Classic Atari Games Found Buried In New Mexico Landfill

It’s a little odd, but here in the States it’s pretty popular to go dumpster diving. If you’re not familiar with the term, it’s where you search people’s trash for things you can use (or sell). Now, you have to be careful, because in certain places it’s illegal, but many people here have found treasures others only thought of as trash. While I myself have never dumpster dived, I know several people who have. One person in particular picked out a working Xbox console from the trash and used it for years.

Naturally, when you dig through the trash there’s a chance you’ll find something good, and there’s the obvious possibility that all you’ll find is junk. While most people’s dumpster diving is a private affair, Zak Penn, a Hollywood director, is making a movie about looking through the trash at various landfills. He’s not just looking for any kind of “trash”, though; rather, he’s searching for some classic Atari games the video game company buried some 3 decades ago. In particular, he’s looking for the notorious E.T. game from 1983. Well, it turns out he found the game underground – and he found a load of them.

If there has ever been a worse video game disaster than E.T. for Atari, I’ve never heard about it. The story goes that Atari only had about 6 weeks to create the game from beginning to end, and while they “finished” it, the game was a complete failure. And while it rode on the movie’s popularity for a little while, ultimately it stopped selling because it was so bad. Eventually, things got so bad because of the game that Atari decided to bury all of their problems in the ground. Literally. Until the aforementioned dig, most people had no idea where the games were buried. But it turns out many of them are actually buried in a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico, and are seeing the light of day for the first time in over 30 years. You just never know what you’ll find buried in the trash!

And here I thought Superman for the Nintendo 64 was a bad game. It’s a good thing I never had an Atari.

[Image via NBC News]

SOURCE: http://www.cnet.com/news/success-atari-e-t-games-found-in-new-mexico-dump/