A failed movie tie-in produced 728,000 cartridges buried in a landfill

Evidence

Spielberg’s E.T. is known not only for its successful product placement but also its incredibly unsuccessful Atari video game adaptation, one of the biggest commercial failures in video game history, resulting in 728,000 cartridges unceremoniously dumped into a New Mexico landfill in 1983. — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 418

Categorization

• CANDY: The buried Atari cartridges of E.T. is a fun, self-contained lore nugget — the 728,000 cartridges dumped in a landfill is elevator-conversation material.
• SHARE: Worth sending to anyone who collects video game history or writes about franchise tie-ins.