ET Cartridges Found in Desert Landfill After 31 Years

[Bojay1997]

To be honest, I never understood the myth/passion for this dump. EVERY major business/manufacturer in the United States dumps tons and tons of excess merch into landfills. Why is this garbage so special? From what I've read, what they found was basically everything Atari was dumping from their plant in Texas. Of which non-ET stuff outnumbers ET carts.

Agree strongly. My grandfather worked for Phillips and Motorola in the 1960s and I know for a fact that they used to regularly dump televisions, consumer electronics and other overstock items from the warehouse he used to work at. In part it was to avoid flooding the market with older goods that would go for a discount when the new models were rolling out. I also find it irritating that this became a "rumor" when the factual evidence that it happened has been readily available for a long time.

[Greg2600]

Why don't people understand, Atari buried excess stock, not a certain game only. They buried video games, hardware, inventory, paperwork, maybe secretaries, the lot. NOT ONLY ET.
It's best you guys read the Book Atari Inc Business is fun

Yes, and not just dumped. Atari used to throw massive amounts of documents and materials out in their normal refuse. It's dumpster diving back in the day by guys like Curt Vendel who rescued very important documents. I forget the other guy's name, but he is a collector and lived in CA, and would claim and buy pallets on top of pallets of disposed Atari documents. He also saved countless samples of game artwork from the trash. So if they come back and say, hey we found some artwork or important documents or prototypes, then I'll be happy.

By the way, I saw a video Jerry Jessop posted on facebook, and the dig site looks like something out of Star Wars. Very inhospitable place out there!

[Gamevet]

For me, it's a perspective thing. I can totally see why someone would have been pissed when the game was new, I've made bad game purchases as I'm sure everyone else has. But hindsight is 20/20 and I only played three cents for my copy of E.T. and I'm sure most modern collectors payed somewhere in that range as well. At that price, I'm a sufficiently less annoyed at a bad game being bad and am willing to look for the silver lining.

All that said, I figured there would be at least one guy back then who liked the damn thing.

My brother borrowed the game from a rich kid he knew at school. We played the game for several weeks and even though the pits were a pain, we eventually learned where not to step and how to quickly get out of them. I thought the game was pretty decent, but figuring out how to collect the parts was somewhat confusing. I was actually thinking about finding a boxed copy about a month ago. I shouldn't have waited around, because the price is probably going to go up now.

[rik1138]

What's probably lending to the conspiracy theories is that they are finding complete, intact copies of the game. That really shouldn't be surprising, giving the whole sealed in concrete thing. But the story most people know is that the games were either crushed first, then buried or the other way around. Looking at the documentation shows that the only crushing that took place was pretty much what was standard protocol for a landfill, but that's not the story people have been reading for 30 years. So, skepticism.

Actually, there is some mis-information around parts of this... From what I've read in the 1983 issues of the local paper, Atari sent many truck-loads of equipment there over the course of many days (weeks?).

On day 1, they just dumped it and left it there. That night, local kids looted the site grabbing what they could (and apparently trying to sell some of it to pawn shops the next day). So, from then on the material was dumped, driven over with bulldozers, a layer of normal garbage added, and then the concrete layer (as well as 24 hour security patrols).

What they dug up over the weekend was the day 1 dump. None of this was under concrete, or bulldozed (at least, any more than standard moving trash around in a dump bulldozing would do). I don't think they plan on digging up any of the stuff that's under the concrete unless the city decides it's financially worth it to do so.

As for the condition of the games, look at the pictures of all the other trash there. Cardboard boxes in nothing more than crushed condition. 1983 newspapers that you can just open up and read. Someone's 1979 tax return was seen in one video... Candy boxes (Starburst in particular), etc, etc... The trash was buried in a near-desert environment (i.e., no water and above the water table) underground (i.e., no oxygen), what would you expect it to look like? As much as we'd love to believe this, our trash doesn't magically dissolve back into atoms just because we bury it. A couple of controllers were also found for sure (I saw a picture of a keyboard controller like used for Star Raiders). And at least 20+ different titles were found, many of them in boxed (although crushed) condition (some of them even in the boxes used to ship them to retailers).

I remember the first article I read about the dumping stated that in addition to the cartridges, failed Atari prototypes were also thrown into the landfill. All the articles I am reading seem to only be focusing on the ET game, but mention "other computer equipment." Has anyone discovered any of the "other computer equipment?"

As for prototypes- Someone suggested this theory, based solely on speculation. Imagine you have a warehouse full of games you are trying to sell, and games being returned from retailers. Somewhere in this warehouse is also a bunch of company 'crap' (i.e., unsold prototypes and other stuff). After using this warehouse for a while, the stuff is likely to be sorted: Returns and stuff waiting to go out in front, by the door. Lesser desired items (and older returns), in the middle. 'Crap' that is never leaving way in the back. When you decide to unload the warehouse, you just grab what is at the door, and work your way back. Assuming that this might be true (and, just to be sure, this is based on nothing but a wild guess), it would be last truck loads of stuff you'd want to dig through... Per the stories above, what they've dug up is the first truck loads. The last stuff is dumped, crushed, garbage buried, tombed in concrete and earth buried in a different location...

It would certainly be cool if they keep exploring, but unless someone can _confirm_ prototypes were dumped, no one may bother going into that much effort...

As someone else mentioned, the whole thing was largely a publicity stunt for either the documentary, and/or Microsoft/Xbox.

[Bojay1997]

Looks like the City is moving forward with trying to profit from this.

http://www.alamogordonews.com/alamog...do-atari-games

[buzz_n64]

Looks like the City is moving forward with trying to profit from this.

http://www.alamogordonews.com/alamog...do-atari-games

I would pay upwards of $30 to get an E.T. cart with a letter of authenticity.

[bb_hood]

"If we run out, there are 790,000 more in that hole out there now that we know where they are at," he said. "But they are worth more. The less there is — that is why we didn't keep going."

Yeah sounds like they plan on milking it for what its worth.

[Sparkster]

Sorry for the random bump, but I figured this was the best place for this topic.

I'm on vacation in Vegas, and decided to check out one of the vintage stores nearby... I mean what else is there to do in Vegas

Anyway they had a few TVs hooked up to a few systems, and E.T. was available to play as well as Super Mario 3. I would have done the E.T. on the easy setting, except the select switch was way out of reach. So I play SMB3, and some kid tells me of the "rumour" of E.T. cartridges in a landfill. It was pretty satisfying telling him that this is no longer a rumour.