Dataspels-kraschen

Will Atari + 'E.T.' = Magic?

MCA-U sells videogame rights to blockbuster hit for undisclosed sum

New York, Aug. 18 - MCA-Universal has sold the videogame rights for its blockbuster, "E.T. -- The ExtraTerrestrial," to Warner Communication's Atari for an undisclosed sum. Atari has plans to have a videogame version of the feature out by Christmas.

"E.T." director Steve Spielberg is directly involved in the designing of the game. "The game will center around getting 'E.T.' home," said Spielberg. "It's going to be a challenging game, and also perhaps the first emotionally oriented videogame ever turned out. I'm very excited about joining futures with Atari," he said.

Atari was similarly excited about "joining futures" with Spielberg. Corporate spokesmen felt they might have a game which would prove to be as big as "Pac Man." "E.T.'s" image has grown so large that it is no longer just a feature but has become a product category, Atari feels, and they strongly hope that an "E.T."-based vidgame will have all the cash-pulling characteristics of its feature film parent.

As for the ability of the new game to help pull WCI's stock out of it's recent slide, Wall Street observers had doubts. "It's just one of many games," said analyst Harold Vogel of Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith. "I don't think you can trade the stock based on one cartridge just as you wouldn't trade the stock based on one movie."

Vogel isn't certain that the success of a feature can be used to predict the success of a videogame based upon it. He feels that past experience, where films have done well and their spinoffs have not, show the shaky basis for making such predictions.

Wall Street seemed to agree, as WCI's stock dropped sharply over the course of the day.

MCA-Universal wasn't making any comments about the sale, and about why the high-potential rights hadn't gone to MCA's own fledgling videogame effort.

- Variety, 19 augusti 1982

Facit? Spelet ET (till Ataris mycket populära maskin 2600) blev inte bara dåligt, det blev uselt - det förekommer fortfarande på listor med de sämsta spelen någonsin. Vilket åtminstone delvis torde kunna tillskrivas den även för den tiden framstressade utvecklingen, för sedan ovanstående skrevs fick programmeraren sex veckor på sig för att få ihop något inför julmarknaden.

Spelet blev inte bara blev en dunderflopp, utan drog med sig hela marknaden för TV-spel i åtminstone USA. Denna hade den sista tiden närmast exploderat och lockat fler aktörer än vad som efterfrågades (t.ex. Quaker Oats, de som gör kalaspuffar), och så började samtidigt hemdatorer dra åt sig mer och mer intresse. Kraschen skulle inträffat förr eller senare.

At the time of the US crash, there was a plethora of consoles on the market, including the Atari 2600, the Atari 5200, the Bally Astrocade, the ColecoVision, the Coleco Gemini (a 2600 clone), the Emerson Arcadia 2001, the Fairchild Channel F System II, Magnavox Odyssey2, Mattel Intellivision (and its just-released update with several peripherals, Intellivision II), the Sears Tele-Games systems (which included both 2600 and Intellivision clones), the Tandyvision (an Intellivision clone for Radio Shack), and the Vectrex. Each one of these consoles had its own library of games, and many had large third-party libraries.

1984 såldes Atari, som dittills varit det Stora dataspelsföretaget, av Warner. Att de dumpade 2,5 miljoner osålda spel i en soptipp i New Mexico lär vara sant. Däremot tillverkades inte fler spel än man dittills sålt maskiner.

Wikipedia: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (video game), North American video game crash of 1983

--- Uppdaterat 28 april 2014


Häromdagen grävdes de första ET-spelen upp utanför Almogordo, New Mexico.

NPR: Diggers find Atari's E.T. Games In Landfill, 26 april 2014