https://games.yahoo.com/news/diggers-at … 56509.html

One of the most amusing reads in years! Here are some highlights:

"Most of the crowd left the landfill before the discovery, turned away by strong winds that kicked up massive clouds of dust mingled with garbage."
->Yeah, well, it is a LANDFILL!

"The documentary about the search is being developed by companies including Xbox Entertainment Studios, and the film is expected to be released later this year on Microsoft's Xbox game consoles."
->So will this film also have a game... where your goal is to search for a game?

"The city of Alamogordo agreed to give the documentarians up to 250 cartridges and plan to sell the rest that are unearthed."
->Coming soon, to an ebay near you!

"Mayor Susie Galea hopes this brings more tourists to this southeastern New Mexico town"
->Uhhhh, really? Were they thinking along the lines of an ecotour of the landfill followed by a filming of E.T.?

"The game designer, Howard Scott Warshaw, says he does not mind his creation being called that [worst game ever]. "It may be a horrible game, but 32 years after, you are here, talking to me about it." "
->Touché!

Heh, this story has always been a classic part of videogame lore. I'm amazed it took this long to develop into a full-on excavation. I look forward to seeing how the documentary develops.

The irony is I never found E.T. to be THAT horrible of a game. There are far more unplayable pieces of crap on the Atari 2600 and other systems. It's amusing to talk to 20-something year-old know-it-alls that say it's the worst game ever made because they read about it being horrible and never actually played it. I view it as a primitive predecessor to games like Legend of Zelda (collecting 3 phone pieces vs collecting 8 Triforce pieces, open world, dungeons, heh even water of life which Elliot acts as). At least Atari 2600 Pac Man is an awful game AND a slap in the face of people that loved the arcade version (which was just about EVERYONE in 1982).

It actually holds a bit of nostalgia for me...It's the first game my mom ever beat before I did.

Having heard the ET landfill story decades ago, I think it's really cool that someone finally took the trouble of removing the "possibly apocryphal" asterisk from the story.

Exactly.

I think it's cool that they finally confirmed the myth, and I'll probably check out the documentary as well at some point.

Haha! Nice one.

Read this:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/04/d … -landfill/

This is a trenchant observation, but imprecisely articulated, I think.  It would be more accurate to say that the world is plenty interesting, but in foul and dangerous ways, and sometimes we need something to be interesting in a benign way.

Not quite sure what you're saying, and I disagree with the original quote. First off, people don't "need these things". In fact, Bogost is not even certain since he says "I guess", although I believe he guessed wrong. The world is indeed very interesting. The Universe incomprehensibly fascinating. I think a person's personal life may not be that interesting, and most people who follow with this story are probably people who enjoy video games.

I concur. Just because people find comfort in the wrappings of a "legend" doesn't mean everything else going on around them is lost. Kind of patronizing to insinuate that's what people do IMO.

E.T. make money

https://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-i … 13287.html