Atari: Game Over Page #7

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And I actually

had the E.T. game.

My friend and I, she

and I would actually

just for fun on

the weekends, drive

around trying to

figure out where would

these Atari games be buried.

It's the fun of the legend.

It's like looking for

the Loch Ness monster.

What did you

think when you played

the E.T. game last night?

It was awesome.

Because in my opinion,

I like terrible games.

To come back and to

relive the feeling

I got off those games is

something I couldn't pass up.

I just want to know

about the urban myth.

See if it's really

buried out here.

I just came out here to be

part of video game history.

Had to see whether

it's true or not.

You have to be a

special kind of nerd

to be able to want to drive

28 hours for a video game.

The myth

that E.T., the video game,

for the Atari 2600 was the

worst video game all time,

it would be so great

to debunk that,

because it's just not true.

But also to redeem

Howard Scott Warshaw,

because he's an amazing

video game designer,

and his game was great.

Ha ha, cool car.

Yeah, I like that.

E.T.'s in there.

This

morning, coming to a dump

in a small town in New Mexico.

There were people lined

up, waiting to get in.

When's the last time

you saw line of people

waiting to get into a dump?

It totally took me by surprise,

but in a delightful way.

You never go to a dump unless

you're throwing something away,

and here we are, trying to find

treasure... buried treasure.

I think they'll

find something.

I mean, the cartridges

had to go somewhere.

Why not here?

It is a lot of

open space, great place

to dump a million cartridges.

There is a definite

possibility that there is games.

This is archeology

for the time I grew up.

So nostalgia for anything

that came out of that era

is pretty high.

All right, now the wind is

really picking up, on cue.

On cue.

The weather

here, in Alamogordo

is awesome if you

like sandstorms

and an impending doom

filled cloud of white.

Whoa.

Aw, this is getting brutal.

Yeah.

Sorry, this is brutal.

Getting very windy.

Basically, what's

happening is the white sands

are blowing in from White

Sands, and covering everything.

And it's really shitty.

They're saying this is

like a historic wind today.

Really?

That's what somebody told us.

To think that we're

in the middle of a sandstorm.

Really?

This is what's going on?

And for me it was almost

like the big sand storm

right at the opening

of Close Encounters,

you know, the people wearing

the goggles and the bandannas.

Everybody's like, gather around,

because they found something.

And they can't believe

what they've found.

Are we the first?

This is Tony

Johnson, from Denver,

Colorado, who ran up

to me in my DeLorean.

He's like, I found something.

I found something.

And Tony is going to

go down in history,

because he found the first

evidence of Atari hardware.

Whoa.

Whoa, that's pretty huge.

Right there it is, my man.

Uh, ladies and gentlemen,

we have an announcement.

So, Tony, tell us

what you just found.

An Atari 2600 joystick toggle.

So, Tony, where

did you find it?

Walking to the bathroom.

So it was a surface find?

Surface find.

Yeah, like we know what

a surface find is, right?

Well, a surface find

is something... you know,

you're walking around, you're

looking down on the ground,

you see something interesting

and you pick it up.

It's totally out of

archaeological context.

What are the odds that that,

like, blew out of the hole?

Actually, I think

they're pretty good.

I mean, the wind is blowing

fiercely in that direction.

You know, the stuff's

coming out of the bucket.

You know, we've been finding

a lot of interesting things

that date from around that time.

Anything from Atari?

Uh, nothing from Atari yet.

How can you authenticate this?

Can you carbon date it?

No, it's much too

recent for that.

There are really two things

that we could be dealing with,

when taking a look

at these cartridges,

if they're actually there.

First thing is that

they just loaded

the trucks are these cartridges,

and then they dumped them.

And that's the best

possible scenario,

because you could pull

them out, and I bet you

most of them would be playable.

You know, they've

just been in there

for... you know, since 1983.

We're right about

where we need to be,

but there's still no

Atari detritus at all.

We've been here for

a while, all ready.

It's tedious.

The wind's horrible.

We're wondering if they're

going to find anything or not.

I don't think there's

anything in that hole

except rattlesnakes

and scorpions.

If it's buried, it's

probably for a reason.

It should stay buried.

I wasn't thinking that

something was really

messed up until late '83.

To me, Atari was

never going to go away.

It was this thing that

was just part of my life.

And the thought that

there could ever

be a day where there was no

Atari... or no Atari 2600... I

never crossed my mind.

E.T. comes out, and

E.T. is not so great.

And somewhere toward

the end of the year

I'm starting to wonder,

are we making our numbers?

Which leads to one of the

worst nights of my life.

On December 7, 1982 I get a

call from Dennis Groth, who

was the CFO of Atari,

and he says,

Manny,

here's the new budget.

And it's a huge shortfall

from what we have been told.

Warner Communications

said today

that its once booming Atari

business lost another $180

million dollars in the third

quarter, for total losses

this year of more than

half a billion dollars.

I was starting to see

enough signs in the company

that things were

starting to unravel.

It was unraveling

is hard and fast.

And we didn't have

any ready solutions.

Several Atari executives,

including Atari's chairman,

Raymond Kassar, sold

Warner stock shortly

before the negative

earnings announcement,

and the decline in the

price of the stock.

Kassar denies any

wrongdoing or impropriety,

but a number of stockholders

have sued Warner.

So they got rid of Ray Kassar,

and they brought in a

guy from Phillip Morris.

And when he came in, Atari

had 10,000 employees.

And within about four

months, or five months,

Atari had 2000 employees.

I really got that we had

lost 80% of our staff.

In the short run, the market

is frequently irrational.

In the longer run,

hopefully it's rational.

The wild upside ride was over.

I did not understand the extent of

the downside ride that was coming.

This is slipping away.

The train is derailing.

It's not going to keep riding,

and what am I going to do next?

It was a big emotional blow.

It was my baby, and I

hated to see it abused.

New Media magazine

credited E.T. with destroying

the video game industry.

That's interesting.

I think that's really

interesting that I could be

single handedly

responsible for toppling

a billion dollar industry.

E.T. comes out.

The industry dies.

Howard's associated

with that, and I

think that's...

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