23 thoughts on “The World’s Most Unfairly Treated Game (documentary)”
Some of you are saying I accidentally called James Rolfe the name Pat the NES Punk. It's not a mistake. That clip is from The Video Game Years 1982 which was shown on Pat's channel. That's why it says "YouTube Channel" in parenthesis. James has done a lot of stuff on other channels.
I’ll be honest, objectively, ET isn’t necessarily a bad game, just a lot of setbacks that contributed to its perceived terribleness. The biggest one was its 5 week development schedule when at a time games were developed in the span of 6 to 8 months.
As for the landfill…It wasn’t just ET. It was a whole slew of games released at the time. One of the main contributors of the 1983 video game industry crash in the US, was the preorder policies from Atari combined With over saturation in the market. This led Atari to overproduce more cartridges overall than there were consoles owned by consumers and on store shelves. Even if they sold out the consoles over the Christmas season, they’d still have produced major overstock of those cartridges.
I am so happy I found you again. I think back in the day when you did both retro and fix videos I was subscribed. Only for your retro stuff. I don't think I ever saw the channel split happen and unsubbed due to only repair videos. But I'm back and subscribed again.
Some people probably complain because the game came out in 1982.
The Atari 2600/VCS was developed all the way back in 1977. In the early days of the Atari, E.T.'s graphics and game play would have been groundbreaking or at least acceptable. But in 1982/83 we expected more! Realize that Atari didn't want to put out a new console when the marketing people asked them to (after a year or two). This is one of the reasons that Bushnell rightly says that Atari committed suicide. The Atari 2600's days were simply over in 1982. And then they decide go go all out on the game E.T. Well, I think they had to. The Colecovision and Vic20 weren't popular/affordable enough yet to justify a major release like E.T. And reasonably predictably it backfired on 'm in spectacular fashion. Sad if you think about it.
Really excellent debunking! Next Atari myth to debunk: "the Atari 2600 Jr. was launched in 1986". Another factoid that seems to be universally held and repeated in many YT videos and is also partially incorrect on Wikipedia. While this may be true for the US release, and mostly associated with the memorable "only fifty bucks!" budget system advertising campaign of '86, the system was launched 2 years earlier during Summer/Autumn of 1984 in the UK and Europe. There is much anecdotal record of this on the AtariAge forums from European owners, but the actual evidence is visible in the Argos Catalog (UK retailer) for Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter editions of 1984: 'Vader' model VCS/2600 for Spring/Summer and 2600 Jr. for Autumn/Winter. Digitized scans available online (links get deleted silently and automatically by YouTube). More proof that the 'video game crash of 1983' was really more localized to that North American market than many people want to acknowledge. However when I put these facts in comments on YouTube videos where I believe it should get corrected about this oft repeated 1986 launch, they get deleted! Lets see if this remains.
Sadly, you missed one point by not looking over the edge (of the US). In Europe, the game got above average ratings (some even praising it) from the gaming journals of the time.
Even though I grew up with the 2600, I don’t have the fondest of memories of it, not like I do with the 8-bit systems or C64. Too many of the games were really basic. Mind you, because of my age then, I don’t remember really reading any manuals (once again I think that didn’t start until the 8-bit gen) so all Atari games that weren’t basic were cryptic to me. Superman comes to mind when I think of such games. Like you pointed out, games that actually had endings rather than just looping were rare. I think that’s where my problem really lied, was it worth the grind for no real reward? If you didn’t enjoy the game from the offset, probably best not to torture yourself too much as the only reward was normally just playing more until you eventually give up on it. I never played E.T., but it looks far from being bad from my own experiences.
Ok, so I didn't watch this one on release, sorry, but coming to it a week later, it's really good. A lot of stuff in here that I didn't know. I hope the video slow burns and gets you views over time.
I didn’t know the landfill story was that exaggerated, although even as a kid I didn’t think ET caused the crash. I always heard other reasons such as too much supply, too many consoles, games, and poor quality.
ET sure doesn’t look like a great game, but it’s also well before my time. I grew up mostly playing NES, SNES, and, N64 games, despite being only born in 96. I definitely like old games, but pre NES feels too old for me.
I kinda doubted the whole "digging down games" story, so I remember being convinced when the images of the dig showed up. I do appreciate deeper documentaries and reports from people who was actually there at the time.
E.T is a kids move, Atari needed to design a kids game which appealed to that market, not an overly complicated mess that required instructions to read. Thanks for explaining how to play, I never understood what was going on as a kid. To be honest though I still don’t like it. Good video. 👍🏻
I beat it when I was a kid and without instructions I figured out what to do. I enjoyed it but then again I enjoyed Pac-man on the 2600 so maybe I don't know a bad game when I see it.
Some of you are saying I accidentally called James Rolfe the name Pat the NES Punk. It's not a mistake. That clip is from The Video Game Years 1982 which was shown on Pat's channel. That's why it says "YouTube Channel" in parenthesis. James has done a lot of stuff on other channels.
I’ll be honest, objectively, ET isn’t necessarily a bad game, just a lot of setbacks that contributed to its perceived terribleness. The biggest one was its 5 week development schedule when at a time games were developed in the span of 6 to 8 months.
As for the landfill…It wasn’t just ET. It was a whole slew of games released at the time. One of the main contributors of the 1983 video game industry crash in the US, was the preorder policies from Atari combined With over saturation in the market. This led Atari to overproduce more cartridges overall than there were consoles owned by consumers and on store shelves. Even if they sold out the consoles over the Christmas season, they’d still have produced major overstock of those cartridges.
I used to have a lot of fun playing Sneak N Peak.
I am so happy I found you again. I think back in the day when you did both retro and fix videos I was subscribed. Only for your retro stuff. I don't think I ever saw the channel split happen and unsubbed due to only repair videos. But I'm back and subscribed again.
Some people probably complain because the game came out in 1982.
The Atari 2600/VCS was developed all the way back in 1977. In the early days of the Atari, E.T.'s graphics and game play would have been groundbreaking or at least acceptable. But in 1982/83 we expected more! Realize that Atari didn't want to put out a new console when the marketing people asked them to (after a year or two). This is one of the reasons that Bushnell rightly says that Atari committed suicide. The Atari 2600's days were simply over in 1982. And then they decide go go all out on the game E.T. Well, I think they had to. The Colecovision and Vic20 weren't popular/affordable enough yet to justify a major release like E.T. And reasonably predictably it backfired on 'm in spectacular fashion. Sad if you think about it.
Yeah the old Atari ET story seems a bit off nowadays ✌️
Really excellent debunking!
Next Atari myth to debunk: "the Atari 2600 Jr. was launched in 1986". Another factoid that seems to be universally held and repeated in many YT videos and is also partially incorrect on Wikipedia.
While this may be true for the US release, and mostly associated with the memorable "only fifty bucks!" budget system advertising campaign of '86, the system was launched 2 years earlier during Summer/Autumn of 1984 in the UK and Europe.
There is much anecdotal record of this on the AtariAge forums from European owners, but the actual evidence is visible in the Argos Catalog (UK retailer) for Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter editions of 1984: 'Vader' model VCS/2600 for Spring/Summer and 2600 Jr. for Autumn/Winter. Digitized scans available online (links get deleted silently and automatically by YouTube).
More proof that the 'video game crash of 1983' was really more localized to that North American market than many people want to acknowledge.
However when I put these facts in comments on YouTube videos where I believe it should get corrected about this oft repeated 1986 launch, they get deleted!
Lets see if this remains.
Sadly, you missed one point by not looking over the edge (of the US). In Europe, the game got above average ratings (some even praising it) from the gaming journals of the time.
Even though I grew up with the 2600, I don’t have the fondest of memories of it, not like I do with the 8-bit systems or C64. Too many of the games were really basic. Mind you, because of my age then, I don’t remember really reading any manuals (once again I think that didn’t start until the 8-bit gen) so all Atari games that weren’t basic were cryptic to me. Superman comes to mind when I think of such games. Like you pointed out, games that actually had endings rather than just looping were rare. I think that’s where my problem really lied, was it worth the grind for no real reward? If you didn’t enjoy the game from the offset, probably best not to torture yourself too much as the only reward was normally just playing more until you eventually give up on it. I never played E.T., but it looks far from being bad from my own experiences.
Ok, so I didn't watch this one on release, sorry, but coming to it a week later, it's really good. A lot of stuff in here that I didn't know. I hope the video slow burns and gets you views over time.
I didn’t know the landfill story was that exaggerated, although even as a kid I didn’t think ET caused the crash. I always heard other reasons such as too much supply, too many consoles, games, and poor quality.
ET sure doesn’t look like a great game, but it’s also well before my time. I grew up mostly playing NES, SNES, and, N64 games, despite being only born in 96. I definitely like old games, but pre NES feels too old for me.
I kinda doubted the whole "digging down games" story, so I remember being convinced when the images of the dig showed up. I do appreciate deeper documentaries and reports from people who was actually there at the time.
The biggest problem is that most people didn't bother to read the manual which would of explained things that would be useful to know.
E.T is a kids move, Atari needed to design a kids game which appealed to that market, not an overly complicated mess that required instructions to read. Thanks for explaining how to play, I never understood what was going on as a kid. To be honest though I still don’t like it. Good video. 👍🏻
We're the same age. I was born in '75 too.
Good stuff. I first played ET as a young adult. I agree with you that once you know what to do its not a bad game.
I'm surprized double dragon was considered one of the not fun games for the Atari 2600
and thank you for educating us on E.T., admittedly the Atari 2600 was before my time, and I had limited experience with it
I'd like to hear your Atari 2600 top 10 list
I beat it when I was a kid and without instructions I figured out what to do. I enjoyed it but then again I enjoyed Pac-man on the 2600 so maybe I don't know a bad game when I see it.
The same reason people hate Castlvania II. If you don’t use a strategy guide, you will probably get stuck
Truth! Many modern games can't hold a candle to this classic. I loved it when i was 11, and still enjoy it, today. Thanks for this informative video.
Thank you for taking a different view of the game!
4:26 I don’t think that kids know the difference between a bad game and a good game, they simply decide if it’s boring or not