History VideoGame / ETTheExtraTerrestrial

Taking into account how little time he was given, Warshaw did well enough; the game isn't bugged or incomplete. This is no ''VideoGame/BigRigsOverTheRoadRacing''. But the gameplay is boring, confusing, and repetitive. It's also very easy to fall into a well, and once you levitate back out, you often fall right back in again. Watching the movie doesn't in any way help you understand what you are supposed to do in the game; of course, reading the manual helps a lot, but [[ReadTheFreakingManual who would do that anyway]]? Atari also published a [[StrategyGuide Hints Sheet]] later, but the damage was already done. If this had been just another 2600 game, it would have been considered below average and quickly forgotten. But Atari's big bet on it is what made it infamous. Atari produced four million units, expecting a massive hit, and presumably that people would buy the console just to play the game. One and a half million sold, but most of these were sent back. Atari lost millions, [[note]]Atari's deal with Spielberg required selling ''five million'' copies of the game to recoup their costs, hence the massive overproduction[[/note]] Warner Communications' stock price took a 35% hit, and within a few months, UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 was underway.

The game is at least complete, and not buggy. This isn't ''VideoGame/BigRigsOverTheRoadRacing''. But the gameplay is boring, confusing, and repetitive. It's also very easy to fall into a well, and once you levitate back out, you often fall right back in again. Watching the movie doesn't in any way help you understand what you are supposed to do in the game; of course, reading the manual helps a lot, but [[ReadTheFreakingManual who would do that anyway]]? Atari also published a [[StrategyGuide Hints Sheet]] later, but the damage was already done. If this had been just another 2600 game, it would have been considered below average and quickly forgotten. But Atari's big bet on it is what made it infamous. Atari produced four million units, expecting a massive hit. One and a half million sold, but most of these were sent back. Atari lost millions, [[note]]Atari's deal with Spielberg required selling ''five million'' copies of the game to recoup their costs, hence the massive overproduction[[/note]] Warner Communications' stock price took a 35% hit, and within a few months, UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 was underway.

The game is at least complete, and not buggy. This isn't ''VideoGame/BigRigsOverTheRoadRacing''. But the gameplay is boring, confusing, and repetitive. It's also very easy to fall into a well, and once you levitate back out, you often fall right back in again. Watching the movie doesn't in any way help you understand what you are supposed to do in the game; of course, reading the manual helps a lot, but [[ReadTheFreakingManual who would do that anyway]]? Atari also published a [[StrategyGuide Hints Sheet]] later, but the damage was already done. If this had been just another 2600 game, it would have been considered below average and quickly forgotten. But Atari's big bet on it is what made it infamous. Atari produced four million units[[note]]nearly double the number of game consoles ''for all brands combined'' which had been sold up to that point, and well over double the number of 2600s[[/note]], expecting a massive hit. One and a half million sold, but most of these were sent back. Atari lost millions, [[note]]Atari's deal with Spielberg required selling ''five million'' copies of the game to recoup their costs, hence the massive overproduction[[/note]] Warner Communications' stock price took a 35% hit, and within a few months, UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 was underway.

The game is at least complete, and not buggy. This isn't ''VideoGame/BigRigsOverTheRoadRacing''. But the gameplay is boring, confusing, and repetitive. It's also very easy to fall into a well, and once you levitate back out, you often fall right back in again. Watching the movie doesn't in any way help you understand what you are supposed to do in the game; of course, reading the manual helps a lot, but [[ReadTheFreakingManual who would do that anyway]]? Atari also published a [[StrategyGuide Hints Sheet]] later, but the damage was already done. If this had been just another 2600 game, it would have been considered below average and quickly forgotten. But Atari's big bet on it is what made it infamous. Atari produced four million units[[note]]nearly double the number of game consoles ''for all brands combined'' which had been sold up to that point[[/note]], expecting a massive hit. One and a half million sold, but most of these were sent back. Atari lost millions, [[note]]Atari's deal with Spielberg required selling ''five million'' copies of the game to recoup their costs, hence the massive overproduction[[/note]] Warner Communications' stock price took a 35% hit, and within a few months, UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 was underway.

The game is at least complete, and not buggy. This isn't ''VideoGame/BigRigsOverTheRoadRacing''. But the gameplay is boring, confusing, and repetitive. It's also very easy to fall into a well, and once you levitate back out, you often fall right back in again. Watching the movie doesn't in any way help you understand what you are supposed to do in the game; of course, reading the manual helps a lot, but [[ReadTheFreakingManual who would do that anyway]]? Atari also published a [[StrategyGuide Hints Sheet]] later, but the damage was already done. If this had been just another 2600 game, it would have been considered below average and quickly forgotten. But Atari's big bet on it is what made it infamous. Atari produced four million units, expecting a massive hit. One and a half million sold, but most of these were sent back. Atari lost millions, [[note]]Atari's deal with Spielberg required selling ''five million'' copies of the game to recoup their costs, hence the massive overproduction[[/note]] Warner Communications' stock price took a 35% hit, and within a few months, UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 was underway.

* EasterEgg: Doing certain things will make the flower turn into a Yar or Indiana Jones, and eventually reveals the initials "HSW3" (for Howard Scott Warshaw, and "3" because it was his third game). A stylized "JD" (for Jerome M. Domurat, the graphic designer) is also hidden in the game.

In September 1983, Atari buried a bunch of stuff in a New Mexico landfill. An excavation project (helmed by a documentary crew surrounding the old {{urban legend}} about the landfill) was approved in 2013 to find out what was dumped there; in 2014, [[https://twitter.com/kobunheat/status/460128189147140096 the project hit paydirt.]] On April 26, 2014, ''NBC Nightly News'' [[http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2014/04/26/microsoft-finds-buried-atari-games-landfill/ and others]] reported that the crew had found the cartridges.

The game is considered by the mainstream the worst video game ever made, though that's up for debate by actual Atari 2600 fans. (It remains one of the biggest financial disasters in video game history, though, and definitely helped to sink Atari)

* AntiFrustrationFeature: Attempted. If you stand in the right spot, you can send the scientist and FBI agent back to their starting points, or check if any of the wells have a telephone part. The frustration comes back when you're frantically searching for either spot on the screen, since both are randomized.

* EasterEgg: Doing certain things will make the flower turn into a Yar or Indiana Jones, and eventually reveals the initials "HSW3" (for Howard Scott Warshaw, and "3" because it was his third game). A stylized "JD" (for Jerome M. Domurat, the graphic designer) are also hidden in the game.

* EndlessGame: Make it back to your ship and the game starts over.

* KillScreen: Subverted. If you give Elliott at least 33 Reese's Pieces the score count will be glitched up, ET will turn black and the Scientist and the FBI Agent will never appear. You can still go on. It's just boring with no enemies around.
* NonPlayerCharacter: Elliott helps you out, chasing the bad guys away and finding a phone piece for you.

* ProductPlacement: Reese's Pieces are scattered around the game world, and come in handy. However, due to technical limitations[[note]]They're playfield objects, so they need to be the same secondary color as the rest of the playfield -- i.e., the wells[[/note]] they're depicted as a single green pixel, instead of the brown, orange, or yellow of real Pieces.
* RoadrunnerPC: Hold down the fire button to run away from the FBI agent and scientist.
* ScoringPoints: Once you go home, you'll see Elliott running around his house and your score. You earn points for getting on the ship, and bonus points for how much energy you had left when you did so, how many Reese's Pieces you were carrying at the time, and a larger bonus for every Resse's Piece you gave to Elliott during the run. [[HereWeGoAgain Then you can press the button and start again]], [[EndlessGame and your score accumulates until you die.]] Even after you die, you still get bonus points for any Reese's pieces carried and given to Elliott.

An adaptation of [[Film/ETTheExtraTerrestrial the movie]] for the UsefulNotes/{{Atari 2600}}, that became infamous as the {{Trope Maker|s}} for TheProblemWithLicensedGames. Considered one of the worst games of all time, and one of the events that led to TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983.

The game is at least complete, and not buggy. This isn't ''VideoGame/BigRigsOverTheRoadRacing''. But the gameplay is boring, confusing, and repetitive. It's also very easy to fall into a well, and once you levitate back out, you often fall right back in again. Watching the movie doesn't in any way help you understand what you are supposed to do in the game; of course, reading the manual helps a lot, but [[ReadTheFreakingManual who would do that anyway]]? Atari also published a [[StrategyGuide Hints Sheet]] later, but the damage was already done. If this had been just another 2600 game, it would have been considered below average and quickly forgotten. But Atari's big bet on it is what made it infamous. Atari produced four million units, expecting a massive hit. One and a half million sold, but most of these were sent back. Atari lost millions, [[note]]Atari's deal with Spielberg required selling ''five million'' copies of the game to recoup their costs, hence the massive overproduction[[/note]] Warner Communications' stock price took a 35% hit, and within a few months, TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 was underway.

* KillScreen: Subverted. If you give Elliot at least 33 Reese's Pieces the score count will be glitched up, ET will turn black and the Scientist and the FBI Agent will never appear. You can still go on. It's just boring with no enemies around.

* PixelHunt: You have to wander all over the map to find areas of certain screens where important things will happen when you press fire, such as calling Elliot or calling your ship. Most zones (as they're called) are on most screens, however. Only the Call Ship and Landing Pad zones are unique (and the Landing Pad is always in the Forest screen).

* PressXToNotDie: When falling in a pit, if you hit the joystick button in mid-fall, you can trigger ET's levitation ability and avoid damage.
* ProductPlacement: Reese's Pieces are scattered around the game world, and come in handy. However, they're depicted as a single green pixel, instead of the brown, orange, or yellow of real Pieces.

* ScoringPoints: Once you go home, you'll see Elliot running around his house and your score, which will rise for each Reese's Piece you've collected.

Following the success of the movie, in July 1982 Warner Communications, Creator/{{Atari}}'s parent company, paid an unprecedented $21 million for the rights to do a video game adaptation. Programmer Howard Scott Warshaw was given just six weeks to write it, in order to [[ChristmasRushed meet the Christmas deadline]]. In comparison, Warshaw's previous 2600 games, ''VideoGame/YarsRevenge'' and ''VideoGame/RaidersOfTheLostArk'', both highly regarded, took seven months and six months respectively.

The game itself is a ThreeQuartersView ActionAdventure game. You play E.T., and at the beginning, you are dropped off by the [[WebVideo/JoueurDuGrenier phonebooth-looking spaceship]]. You then have to find three pieces of an [[PlotCoupon intergalactic telephone]] so E.T. can "phone home." You wander around six screens, and perform various actions by pressing the fire button; [[ContextSensitiveButton different actions are available depending on where E.T. is standing]]. The most important screens are the ones with pits; the phone pieces are in the pits. You can try falling into pit after pit to check them, or you can find the part of the screen where you can use an action that shows which pit has a phone piece. Once you assemble all the phone pieces, you head to one spot on one screen where the available action is phoning home. Phone home, then head to the landing site for a pick-up before a timer runs out.

Standing in your way are an FBI agent who steals your phone pieces if he touches you and puts them back in the pits, and a scientist who drags you off to study you. Also, every time you move or do an action, you use energy. Run out of energy, and E.T. dies, though Elliott will revive him.

The screens with pits also have Reese's Pieces, represented by green dots, lying on the ground. Pick them up, and a part of the screen will let you eat them for more energy. The FBI agent will steal these too. Another part of the screen will let you call Elliott, and if you have nine Reese's, he will take them, and in return, chase away the FBI agent and scientist, and return a moment later with a phone piece. If you have less than nine Reese's, Elliott will take them and go home.

If you succeed in getting home, you will see Elliott walking around his house, and you'll see the number of Reese's you've given him. These will [[ScoringPoints add to your score]]. The game then [[EndlessGame restarts]], with the phone pieces once again in random pits.

The game is at least complete, and not buggy. This isn't ''VideoGame/BigRigsOverTheRoadRacing''. But the gameplay is boring, confusing, and repetitive. It's also very easy to fall into a pit, and once you levitate back out, you often fall right back in again. Watching the movie doesn't in any way help you understand what you are supposed to do in the game; of course, reading the manual helps a lot, but [[ReadTheFreakingManual who would do that anyway]]? Atari also published a [[StrategyGuide Hints Sheet]] later, but the damage was already done. If this had been just another 2600 game, it would have been considered below average and quickly forgotten. But Atari's big bet on it is what made it infamous. Atari produced four million units, expecting a massive hit. One and a half million sold, but most of these were sent back. Atari lost millions, [[note]]Atari's deal with Spielberg required selling ''five million'' copies of the game to recoup their costs, hence the massive overproduction[[/note]] Warner Communications' stock price took a 35% hit, and within a few months, TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 was underway.

* ThreeQuartersView: The surface. Gameplay is TopDownView, and the pits are seen from above, but the characters are shown in SideView. The buildings are also in side view, even though gameplay there is still in top view.

* AntiFrustrationFeature: Attempted. If you stand in the right spot, you can send the scientist and FBI agent back to their starting points, or check if any of the pits have a telephone part. The frustration comes back when you're frantically searching for either spot on the screen, since both are randomized.

* DifficultyLevels: Three, getting easier as you go up. Level 1 has both enemies, level 2 removes the scientist, and level 3 removes the FBI agent as well.

* EmptyRoomPsych: Most of the pits are empty. However, activating the "?" symbol at the top of the screen reveals whether there are any phone pieces in any pits.

* GottaCatchThemAll: The telephone pieces. They're randomly scattered, and even if you manage to find them, a "Phone Home" zone (also randomized) [[YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle spawns elsewhere on the map.]]

* HitboxDissonance: E.T. actually has ''pixel perfect'' hit detection. Unfortunately, in a ThreeQuartersView game, that means his ''head'' can cause you to fall into a pit.
* Instant180DegreeTurn: You, the FBI agent, and the scientist reverse direction instantly. If you're moving right, though, E.T. will flip back to face left when you let go of the joystick -- which can be a problem when getting out of the pits.

* PixelHunt: You have to wander all over the map to find small areas of certain screens where important things will happen when you press fire, such as calling Elliot or calling your ship.

* PressXToNotDie: The natural reaction to ET falling into a pit is to scream in frustration. But if you can overcome that and maintain the presence of mind to hit the joystick button in mid fall, you can trigger ET's levitation ability and avoid damage.

* SideView: Graphics and gameplay down in the pits is from the side.

* VideoGameGeography: A cube-shaped world, with the landing zone at the top, the pits along the sides, and the buildings (Elliott's house, the Institute of Science, and the FBI building) at the bottom.

In September 1983, Atari buried a bunch of stuff in a New Mexico landfill. An excavation project (helmed by a documentary crew surrounding the old {{urban legend}} about the landfill) was approved in 2013 to find out what was dumped there; in 2014, [[https://twitter.com/kobunheat/status/460128189147140096 the project hit paydirt.]] On April 26, 2014, ''NBC Nightly News'' [[http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2014/04/26/microsoft-finds-buried-atari-games-landfill/ and others]] reported that the crew had found the cartridges, and that the game is considered the worst video game ever made.

* ThreeQuartersView: The surface. Gameplay is TopDownView, and the pits are seen from above, but the characters are shown in SideView. The prison is also in side view, even though gameplay there is still in top view.

* DifficultyLevels: Three, getting easier as you go up. Level 1 has both enemies, level 2 removes the scientist, and level 3 removes the FBI agent.
* EasterEgg: Doing certain things will make the flower turn into a Yar or Indiana Jones.
* EmptyRoomPsych: Most of the pits are empty.

* VideoGameGeography: A cube-shaped world, with the landing zone at the top, the pits along the sides, and the prison at the bottom.

* ProductPlacement: Reese's Pieces are scattered around the game world, and come in handy. However, they're depicted as a single green pixel, nothing like the orange packaging or brown chocolate of a real Piece.

* ObviousBeta: To a certain extent. It's complete and there are no major bugs, but it suffers from a lack of playtesting. A [[http://www.neocomputer.org/projects/et/ third party patch released decades later]] fixes many of the problems.

* UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfVideoGames: [[EndOfAnAge Practically ended it]], though that was due more to circumstances. See The Great Video Game Crash of 1983 below.

* UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983: Considered a cause of it. Even though it was one of the best selling games on the 2600, Atari produced millions more cartridges than were sold, hoping it would drive additional console sales. It didn't.
** It sold well because it was a hotly anticipated ''E.T.'' video game and consumers hadn't been introduced to TheProblemWithLicensedGames yet; quality wasn't even part of the equation then. ''VideoGame/{{Asteroids}}'' and ''VideoGame/PacMan'' were the other titles to join ''E.T.'' in the landfill (even though ''Asteroids'' is considered one of the better titles, it was simply overproduced).

* TheGoldenAgeOfVideoGames: [[EndOfAnAge Practically ended it]], though that was due more to circumstances. See The Great Video Game Crash of 1983 below.

* TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983: Considered a cause of it. Even though it was one of the best selling games on the 2600, Atari produced millions more cartridges than were sold, hoping it would drive additional console sales. It didn't.

* ProductPlacement: Reese's Pieces.

* ScoringPoints
* SideView: The pits are seen from the side.

* ContextSensitiveButton: Well, considering that the 2600 joystick had only one action button, this is probably a given.

* ThreeQuartersView: The surface. Similar to VideoGame/TheLegendOfZelda.

* FollowTheMoney: The Reese's Pieces.

* LevelGoal

* PlotCoupon: The telephone.

* ActionAdventure

* EmptyRoomPsych: Most of the pits.
* EndlessGame
* FlipScreenScrolling

* Instant180DegreeTurn: Everybody.
** If you're moving right, though, E.T. will flip back to face the left when you let go of the joystick -- which can be a problem when getting out of the pits.

* NonPlayerCharacter: Elliott.

* SideView: The pits.

* VideoGameGeography: Cube shaped.

The game is at least complete, and not buggy. This isn't ''VideoGame/BigRigsOverTheRoadRacing''. But the gameplay is boring, confusing, and repetitive. It's also very easy to fall into a pit, and once you levitate back out, you often fall right back in again. Watching the movie doesn't in any way help you understand what you are supposed to do in the game; of course, reading the manual helps a lot, but [[ReadTheFreakingManual who would do that anyway]]? Atari also published a [[StrategyGuide Hints Sheet]] later, but the damage was already done. If this had been just another 2600 game, it would have been considered below average and quickly forgotten. But Atari's big bet on it is what made it infamous. Atari produced four million units, expecting a massive hit. One and a half million sold, but most of these were sent back. Atari lost millions,[[note]]Atari's deal with Spielberg required selling ''five million'' copies of the game to recoup their costs, hence the massive overproduction[[/note]] Warner Communications' stock price took a 35% hit, and within a few months, TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 was underway.

!!The ''E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial'' videogame contains examples of the following tropes:

-->'''WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd:''' Even if you find the pieces, it's ''Jack'' and ''Shit''—and Jack left town.
* TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983: Considered a cause of it. Even though it was one of the best-selling games on the 2600, Atari produced millions more cartridges than were sold, hoping it would drive additional console sales. It didn't.
** It sold well because it was a hotly-anticipated ''E.T.'' video game and consumers hadn't been introduced to TheProblemWithLicensedGames yet; quality wasn't even part of the equation then. ''{{Asteroids}}'' and ''PacMan'' were the other titles to join ''E.T.'' in the landfill (even though ''Asteroids'' is considered one of the better titles, it was simply overproduced).
* HitboxDissonance: E.T. actually has ''pixel-perfect'' hit detection. Unfortunately, in a ThreeQuartersView game, that means his ''head'' can cause you to fall into a pit.

** If you're moving right, though, E.T. will flip back to face the left when you let go of the joystick - which can be a problem when getting out of the pits.

* ObviousBeta: To a certain extent. It's complete and there are no major bugs, but it suffers from a lack of playtesting. A [[http://www.neocomputer.org/projects/et/ third-party patch released decades later]] fixes many of the problems.

* PressXToNotDie: The natural reaction to ET falling into a pit is to scream in frustration. But if you can overcome that and maintain the presence of mind to hit the joystick button in mid-fall, you can trigger ET's levitation ability and avoid damage.

* VideoGameGeography: Cube-shaped.

Following the success of the movie, in July 1982 Warner Communications, Creator/{{Atari}}'s parent company, paid $20-25 million for the rights to do a video game adaptation. Programmer Howard Scott Warshaw was given just six weeks to write it, in order to [[ChristmasRushed meet the Christmas deadline]]. In comparison, Warshaw's previous 2600 games, ''VideoGame/YarsRevenge'' and ''VideoGame/RaidersOfTheLostArk'', both highly regarded, took seven months and six months respectively.

The game is at least complete, and not buggy. This isn't ''VideoGame/BigRigsOverTheRoadRacing''. But the gameplay is boring, confusing, and repetitive. It's also very easy to fall into a pit, and once you levitate back out, you often fall right back in again. Watching the movie doesn't in any way help you understand what you are supposed to do in the game; of course, reading the manual helps a lot, but [[ReadTheFreakingManual who would do that anyway]]? Atari also published a [[StrategyGuide Hints Sheet]] later, but the damage was already done. If this had been just another 2600 game, it would have been considered below average and quickly forgotten. But Atari's big bet on it is what made it infamous. Atari produced four million units, expecting a massive hit. One and a half million sold, but most of these were sent back. Atari lost millions, Warner Communications' stock price took a 35% hit, and within a few months, TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 was underway.

The game itself is a ThreeQuartersView ActionAdventure game. You play E.T., and at the beginning, you are dropped off by the [[WebVideo/JoueurDuGrenier phonebooth-looking spaceship]]. You then have to find three pieces of an [[PlotCoupon intergalactic telephone]] so E.T. can "phone home." You wander around six screens, and perform various actions by pressing the fire button; different actions are available depending on where E.T. is standing. The most important screens are the ones with pits; the phone pieces are in the pits. You can try falling into pit after pit to check them, or you can find the part of the screen where you can use an action that shows which pit has a phone piece. Once you assemble all the phone pieces, you head to one spot on one screen where the available action is phoning home. Phone home, then head to the landing site for a pick-up before a timer runs out.

* ChristmasRushed: An infamous example. "Hey Scott, make something awesome! You've got six weeks."
** He did at least try, and he did put a lot of detail into the game with little things like footsteps growing louder or softer as other characters got closer to or farther away from E.T. The game was playable, and there is an easy way to avoid falling into the pits: pull the joystick to the left or right after E.T. goes back to the surface. The game was likely meant to be a sort of 'Adventure Lite'.

* AntiFrustrationFeature: Attempted. If you stand in the right spot, you can send the scientist and FBI agent back to their starting points, or check if any of the pits have a telephone part. T frustration comes back when you're frantically searching for either spot on the screen, since both are randomized.

-->--'''WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd:''' Even if you find the pieces, it's ''Jack and ''Shit''—and Jack left town.

* GottaCatchThemAll: The telephone pieces.

An adaptation of [[Film/ETTheExtraTerrestrial the movie]] for the {{Atari 2600}}, that became infamous as the {{Trope Maker|s}} for TheProblemWithLicensedGames. Considered one of the worst games of all time, and one of the events that led to TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983.

Following the success of the movie, in July 1982 Warner Communications, {{Atari}}'s parent company, paid $20-25 million for the rights to do a video game adaptation. Programmer Howard Scott Warshaw was given just six weeks to write it, in order to [[ChristmasRushed meet the Christmas deadline]]. In comparison, Warshaw's previous 2600 games, ''VideoGame/YarsRevenge'' and ''VideoGame/RaidersOfTheLostArk'', both highly regarded, took seven months and six months respectively.

The game is at least complete, and not buggy. This isn't ''BigRigsOverTheRoadRacing''. But the gameplay is boring, confusing, and repetitive. It's also very easy to fall into a pit, and once you levitate back out, you often fall right back in again. Watching the movie doesn't in any way help you understand what you are supposed to do in the game; of course, reading the manual helps a lot, but [[ReadTheFreakingManual who would do that anyway]]? Atari also published a [[StrategyGuide Hints Sheet]] later, but the damage was already done. If this had been just another 2600 game, it would have been considered below average and quickly forgotten. But Atari's big bet on it is what made it infamous. Atari produced four million units, expecting a massive hit. One and a half million sold, but most of these were sent back. Atari lost millions, Warner Communications' stock price took a 35% hit, and within a few months, TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 was underway.