E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (video game)
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 adventure video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. for the Atari 2600 and based on the film of the same name. The game's objective is to guide the eponymous character through various screens to collect three pieces of an interplanetary telephone that will allow him to contact his home planet.
For other video games with this title, see E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in video games.E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Atari, Inc.
The game was designed by Howard Scott Warshaw, who intended it to be an innovative adaptation, but Atari held unrealistic expectations for sales based on the international box-office success of the film. Negotiations for the game rights ended in late July 1982, giving Warshaw just over five weeks to develop the game in time to meet the production schedule for the 1982 Christmas season.[2] The final release received negative reviews. The game is often cited as one of the worst of all time and one of the biggest commercial failures in video game history. It is cited as a major contributing factor to the video game crash of 1983, and has been frequently referenced and mocked in popular culture as a cautionary tale about the dangers of rushed game development and studio interference.
In what was once deemed only an urban legend, reports from 1983 stated that as a result of overproduction and returns, unsold cartridges were secretly buried in a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico, and covered with a layer of concrete. In April 2014, diggers hired to investigate the claim confirmed that the landfill contained several E.T. cartridges, among other games.[3][4][5] James Heller, the former Atari manager who was in charge of the burial, was at the excavation, and admitted to the Associated Press that 728,000 cartridges of various games (not just E.T.) were buried.[6] Marty Goldberg, co-author of the book Atari Inc.: Business Is Fun, added that the dump was in fact a clearing out of the Texas Atari manufacturing plant's unused cartridge stock of a number of titles, as well as console and computer parts.[7] According to the 2014 documentary Atari: Game Over, only 10% of the approximately 1,300 recovered were E.T. cartridges.
Development[edit]
Following the commercial success of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in June 1982, Steve Ross, CEO of Atari's parent company Warner Communications, began negotiations with the film's director Steven Spielberg and its distributor Universal Pictures to acquire a license to produce a video game based on the film. Later that month, Warner announced its exclusive worldwide rights to market coin-operated and console games based on E.T.[12] Although the exact details of the transaction were not disclosed in the announcement, it was later reported that Atari had paid US$20–25 million ($63–79 million when adjusted for inflation to 2024) for the rights, a high figure for video game licensing at the time.[13][14][15][16] When asked by Ross what he thought about making an E.T.-based video game, Atari CEO Ray Kassar replied: "I think it's a dumb idea. We've never really made an action game out of a movie."[15] An arcade game based on the E.T. property had also been planned, but this was deemed to be impossible given the short deadline.[17]
On July 27, 1982, after negotiations were completed, Kassar called Howard Scott Warshaw to commission him as developer of the video game adaptation.[18][19] Kassar informed him that Spielberg asked for Warshaw specifically and that development had to be completed by September 1 to meet a production schedule for the Christmas holiday season. Although Warshaw had spent over a year working on consecutive development schedules for games (seven months working on Yars' Revenge and six months on Raiders of the Lost Ark), he accepted the offer based on the challenge of completing a game in a short time frame and at Spielberg's request.[17][19] Warshaw considered it an opportunity to develop an innovative Atari 2600 game based on a film he enjoyed, "provided we reach the right arrangement".[19][20]: 9:34 Kassar reportedly offered Warshaw US$200,000 and an all-expenses-paid vacation to Hawaii in compensation.[17] Warshaw was flown via private jet to Warner Brothers Studios to meet with Spielberg.[19][21]
Warshaw used those days to design the structure and segmented the concept into four ideas: world, objective, the path to achieve the objective, and obstacles. He envisioned a six-sided world that players could "float" around as the setting, and adapted part of the film's plot, E.T. phoning home, as the goal.[19] The player would need to gather parts for a phone to call his ship and arrive at a special landing site to achieve this goal.[22] Warshaw considered obstacles as an element that would determine the success of a game, and experienced difficulties when taking into account the time constraints and technical limitations of the console. Inspired by the film, adults were implemented as antagonists that would chase the alien. Pits were devised as an element to hide the pieces of the phone as well as expand the game world.[19]
Warshaw and other Atari executives presented this design to Spielberg, who was not enthusiastic.[18] According to Warshaw, Spielberg asked him: "Couldn't you do something more like Pac-Man?"[23] Believing the concept too derivative of a common game design, Warshaw proceeded with his concept, which he believed would capture the sentimentality he saw in the original film.[14][18] (Warshaw later stated that, in retrospect, Spielberg's idea might have had merit.)[18] He spent the remaining time programming. Atari graphic designer Jerome Domurat assisted Warshaw with creating graphics for the game.[19] Atari anticipated enormous sales based on the popularity of the film, as well as the stability of the video game industry at the time. Due to time limitations, Atari skipped audience testing.[24] Emanual Gerard, then part of the Office of the President of Warner, later suggested that the company had fallen into a false sense of security by the success of its previous releases, particularly its console version of Pac-Man, which was commercially successful despite poor critical reaction.[25]
