Fuel Industries last year sought to find the long-rumored cache of buried E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial video games, made for the Atari 2600 in the early 1980s. Surplus copies of E.T. — a notoriously bad gaming experience — were dumped in a landfill after failing to sell. By burying its shame, Atari hoped to wipe the title from the gaming community’s collective consciousness. Ironically, it’s now enshrined in the Smithsonian. Many other games have been forgotten, though, with a lot less effort.
I've been a gamer since the late 1970's, but I was never much into console games. I started with PC games in the early 90's. What I'd like to see is some of the old game concepts reworked for new systems and new technology. Games like Darklands, which was an incredibly well researched frpg set in Medieval Germany - a precursor to games like Bioware's isometric, 2d Infinity Game Engine series.
Sometimes you get the feeling the dreams of early game developers have been lost - the desire to do more than just entertain, to create alternate realities, to improve brain function and motor skills, to educate and inspire. Many of the games these days are created primarily to develop gaming addictions and the highly coveted "whales" which will throw away thousands of dollars on pixel crack.
Loading ...
Video Game Preservation: An Impossible Dream?
Posted by: Peter Suciu February 20, 2015 05:00 AMFuel Industries last year sought to find the long-rumored cache of buried E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial video games, made for the Atari 2600 in the early 1980s. Surplus copies of E.T. — a notoriously bad gaming experience — were dumped in a landfill after failing to sell. By burying its shame, Atari hoped to wipe the title from the gaming community’s collective consciousness. Ironically, it’s now enshrined in the Smithsonian. Many other games have been forgotten, though, with a lot less effort.
Sometimes you get the feeling the dreams of early game developers have been lost - the desire to do more than just entertain, to create alternate realities, to improve brain function and motor skills, to educate and inspire. Many of the games these days are created primarily to develop gaming addictions and the highly coveted "whales" which will throw away thousands of dollars on pixel crack.