http://2600connection.atari.org/et.html

In class, professor Sample showed the Atari version of E.T. and mentioned that others believed it was one of the worst games created, which lead to Atari’s failure. Initially, I did agree that it was a bad game; however, I wanted to know why it was the cause of Atari’s demise. In contrary to my finding, an article stood in defense of the E.T. game. E.T. was based from the movie of which it involved a friendly alien and a boy who was suppose to help the alien get home. The movie is non-violent and Howard Scott Warshaw, the game designer, had to create a game similar to the movie in a period of just five weeks. Unfortunately the only thing E.T. could do was to eat candy and grow flowers. That said, the design and action content of the game was unappealing to many young players. However, E.T. is not the sole cause of Atari’s collapse. Other factors were already at play which began to cripple the company’s success. These factors include Atari not owning a licensing agreement, which allowed other companies to create unsuccessful games that affected Atari’s name. Also these no-name companies were selling their games for one third of the price that attracted many consumers. These were but a few factors that contributed to Atari’s failure and E.T. cannot take all of the blame. Therefore, people need to understand that not a single game flop can bring down an entire company. It has to take several factors in order to do so.