Dive Brief:
- A museum specialist from the Smithsonian Institution announced a video game cartridge excavated in April from a landfill in New Mexico will be included in its permanent collection.
- Atari’s “E.T. the Extra Terrestrial,” unearthed from a site in Alamogordo, NM, will be displayed in the museum’s video game history collection.
- The infamous cartridge will sit alongside other heavy-hitters in the gaming industry, such as a prototype for the first video game console and a Pong arcade cabinet.
Dive Insight:
Upon its original release, the “E.T” game was seen as a consumer failure. The game was unpopular, leading to the decision to bury hundreds of cartridges in the landfill. The story became part of gaming legend, prompting a documentary film crew to record a movie depicting the April excavation of the site.
Now, the games are getting newfound attention, with some even fetching more than $1,000 per cartridge in an online auction.
But what warrants it a place in the Smithsonian? Drew Robarge, the specialist who confirmed the announcement, said that the E.T. game is a defining artifact, and that it tells a story of challenges within the industry and is representative of the end of an era in video game manufacturing. Robarge said the museum was missing an item to represent “the darkest days” from the time period in the early 80s when the gaming industry collapsed.