Atari's 1 Million Unsold Games Landfilled In New Mexico

By 1982, the Atari 2600, known simply as "the Atari," brought in massive money. The gaming system hit the market in 1977, turning Atari Inc. from a $28 million investment into potentially a $2 billion company in under six years.Atari, a potentially $2 billion company.This happened in less than six years.

Things changed in 1982. Competitors flooded the United States market, creating unstable conditions that led to the video game crash of 1983.videoThe 1983 game crash occurred.Atari was an American video game company. American companies suffered the most. Atari's share of the cartridge game market dropped sharply by the end of 1982. This caused poor sales at a critical time for the company. Stiff competition started their problems.

Atari initially controlled the market by selling both game cartridges and the console. This advantage vanished fast. Developers grew unhappy with their treatment.They were unhappy with theirtreatment.Developers left en masse to start their own companies making better games. Imagic and Activision were examples. These companies made games compatible with the 2600 system but with much higher quality. Atari's business model relied on cheap consoles and game sales for profit. Losing revenue from top games hurt them badly.

More powerful new consoles, like Mattel's Intellivision and the ColecoVision, entered the market. These crowded Atari's spot in home gaming. Competitors made adapters that played Atari cartridges on other consoles, taking advantage of Atari-exclusive games.

Steve Ross, head of Warner Communications, focused on making a game inspired by the movieE.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, efforts resulted in what many call the worst game of all time.The worst game of all time.Ross reportedly bought the rights to the title for $21 million.$21 millionThis forced Atari to sell 4 million copies just to recoup costs. Ross made the deal in July 1982 and demanded the game be ready by Christmas. Developers had only five weeks to finish the game for the production deadline.Five weeks total.to make the game from start to finish to meet the deadline.

Developers failed to make a smash-hit game in just five weeks. The E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial game was a disaster. People hated the game despite its movie connection, and initial sales reached only 500,000 of the 5 million units made.E.T. the Extra-TerrestrialThe game was a nightmare. People hated the game despite the movie connection. Initial sales reached only 500,000 units.Five million units were produced.only an additional 1 million units sold, leaving Atari with 3.5 million unsold cartridges a year later with no sales hope.

Other questionable business moves sped up Atari's downfall. Atari sold only 10 million units of the 2600 system, yet they mass-produced 12 million copies ofPac-ManAtari hoped more people would buy the system to play the popular arcade game. This was a mistake. The game sold okay—Atari made more Pac-Man cartridges than Atari 2600 consoles sold: 7.7 million copies.This totaled nearly $200 million in gross profit. Atari was stuck with millions of copies they could not sell.

Maybe the at-home game's poor quality compared to the arcade version caused this. Still, they took on too much.

Larry Emmons headed research and development at Atari from the start, but he retired in 1982. A year later, CEO Ray Kassar faced prosecution for insider trading after trying to sell his stock quickly before the bad fourth-quarter reports dropped about the prior year. James J. Morgan replaced him, but he only stayed a year. Then, the video game crash hit, dropping the company's value by 67%, which forcedWarner Communications to sell AtariThings just piled up fast.

In 1983, Atari's El Paso, TX, plant switched from making things to recycling. The company lost money fast,losing over $300 millionduring the second quarter of 1983 alone. With nothing else to do, they dumped their unsold stock in bulk. They sent over a dozen truckloads of extraAtari dumped unsold inventory, including E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.This inventory included Pac-Man.Atari dumped unsold inventory, including Pac-Man.cartridges to Alamogordo, NM. Atari tried to hide it then, even putting guards at the dump site to stop the press from entering.

In May 2013, a Canadian film company named Fuel IndustriesA documentary uncovered the landfill in 2014 and reached a deal.with Alamogordo’s City Commission, letting them make a documentary calledThe documentary featured Atari: Game Over.The documentary crew wanted to dig up the site where Atari's dumped game cartridges were rumored to be.

They found the games 11 months later with Joe Lewandowski, a local contractor managing the dig. Hundreds of citizens watched the dig start, cheering as the first games came out.

Nobody knows the exact number of cartridges Atari threw away, but hundreds were dug up in good shape from the Alamogordo, NM, site in 2014. News that made former Atari executives lose their minds showed the games—now novelties—selling for hundreds of dollars each, with one copy ofThe discovered games included E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.selling for $1,535.

At that timeRolling Stone reported on this."The city of Alamogordo gets $65,000 from the sale, and the Tularosa Basin Historical Society gets over $16,000." The city deserves some payback 30 years after getting truckloads of junk dumped on them.

Atari never admitted to dumping the inventory, even though it is now clear they did.Rolling Stone reports this.The total number of games actually dumped stays a mystery. Speculation ranges from hundreds to millions. The dig uncovered more titles than first thought, includingAsteroids.,Missile Command., andCentipede.. Collectors seeking Atari game deals can try sneaking into the Alamogordo landfill some night. They might find gold.