[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/vr/ - Retro Games

View post   
File: 17 KB, 267x373, 65F93F4B-4F16-47BF-8678-87248524FEF6.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
9285631 No.9285631 [Reply] [Original]

Why was this once considered the worst game ever made? It just seems like any other typical Atari game at the time. Was it really bad enough to cause the video game crash?

>> No.9285639

It's urban legend, see:
>>9283096
>>9283138
>>9283225

In reality, E.T isn't a good game or anything, but it's not even remotely close to the worst game ever made, not even for its time.

>> No.9285640

It was made in two weeks by a single, although accomplished, new developer. It set the standard for rushed game cycles, shitty licensed games, and ultimately the beginning of the video game crash.

>> No.9285651

>>9285640
Four weeks, not two. Still it wasn’t uncommon for atari games to take a year to develop.

>> No.9285687

>Why was this once considered the worst game ever made?

bandwagon mainly - people loved hearing about the giant landfill or whatever
it prolly didn't help with that crash and all because people expected something more accessible out of the E.T. product line but yeah it's actually pretty good by the low standards of the console

>> No.9285694

The Atari is a console from 1977. It isn't really practically built to do games much more advanced than Pong and other extremely early stuff. It's not a big surprise that it looks shitty compared to early 80s arcade games - those arcade machines are much, much more powerful than the Atari 2600. People back then probably thought "Wow, Pac-Man at home!" and then they played the game, and saw it looked and played 20x worse and felt scammed. The problem with ET is that it's a game trying to be like an 80s arcade game, but it simply cannot be one. Home video game sales declined because the hardware wasn't advancing enough, it's that simple. NES can't compete with arcades either, but it's at the level where it's appealing enough to produce graphics, music and games that are acceptable quality for the standards of the time.

>> No.9286103

>>9285694

Jr. Pac-Man for 2600 seems alright to me. 2600 Pac-Man apparently COULD have been better.

>> No.9286130

>>9285631
It's the whole landfill thing. A game so bad that millions of unsold copies had to be banished to somewhere in the fucking desert makes for a sensational narrative.

>> No.9286181

>>9286130
True, but that's also exaggerated by urban legend. When they actually went and dug up the place some years back, they DID find E.T cartridges, but they also found all kinds of other things, Pac-Man, Yar's Revenge, Space Invaders, controllers, computers, consoles, etc. All kinds of different software and hardware.
They had too much stock of everything, not just E.T, and they had to get rid of it because storing it was going to continue costing money.

Not having all the details I guess spurs people's imagination. People learn about a landfill, and that Atari put unsold/returned E.T games in there, and they start to wonder just how bad the game had to have been.

>> No.9286226

>>9286181
Yes, that's what I meant to get across. As usual, people are inherently drawn to clear-cut narratives, especially if they're sensational, even when reality is a whole lot more nuanced.

>> No.9286241

>>9286181
>>9286226
this is like reading two NPCs in a community college online class typing responses to classmate posts

>> No.9286281

>>9285631
it crashed the market. imagine a game so bad it left video games in ruin now. that was it.

>> No.9286292

>>9285631
The pits and the fact that you had to actually read the manual in order to win the game pissed a lot of people off. I've beaten it twice. It's not a bad game but because it was rushed, they didn't have time to refine the gameplay.