2014.
  35. ↑ Colin Campbell: Historic Atari ET New Mexico dig set to proceed ( English ) In: Polygon . April 4, 2014. Retrieved April 4, 2014.
  36. ↑ Stephanny Nunneley: Microsoft invite you to attend the Atari Landfill excavation on April 26 ( English ) In: VG247 . April 10, 2014. Retrieved April 10, 2014.
  37. ↑ Xbox Wire Editor: Witness Video Game History: Attend Atari Landfill Excavation on April 26 ( English ) April 10, 2014. Retrieved April 11, 2014.
  38. ↑ Daniel Terdiman: Success! Atari ET games found in New Mexico dump ( English ) In: CNET . April 26, 2014. Retrieved April 27, 2014.
  39. ↑ Juan Carlos Llorca: Diggers begin quest to unearth Atari's ET games (English) . In: The State Journal , April 26, 2014. Archived from the original on April 27, 2014. Retrieved on April 27, 2014. 
  40. ↑ AP Editor: Diggers Find Atari's ET Games In Landfill . April 26, 2014. Archived from the original on April 27, 2014. 
  41. ↑ Kyle Hilliard: ET Atari Cartridge Landfill Excavation Uncovers Fabled Cache ( English ) In: Game Informer . April 26, 2014. Retrieved April 26, 2014.
  42. ↑ Samual Caliborn: The Dig: Uncovering the Atari ET Games Buried in New Mexico Desert ( English ) In: IGN . April 26, 2014. Retrieved April 26, 2014.
  43. ↑ a b Brian Crecente: Unearthed ET Atari games will be sold at New Mexico space museum ( English ) In: Polygon . May 30, 2014. Retrieved May 30, 2014.
  44. ↑ http://www.polygon.com/2014/10/28/7086475/et-museum-exhibit
  45. ↑ http://www.polygon.com/2014/11/13/7217949/et-cartridges-atari-2600-landfill-ebay-auction
  46. ↑ http://www.gamestar.de/news/pc/3079901/atari_game_over.html

Coordinates: 32 ° 53 ′ 11.9 "  N , 105 ° 57 ′ 38.7"  W.