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Hitting the Books: Why we haven't made the 'Citizen Kane' of gaming
Pippin Barr deconstructs the game design process using an octet of his own previous projects to shed light on specific aspects of how games could better be put together.
EA can make Madden games until 2026 after renewing its NFL deal
Electronic Arts and the National Football League have agreed to extend their partnership for the Madden NFL series until 2026.
Comcast revives 'E.T.' to hawk cable and internet service
Tech companies often like to mine nostalgia for a few quick bucks, but Comcast is probably pushing that emotional exploitation a little too far. The telecom has posted a short film that reunites E.T.'s namesake alien with human pal Elliott to pitch Xfinity internet and TV service. Yes, it's exactly as cheesy and manipulative as it sounds -- it shows E.T.'s comic struggle to adapt to tablets, voice remotes and VR (complete with that music), and basically rehashes major themes of the 1982 movie in the space of four minutes.
'Rocket League' is mining the '80s for nostalgia-tinted DLC
Rocket League fans, it's time to slap on your aviators, grab a hoverboard and fire up your favorite '80s playlist for a Radical Summer. Psyonix is tapping into the decade's pop culture tentpoles for the game's biggest event to date, lasting all summer long.
ICYMI: The ESA's mission to Mars launches next week
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: The European Space Agency and Russia are joining up to launch their ExoMars project next week, which will look for traces of extraterrestrial life on the red planet. Meanwhile, a newer kind of wind energy harvester is being installed in Paris, where leaves on a fake tree can capture energy in breezy conditions.
SETI to begin searching older star systems for sentient life
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute haven't had any luck finding signs of alien life so far, but it could just be that they're looking in the wrong place. To date, SETI has only searched around younger stars like our own but the Institute on Friday announced that it will expand its search to include older, red dwarf stars as well.
Sale of buried Atari cartridges nets over $107,000
The never-ending saga of the Atari 2600 E.T. cartridges that were famously buried (and later unearthed) in Alamogordo, New Mexico continues to benefit the small town. Last November, a selection of games (including E.T., Asteroids and Missile Command) that were recovered in the excavation were put up for sale on eBay, and now we know just how much cash they generated. According to the Alamogordo News, the game sales totaled $107,930.15, with more than $65,000 going directly to the town. In addition, the Tularosa Basin Historical Society received over $16,000 while more than $26,000 was spent on shipping and other expenses. A total of 881 cartridges covering 60 different titles were sold overall; a copy of E.T. was the highest single sale at $1,535.
Excavated E.T. Atari carts fetch more than $1,500 at auction
One man's trash is another man's pricey, crushed game cartridge. Last week's eBay auctions for Atari cartridges unearthed during the production of the Atari: Game Over documentary have concluded, with the top-grossing auction pulling in $1,537 for a mangled, sort-of boxed copy of ET for the Atari 2600. A total of nine ET cartridges sold for more than $1,000 apiece, with copies of Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command and others pulling in hundreds of dollars each in additional auctions. Each game will ship with a certificate of authenticity, an I.D. tag from the City of Alamogordo, and a photo-supplemented narrative detailing the lot's history. Regardless of whether you bought a momento, you can learn more about the context surrounding the excavation when Atari: Game Over premieres on November 20 on Xbox Live. [Image: Atari]
ET and other exhumed Atari games hit eBay
Want to buy some literal garbage? An eBay seller is auctioning off a collection of Atari 2600 cartridges recovered from a recent excavation of a New Mexico landfill, including several crushed copies of the infamous dud ET. An excavation team headed out to Alamogordo, New Mexico, earlier this year in the hopes of discovering the truth behind a reported landfill stuffed with video games and consoles in the months leading up to the video game industry crash of 1983. The venture yielded many shrinkwrapped copies of ET, among other decades-old merchandise abandoned by Atari. A documentary film covering the dig, Atari: Game Over, will launch exclusively for Xbox consoles later this month. Bidding starts at $50 for the unearthed games, which vary in condition but are otherwise remarkably well-preserved, considering they've been sitting in a landfill for more than three decades. Many ET cartridges are already going for hundreds of dollars, but if you're looking to snag a stinky piece of history for yourself, you might be able to pick up a cheap copy of Asteroids, Centipede, Defender or Swordquest EarthWorld. [Image: tbhs575]
Microsoft's Atari doc remains on track despite studio closure
The news that Microsoft is shuttering Xbox Entertainment Studios won't have an effect on its Signal to Noise series, the first episode of which focuses on the rise and fall of former gaming giant Atari. Fuel Entertainment's (one of the production houses behind the episode) director of communications Nick Iannitti tells us that everything was still proceeding on schedule despite the closure, and that nothing has changed for his team. Its behind-the-scenes panel about Atari scheduled for the upcoming San Diego Comic-Con is still happening, and production for the show is still under way. What's more, he says that he learned of Xbox Entertainment Studios' shuttering at "about" the same time as everyone else. If you couldn't make it to New Mexico earlier this spring, it sounds like you'll still be able to check out the infamous video-game landfill at some point in the future, regardless of Microsoft's new plans.
E.T. and other Atari games rescued from New Mexico landfill to be sold
At this point some 1,377 game cartridges for the Atari 2600 have been rescued from the New Mexico landfill where they were unceremoniously dumped over 30 years ago. Of those, 700 will be appraised, certified and eventually sold, some of which will pass through the New Mexico Museum of Space History. While many carts will go to the film's producers and museums like the Smithsonian, some will be sold to the public along with a certificate of authenticity. The details are still being worked out by city officials, but you could soon own a piece of gaming garbage history. The carts that will be commanding the most money will clearly be the 171 copies of E.T. that were unearthed, but titles like Centipede, Missile Command and Asteroids have also been dug up. There are still over 700,000 games buried the in landfill outside of Alamogordo, NM, but they'll stay there... for now. The hole has been refilled, and the cartridges going on sale will be priced to reflect their rarity. Of course, if the city decides it needs more cash, that could always change.
Weekends with Engadget: Apple vs. Samsung round two, the new Engadget and more!
Welcome to Weekends with Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines from the past seven days -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. For even more action, subscribe to our Flipboard magazine!
Engadget Daily: Amazon's new phone, Snapchat video and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
The true story of the worst video game in history
"E.T. was the death of Atari." If you believe the urban legend, then that game, based on Steven Spielberg's blockbuster movie, is the sole reason Atari flopped in the 1980s. As the myth went, the company, allegedly so ashamed of the game, decided to bury millions of unsold cartridges in the New Mexico desert and cover them with a slab of concrete; a curious tale we now know to be true. Like the oral histories passed down from one generation to the next, though, certain details of the story behind E.T.'s genesis and Atari's demise have been lost along the way, and mild inaccuracies have become fact. To find out what really happened more than 30 years ago, we went straight to the man who made the game: former Atari developer Howard Scott Warshaw. This is his story.
Daily Roundup: Raspberry Pi cellphone, HP's Android laptop, and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Take another look at the E.T. landfill excavation
Hundreds of people went out in the desert yesterday to watch an excavation for E.T., an Atari game so awful that thousands of copies were buried in an Alamogordo landfill. Microsoft and Lightbox plan on turning the dig into a documentary with a working title of Atari: Game Over. [Image: Microsoft]
E.T. unearthed: The dig for legendary Atari cartridges in pictures
Yesterday marked the climax of a decades-long story that surrounded one of the most poorly received video games in history. A Microsoft-backed documentary crew took to a landfill in the desert town of Alamogordo, New Mexico, in an attempt to prove that Atari had in fact buried thousands of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial cartridges there. It appears they succeeded.
Microsoft's E.T. game excavation hits paydirt
It looks like the legend might be true after all. Microsoft has uncovered intact copies of E.T. for the Atari 2600 at a New Mexico landfill, supporting claims that Atari buried legions of unsold cartridges in the desert after the movie-themed game proved to be a massive failure. With that said, it's not yet clear that this is the treasure trove that Microsoft was hoping to find for its first Xbox-only documentary. The excavation team has only found a few E.T. units as of this writing, and they have company -- there's a shrink-wrapped copy of Centipede in the mix, for one thing. If the team does find many more examples of the extra-terrestrial flop, though, it could finally put a 32-year-old mystery to rest. [Image credit: Lauren Hansard, Twitter]
Atari E.T. cartridge excavation back on track after delay
There are games that earn a negative tone in their word-of-mouth buzz, and then there are games that have truckloads of unsold copies buried in a landfill. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600 is, according to legend, in the latter category. Curiosity makes people do strange things though, and Alamogordo News reports that Fuel Industries' plans to document an excavation for the supposedly buried cartridges is moving forward after the New Mexico Environment Department requested a more specific dig plan. Alamogordo News notes that Xbox Entertainment Studios and LightBox Entertainment are producing Fuel's dig for treasure, the story of which is planned to eventually air on Xbox. A Microsoft representative told Alamorgordo News that moves to begin digging up portions of the landfill are still being finalized. We admit that we'll probably watch the final product, but we can't help but wonder what they'll do with the truckloads of cartridges should they find them. Maybe they'll assemble a replica of the movie's spaceship? Perhaps they'll replace walkie-talkies in an alternate remastering of the film, where agents hurl the cartridges at Elliott to knock him off his bike and capture his extra-terrestrial friend. [Image: Shutterstock, Atari]
Microsoft cleared to exhume E.T. from landfill for original documentary (update: now with a start date!)
Microsoft's been given the go-ahead to dig through a New Mexico landfill in the hunt for dumped copies of Atari 2600 title E.T., local media reports. Not without aim, of course, but so Xbox Entertainment Studios can collect crucial material for its first original documentary, which'll look into the alleged mass burial of unsold copies of the game. Released in late 1982 when the video game industry, including Atari, was struggling, E.T. was universally panned and a commercial flop. With millions of cartridges returned by retailers, gaming lore has it that Atari quietly shipped off this useless inventory, among other unwanted paraphernalia, to a landfill site. Opinions are mixed and evidence inconclusive as to whether this actually took place, though, hence a documentary to get to the bottom of it. As much as we'd almost prefer the mystery to remain one, let's hope Microsoft come across something or there mightn't be a documentary at all. Update: Phys.org reports that the excavation's start date is set for April 26 of this year. That's soon!
