stonic

Wow- who made this? And are they selling it, or ones like it?

@zerocorpse

How is it your definition of the crash is different from just about everyone elses? Yes, there was a crash, in everyone's perspective. Gamers suffered to some extent being that 90% of the companies went out of business (and not "willingly" either). No, of course video games never disappeared completely, and I can't believe anyone would be dumb enough to argue otherwise. No, E.T. is not the "worst" game ever made, or even the worst 2600 game. And NO, E.T. did not cause the crash. It was a contributing factor -nothing more. If anyone believes just one single game can effectively wipe out an ENTIRE industry, what can I say? You're an idiot.

Here's HOW it crashed. A lot of software companies started up in 1982. So many in fact that there was a glut of product on shelves- most of it being awful. Atari didn't help matters with inferior ports like Defender and esp Pac-Man. At the end of 82 Atari announced their 4th Quarter sales estimates were to be a 10-15% increase, instead of the 50% they orginally predicted. It's important to note that they weren't losing money at that point; they just weren't going to make enough (!). Warner's stock took a big hit after that. Atari ended the year by releasing E.T. By the following year sales for everything plummeted. Nearly all of the 82 start-up companies closed down in 83, but instead of throwing out their product (Atari had the right idea, but for the wrong reasons), they gave it retailers for practically next-to-nothing. People may be dumb, but they're not going to spend $25 for Atari's new game when they can buy one for $2, no matter how many great reviews it gets. By the end of 83 Warner was looking at half a BILLION in losses. If all those 3rd-party companies hadn't dumped their stock on the market, Atari (and stable companies like Mattel or Imagic) could have easily recovered from mistakes like Pac-Man and E.T. Instead, much like E.T.'s ending, the whole industry went into hibernation until someone came along to revive it.

Arcade earnings were but a fraction of home sales but were still far above what they had been. Like home games, operators saw the same drop in 82-83. Laserdisc games were the last-ditch efforts to sustain their earnings growth, and when that failed, most arcades closed, and operators sent many an arcade game to the dumpster.

As for Atari making more E.T. then there were systems for, that's been a rumor for many years, but there's NEVER been any evidence to back it up. There *is* evidence however Atari did that with Pac-Man (as quoted right from Atari's former CEO, Ray Kassar). Atari made 12 million Pac-Man carts in 82 and sold just over 7 million. Best estimates are that there were close to 10 million 2600 systems by the end of 82. It's thought that Atari made around 5 million E.T. carts (nobody knows exactly how many- yet), selling 2.5 that Christmas, and another half a million in 83. Guess what other game ended up in the desert, and most likely in greater numbers?