# The Atari Video Game Burial Excavation The Atari Video Game Burial Excavation refers to the April 2014 dig at an Alamogordo, New Mexico landfill that unearthed thousands of unsold E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial cartridges Atari had secretly dumped in 1983. The excavation confirmed a decades-old gaming urban legend and triggered a wave of news coverage treating the site as pop-culture archaeology. ## Origin The story began with the Atari 2600 adaptation of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, a 1982 title Atari rushed to market after paying the film studio a reported $20 to $25 million for the license[5]. Developed in roughly five weeks for the holiday season, the game was panned on arrival and is still cited as one of the worst video games in existence[5]. Atari sold around 1.5 million copies but ended up stuck with an estimated 3.5 million unsold or returned cartridges[4]. In 1983, Atari trucked that inventory to a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico, where crews crushed and buried the games alongside other overstocked hardware[7]. The dump was widely rumored for years but denied by the company, cementing its urban-legend status among gamers until a 2013 permit changed everything[4]. - **Platform:** News coverage / YouTube (viral spread) - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 2014 ## Overview The event works less as a traditional meme format and more as a confirmed-legend story that gaming fans cite whenever a company tries to bury a bad product[1]. Photos of workers hauling dust-caked Atari 2600 cartridges out of the New Mexico desert circulated across gaming blogs and news feeds the day of the dig, with the cracked E.T. box art acting as the shorthand image for the whole saga[2]. Microsoft's Xbox Entertainment Studios tied the excavation to a feature documentary called Atari: Game Over, and bystanders at the site were handed recovered cartridges to try on the spot[3]. The 'E.T. landfill' reference is still used in retro gaming discussion as a byword for corporate shame buried in the dirt[4]. ## How to Use The excavation is typically referenced as a visual metaphor rather than a repost format. Gaming writers and fans commonly pair the dusty cartridge photos with jokes about modern flops, treating the Alamogordo site as the ultimate burial ground any failed product 'deserves'. The phrase 'bury it in the New Mexico desert' is common shorthand in game-review threads when a release is considered unsalvageable. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is The Atari Video Game Burial Excavation? It is the April 2014 dig at an Alamogordo, New Mexico landfill that recovered unsold Atari 2600 cartridges, mostly copies of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, that the company had buried in 1983[1]. ### Where did The Atari Video Game Burial Excavation come from? Fuel Industries received landfill access in May 2013 to film a documentary, and the dig began on April 26, 2014 with Microsoft and local officials involved[2]. ### What does The Atari Video Game Burial Excavation mean? The event confirmed a long-running urban legend that Atari had secretly dumped millions of unsold E.T. cartridges, turning the site into shorthand for a product too embarrassing to keep selling[4]. ### How do you use The Atari Video Game Burial Excavation? Gamers reference the Alamogordo dig when mocking a flop release, typically by joking that the product belongs 'buried in the New Mexico desert' alongside the E.T. cartridges[3]. ### Is The Atari Video Game Burial Excavation still popular? The dig is still referenced in retro gaming coverage, and the recovered cartridges were later distributed to museums and auctioned, keeping the story in gaming news well after 2014[6]. ## References 1. [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/26/film-crew-finds-atari-et-games-new-mexico]() 2. [http://www.polygon.com/2014/4/26/5656282/atari-et-landfill-new-mexico-found-cartridges]() 3. [http://mashable.com/2014/04/26/legend-confirmed-atari-2600-e-t-game-discovered-at-new-mexico-dig/]() 4. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-atari-video-game-burial-excavation]() 5. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial_(video_game)]() 6. [http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/04/26/the-dig-uncovering-the-atari-et-games-buried-in-new-mexico-desert]() 7. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial]() 8. [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=307031037]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/the-atari-video-game-burial-excavation Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library