Sales of unearthed Atari games total more than $100,000

[Warner Losh]

On Mon, Aug 31, 2015 at 10:09 AM, Mike Whalen <mikew at thecomputervalet.com>
wrote:

> On August 31, 2015 at 10:17:25 AM, Peter Cetinski (pete at pski.net) wrote:
>
> I had the same sad experience when they released Pac Man for the 2600.
> I do remember feeling disappointment when I got Pac Man. It was a hot
> game. My mother picked it up as a surprise. We got it home and… what?
>
> I enjoyed E.T. at the time. It wasn't until I got on the Internet years
> later that I read it was the worst video game ever and had caused the
> collapse of a billion dollar industry.
>

I don't think E.T. caused the collapse of the industry. Pac Man was the
worst game ever on the 2600. At least the worst that I ever played. ET had
primitive graphics, but was playable (though frustrating if you hit one of
the pit loops which, despite doom-sayer videos on the net, you can get out
of with a little patience). Pac Man, in contrast, was so bad as to be
almost unplayable. The translation from the arcade experience was horrible.
Especially since the Activision carts at the time were so much better....
Atari hit a classic problem of failing to transition from a wide-open
market to a saturated market and massively over-spent thinking the growth
would last forever. When it hit the inevitable knee in the curve, they
weren't prepare and had so many huge bets on the table they hadn't hedged
that they imploded from bad management, not some silly game that
disappointed.

Warner