Once the first cartridge of “E.T. The Extraterrestrial” was retrieved from the site, gaming fans assembled at the old landfill in Alamogordo to see diggers uncover discarded copies of a game that Atari wanted to hide forever. The story which was confirmed by game designer, Howard Scott Warshaw, said that the company feeling a great decline ultimately decided to bury the cartridges of what many called the worst video game ever.
Former Atari manager James Heller was invited to the site for the digging. He confirmed that in 1983 he was responsible of inexpensively disposing of 728,000 cartridges that were lying in a warehouse in El Paso, Texas. Back in the days the game was considered practically broken as E.T. ended up falling into traps that most of the time were impossible to escape from. When Washaw was asked by reporters what does he think of the game he had the following to say: “It may be a horrible game, but 32 years after, you are here, talking to me about it. It’s a tremendous honor”
