Holy


                    
                    
                

                

                

            

        
    







            

            
            

                

                    
                

                

                    

                        


	

	
    

        🔥 | Latest
    

    
    

        

        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            




    80s, Bad, and Christmas: Chris Kohler @kobunheat 18m
 We have ET. WE HAVE ET pic.twitter.com/fIPTXgsyoo
 Expand
 4, Reply
 Retweet ★ Favorite More

 Chris Kohler @kobunheat-4m
 Close up. pic.twitter.com/inSKukib24
 ATARI
 75
 Expand
 Reply Retweet FavoriteMoe
lightspeedsound:
videogamesarepurehappiness:

maqdaddio:

ask-gallows-callibrator:

vergess:

coelasquid:

derples:

raisehelia:

cavebae:

estpolis:

mrdappersden:

They did it, they fucking did it.

holyfducjk

HISTORY

holy shit!

can someone explain this to me

Thirty years ago a legendary ET game came to fruition, so awful that as the tale told, all unsold copies of it were buried in a pit in New Mexico. A documentary film crew has just unearthed the stash, proving the legend true.

I don’t think people fully grasp just how awful it was. This one game, by the sheer merit of its unmatched shittiness, destroyed the video game and console market so thoroughly that the at home video game nearly went the way of the 8-track player.
It was literally so awful that it nearly changed the entire course of technology.

how can a video game possibly be that bad

People don’t really understand why it was terrible though, and the reasons why are extremely important and relevant especially today.
The game itself is bad, yes. It was built up to be an exciting hit for kids to play at Christmas in 1982. So much in fact, that retailers bought WAY more stock then could every be sold based on the hype.
However, people at the time liked the game. It looks bad now, but the game itself was pretty on par with the times. It wound up selling 1.5 million copies. Which would be great, except Atari was expecting to sell 4-5 million.
While initial reception was positive, critics started panning the game as critics do. While it was no worse than most other games at the time, it was stil frustrating and hard to play. It could not live up to the hype that had been built and negative press built up quickly.
But what was ALSO happening was a flood of cheap imitations on the market. ET is a licensed game, and like all licenses comes at a higher markup. So if you wanted to buy a game for yourself or your kid, would you buy 1 game, or 2 for the same price?
Atari was also screwing around with how they handled their distributors. Just before the game went to public, but AFTER the game had been bought and shipped, Atari announced that they were cancelling every existing contract with distributors and signing with only a select few.
So distributors, now pissed off and with an abundance of games that were NOT selling and with prices slashed horribly to sell games that people were quickly losing interest in, retailers put their claims to return a collective 2.5-3.5 million copies back to Atari. Atari, unable to recycle the cartridges or resell them in any way, wound up burying them in the Nevada desert.


This caused the Video Game Crash of the early 80s that put a dark mark on video games until Nintendo (and in some small part other game companies) to revive later. 
 It was the perfect storm. An over-hyped overpriced game sold to an increasingly frustrated and over-saturated market with retailers scrambling to make a dime while Game Devs blame the market for poor sales.

Some say the proverbial planets are aligning again, with way too many consoles putting way too samey games on the market at way too high a cost with a strong dependence on Pre-orders and pre-order exclusives.

Wanna give the game a shot?  Internet Archives actually has a copy of it at this link:
https://archive.org/details/E.T._The_Extra-Terrestrial_1982_Atari_NTSC

this is like the dutch tulip bubble of our times

    

        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
    

    

        

            
            

                
                80s, Bad, and Christmas: Chris Kohler @kobunheat 18m
 We have ET. WE HAVE ET pic.twitter.com/fIPTXgsyoo
 Expand
 4, Reply
 Retweet ★ Favorite More

 Chris Kohler @kobunheat-4m
 Close up. pic.twitter.com/inSKukib24
 ATARI
 75
 Expand
 Reply Retweet FavoriteMoe
lightspeedsound:
videogamesarepurehappiness:

maqdaddio:

ask-gallows-callibrator:

vergess:

coelasquid:

derples:

raisehelia:

cavebae:

estpolis:

mrdappersden:

They did it, they fucking did it.

holyfducjk

HISTORY

holy shit!

can someone explain this to me

Thirty years ago a legendary ET game came to fruition, so awful that as the tale told, all unsold copies of it were buried in a pit in New Mexico. A documentary film crew has just unearthed the stash, proving the legend true.

I don’t think people fully grasp just how awful it was. This one game, by the sheer merit of its unmatched shittiness, destroyed the video game and console market so thoroughly that the at home video game nearly went the way of the 8-track player.
It was literally so awful that it nearly changed the entire course of technology.

how can a video game possibly be that bad

People don’t really understand why it was terrible though, and the reasons why are extremely important and relevant especially today.
The game itself is bad, yes. It was built up to be an exciting hit for kids to play at Christmas in 1982. So much in fact, that retailers bought WAY more stock then could every be sold based on the hype.
However, people at the time liked the game. It looks bad now, but the game itself was pretty on par with the times. It wound up selling 1.5 million copies. Which would be great, except Atari was expecting to sell 4-5 million.
While initial reception was positive, critics started panning the game as critics do. While it was no worse than most other games at the time, it was stil frustrating and hard to play. It could not live up to the hype that had been built and negative press built up quickly.
But what was ALSO happening was a flood of cheap imitations on the market. ET is a licensed game, and like all licenses comes at a higher markup. So if you wanted to buy a game for yourself or your kid, would you buy 1 game, or 2 for the same price?
Atari was also screwing around with how they handled their distributors. Just before the game went to public, but AFTER the game had been bought and shipped, Atari announced that they were cancelling every existing contract with distributors and signing with only a select few.
So distributors, now pissed off and with an abundance of games that were NOT selling and with prices slashed horribly to sell games that people were quickly losing interest in, retailers put their claims to return a collective 2.5-3.5 million copies back to Atari. Atari, unable to recycle the cartridges or resell them in any way, wound up burying them in the Nevada desert.


This caused the Video Game Crash of the early 80s that put a dark mark on video games until Nintendo (and in some small part other game companies) to revive later. 
 It was the perfect storm. An over-hyped overpriced game sold to an increasingly frustrated and over-saturated market with retailers scrambling to make a dime while Game Devs blame the market for poor sales.

Some say the proverbial planets are aligning again, with way too many consoles putting way too samey games on the market at way too high a cost with a strong dependence on Pre-orders and pre-order exclusives.

Wanna give the game a shot?  Internet Archives actually has a copy of it at this link:
https://archive.org/details/E.T._The_Extra-Terrestrial_1982_Atari_NTSC

this is like the dutch tulip bubble of our times

                
            

            
            
lightspeedsound:
videogamesarepurehappiness:

maqdaddio:

ask-gallows-callibrator:

vergess:

coelasquid:

derples:

raisehelia:

cavebae:

...

            
            
        

    



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            




    Apparently, Bitch, and Dude: Hacker Scripts
 Based on a true story.
 xoox: OK, so, our build engineer has left for another company. The dude was literally living inside the terminal. You know
 that type of a guy who loves Vim, creates diagrams in Dot and writes wiki-posts in Markdown... I fsomething- anything
 requires more than 90 seconds of his time, he writes a script to automate that.
 xxoc: So we're sitting here, looking through his, uhm, "legacy
 xxx: You're gonna love this
 ooc: smack-my-bitch-up.sh -sends a text message "late at work" to his wife (apparently). Automatically picks reasons
 from an array of strings, randomly. Runs inside a cron-job. The job fires if there are active SSH-sessions on the server
 after 9pm with his login
 xxox: kumar-asshole.sh - scans the inbox for emails from "Kumar" (a DBA at our clients). Looks for keywords like "help"
 trouble", "sorry" etc. If keywords are found - the script SSHes into the clients server and rolls back the staging database
 to the latest backup. Then sends a reply "no worries mate, be careful next time"
 xxx: hangover.sh - another cron-job that is set to specific dates. Sends automated emails like "not feeling well/gonna
 work from home" etc. Adds a random "reason" from another predefined array of strings. Fires if there are no interactive
 sessions on the server at 8:45am
 xoox: (and the oscar goes to) fucking-coffee. sh this one waits exatly 17 seconds(), then opens a telnet session to
 our coffee-machine (we had no frikin idea the coffee machine is on the network, runs linux and has a TCP socket up and
 running) and sends something like sys brew.Turns out this thing starts brewing a mid-sized half-caf latte and waits
 another 24 () seconds before pouring it into a cup. The timing is exactly how long it takes to walk to the machine from
 the dudes desk.
 xoxx: holy sh"t I'm keeping those
I found this on an old Git account
    

        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
    

    

        

            
            

                
                Apparently, Bitch, and Dude: Hacker Scripts
 Based on a true story.
 xoox: OK, so, our build engineer has left for another company. The dude was literally living inside the terminal. You know
 that type of a guy who loves Vim, creates diagrams in Dot and writes wiki-posts in Markdown... I fsomething- anything
 requires more than 90 seconds of his time, he writes a script to automate that.
 xxoc: So we're sitting here, looking through his, uhm, "legacy
 xxx: You're gonna love this
 ooc: smack-my-bitch-up.sh -sends a text message "late at work" to his wife (apparently). Automatically picks reasons
 from an array of strings, randomly. Runs inside a cron-job. The job fires if there are active SSH-sessions on the server
 after 9pm with his login
 xxox: kumar-asshole.sh - scans the inbox for emails from "Kumar" (a DBA at our clients). Looks for keywords like "help"
 trouble", "sorry" etc. If keywords are found - the script SSHes into the clients server and rolls back the staging database
 to the latest backup. Then sends a reply "no worries mate, be careful next time"
 xxx: hangover.sh - another cron-job that is set to specific dates. Sends automated emails like "not feeling well/gonna
 work from home" etc. Adds a random "reason" from another predefined array of strings. Fires if there are no interactive
 sessions on the server at 8:45am
 xoox: (and the oscar goes to) fucking-coffee. sh this one waits exatly 17 seconds(), then opens a telnet session to
 our coffee-machine (we had no frikin idea the coffee machine is on the network, runs linux and has a TCP socket up and
 running) and sends something like sys brew.Turns out this thing starts brewing a mid-sized half-caf latte and waits
 another 24 () seconds before pouring it into a cup. The timing is exactly how long it takes to walk to the machine from
 the dudes desk.
 xoxx: holy sh"t I'm keeping those
I found this on an old Git account
                
            

            
            
I found this on an old Git account

            
            
        

    



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            




    80s, Bad, and Christmas: Chris Kohler @kobunheat 18m
 We have ET. WE HAVE ET pic.twitter.com/fIPTXgsyoo
 Expand
 4, Reply
 Retweet ★ Favorite More

 Chris Kohler @kobunheat-4m
 Close up. pic.twitter.com/inSKukib24
 ATARI
 75
 Expand
 Reply Retweet FavoriteMoe
lightspeedsound:

videogamesarepurehappiness:

maqdaddio:

ask-gallows-callibrator:

vergess:

coelasquid:

derples:

raisehelia:

cavebae:

estpolis:

mrdappersden:

They did it, they fucking did it.

holyfducjk

HISTORY

holy shit!

can someone explain this to me

Thirty years ago a legendary ET game came to fruition, so awful that as the tale told, all unsold copies of it were buried in a pit in New Mexico. A documentary film crew has just unearthed the stash, proving the legend true.

I don’t think people fully grasp just how awful it was. This one game, by the sheer merit of its unmatched shittiness, destroyed the video game and console market so thoroughly that the at home video game nearly went the way of the 8-track player.
It was literally so awful that it nearly changed the entire course of technology.

how can a video game possibly be that bad

People don’t really understand why it was terrible though, and the reasons why are extremely important and relevant especially today.
The game itself is bad, yes. It was built up to be an exciting hit for kids to play at Christmas in 1982. So much in fact, that retailers bought WAY more stock then could every be sold based on the hype.
However, people at the time liked the game. It looks bad now, but the game itself was pretty on par with the times. It wound up selling 1.5 million copies. Which would be great, except Atari was expecting to sell 4-5 million.
While initial reception was positive, critics started panning the game as critics do. While it was no worse than most other games at the time, it was stil frustrating and hard to play. It could not live up to the hype that had been built and negative press built up quickly.
But what was ALSO happening was a flood of cheap imitations on the market. ET is a licensed game, and like all licenses comes at a higher markup. So if you wanted to buy a game for yourself or your kid, would you buy 1 game, or 2 for the same price?
Atari was also screwing around with how they handled their distributors. Just before the game went to public, but AFTER the game had been bought and shipped, Atari announced that they were cancelling every existing contract with distributors and signing with only a select few.
So distributors, now pissed off and with an abundance of games that were NOT selling and with prices slashed horribly to sell games that people were quickly losing interest in, retailers put their claims to return a collective 2.5-3.5 million copies back to Atari. Atari, unable to recycle the cartridges or resell them in any way, wound up burying them in the Nevada desert.


This caused the Video Game Crash of the early 80s that put a dark mark on video games until Nintendo (and in some small part other game companies) to revive later. 
 It was the perfect storm. An over-hyped overpriced game sold to an increasingly frustrated and over-saturated market with retailers scrambling to make a dime while Game Devs blame the market for poor sales.

Some say the proverbial planets are aligning again, with way too many consoles putting way too samey games on the market at way too high a cost with a strong dependence on Pre-orders and pre-order exclusives.

Wanna give the game a shot?  Internet Archives actually has a copy of it at this link:
https://archive.org/details/E.T._The_Extra-Terrestrial_1982_Atari_NTSC

this is like the dutch tulip bubble of our times

    

        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
    

    

        

            
            

                
                80s, Bad, and Christmas: Chris Kohler @kobunheat 18m
 We have ET. WE HAVE ET pic.twitter.com/fIPTXgsyoo
 Expand
 4, Reply
 Retweet ★ Favorite More

 Chris Kohler @kobunheat-4m
 Close up. pic.twitter.com/inSKukib24
 ATARI
 75
 Expand
 Reply Retweet FavoriteMoe
lightspeedsound:

videogamesarepurehappiness:

maqdaddio:

ask-gallows-callibrator:

vergess:

coelasquid:

derples:

raisehelia:

cavebae:

estpolis:

mrdappersden:

They did it, they fucking did it.

holyfducjk

HISTORY

holy shit!

can someone explain this to me

Thirty years ago a legendary ET game came to fruition, so awful that as the tale told, all unsold copies of it were buried in a pit in New Mexico. A documentary film crew has just unearthed the stash, proving the legend true.

I don’t think people fully grasp just how awful it was. This one game, by the sheer merit of its unmatched shittiness, destroyed the video game and console market so thoroughly that the at home video game nearly went the way of the 8-track player.
It was literally so awful that it nearly changed the entire course of technology.

how can a video game possibly be that bad

People don’t really understand why it was terrible though, and the reasons why are extremely important and relevant especially today.
The game itself is bad, yes. It was built up to be an exciting hit for kids to play at Christmas in 1982. So much in fact, that retailers bought WAY more stock then could every be sold based on the hype.
However, people at the time liked the game. It looks bad now, but the game itself was pretty on par with the times. It wound up selling 1.5 million copies. Which would be great, except Atari was expecting to sell 4-5 million.
While initial reception was positive, critics started panning the game as critics do. While it was no worse than most other games at the time, it was stil frustrating and hard to play. It could not live up to the hype that had been built and negative press built up quickly.
But what was ALSO happening was a flood of cheap imitations on the market. ET is a licensed game, and like all licenses comes at a higher markup. So if you wanted to buy a game for yourself or your kid, would you buy 1 game, or 2 for the same price?
Atari was also screwing around with how they handled their distributors. Just before the game went to public, but AFTER the game had been bought and shipped, Atari announced that they were cancelling every existing contract with distributors and signing with only a select few.
So distributors, now pissed off and with an abundance of games that were NOT selling and with prices slashed horribly to sell games that people were quickly losing interest in, retailers put their claims to return a collective 2.5-3.5 million copies back to Atari. Atari, unable to recycle the cartridges or resell them in any way, wound up burying them in the Nevada desert.


This caused the Video Game Crash of the early 80s that put a dark mark on video games until Nintendo (and in some small part other game companies) to revive later. 
 It was the perfect storm. An over-hyped overpriced game sold to an increasingly frustrated and over-saturated market with retailers scrambling to make a dime while Game Devs blame the market for poor sales.

Some say the proverbial planets are aligning again, with way too many consoles putting way too samey games on the market at way too high a cost with a strong dependence on Pre-orders and pre-order exclusives.

Wanna give the game a shot?  Internet Archives actually has a copy of it at this link:
https://archive.org/details/E.T._The_Extra-Terrestrial_1982_Atari_NTSC

this is like the dutch tulip bubble of our times

                
            

            
            
lightspeedsound:

videogamesarepurehappiness:

maqdaddio:

ask-gallows-callibrator:

vergess:

coelasquid:

derples:

raisehelia:

cavebae:
...

            
            
        

    



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            




    Bailey Jay, Bones, and Life: S TOME OF BEASTS
 SKELETON, SHARKJAW
 orm approaches through the murky
 ter, but as it nears, it becomes clear that this is
 no living thing. It is made entirely of sharks'jaws
 joined together and brought to life with grim maga
 Made from numerous, interlocking shark's jaws,
 The bumanoid form approaches through
 wa
 these horrors are animated through foul magic into
 a large, vaguely humanoid shape. Sahuagin priests
 animate them to guard their sepulchers of bones
 These sharkjaw skeletons lie among great piles of
 bones, waiting to rise up and attack any uninvited souls
 who invade the sanctity of sahuagin holy sites. Others
 guard pirate treasures or
 ancient shipwrecks
 UNDEAD AUTOMATON.
 Being mindless, sharkjaw
 skeletons do nothing
 without orders from their
 creator, and they follow those
 instructions explicitly. A sharkjaw
 skeleton's creator can give it new
 commands as long as the skeleton
 s within 60 feet and can see and
 ear its creator. Otherwise, a
 arkjaw skeleton follows its last
 structions to the best of its ability and
 the exclusion of all else, though it will
 ays fight back if attacked.
 DEAD NATURE. A shroud doesn't require
 ood, drink, or sleep
 AW SKELETON
 ad, lawful evil
 s 13 (natural armor)
 15 (6d10 + 12)
 swim 30 ft.
 Languages understands the languages of its creator
 can't speak
 Challenge 1 (200 XP)
 X CON NT
bunjywunjy:
ketchuplaser:

bunjywunjy:

armchair-factotum:

young-replica:
???????
The wizard that made this knew exactly what they wanted

…okay my next character is going to be one of these with Groucho Marx glasses

@bunjywunjy, I got you. I was going to name them Captain Sharkjaw, but you do you.
“I once killed a Owlbear in my pajamas. How it got into my pajamas I’ll never know.”

now he’s Groucho Sharks

    

        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
    

    

        

            
            

                
                Bailey Jay, Bones, and Life: S TOME OF BEASTS
 SKELETON, SHARKJAW
 orm approaches through the murky
 ter, but as it nears, it becomes clear that this is
 no living thing. It is made entirely of sharks'jaws
 joined together and brought to life with grim maga
 Made from numerous, interlocking shark's jaws,
 The bumanoid form approaches through
 wa
 these horrors are animated through foul magic into
 a large, vaguely humanoid shape. Sahuagin priests
 animate them to guard their sepulchers of bones
 These sharkjaw skeletons lie among great piles of
 bones, waiting to rise up and attack any uninvited souls
 who invade the sanctity of sahuagin holy sites. Others
 guard pirate treasures or
 ancient shipwrecks
 UNDEAD AUTOMATON.
 Being mindless, sharkjaw
 skeletons do nothing
 without orders from their
 creator, and they follow those
 instructions explicitly. A sharkjaw
 skeleton's creator can give it new
 commands as long as the skeleton
 s within 60 feet and can see and
 ear its creator. Otherwise, a
 arkjaw skeleton follows its last
 structions to the best of its ability and
 the exclusion of all else, though it will
 ays fight back if attacked.
 DEAD NATURE. A shroud doesn't require
 ood, drink, or sleep
 AW SKELETON
 ad, lawful evil
 s 13 (natural armor)
 15 (6d10 + 12)
 swim 30 ft.
 Languages understands the languages of its creator
 can't speak
 Challenge 1 (200 XP)
 X CON NT
bunjywunjy:
ketchuplaser:

bunjywunjy:

armchair-factotum:

young-replica:
???????
The wizard that made this knew exactly what they wanted

…okay my next character is going to be one of these with Groucho Marx glasses

@bunjywunjy, I got you. I was going to name them Captain Sharkjaw, but you do you.
“I once killed a Owlbear in my pajamas. How it got into my pajamas I’ll never know.”

now he’s Groucho Sharks

                
            

            
            
bunjywunjy:
ketchuplaser:

bunjywunjy:

armchair-factotum:

young-replica:
???????
The wizard that made this knew exactly what they wanted

...

            
            
        

    



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            




    Blessed, Club, and Life: Medusa
 was
 defendin
 herself
 rs
geekremix:
xenaamazon:

awkward-dark-mori-girl:

takealookatyourlife:

takealookatyourlife:
Athena blessed her with the ability to protect herself and men beheaded her for it.

That’s actually a really intetesting intpretation of it I hadn’t thought of. Most people seem to think Athena turned Medusa into a gorgon as punishment for defiling her temple, but thinking that she did so to protect her from being abused again is interesting and I like it!


Athena’s hands were tied. Yes, she was a powerful Goddess, but she was very much a woman in a “boys club”, and the true offending party (don’t think for a moment that Athena blamed Medusa for being raped in the temple, Athena knows better) held all the cards. There was nothing that Athena could do to punish the true criminal, and she was expected to punish Medusa by everyone else. What’s a Goddess to do when she cannot punish those who need to be punished and is expected to punish not only the truly innocent party, but her most beloved follower? Use that incredible brain power she had to protect Medusa at all costs, and of course the men would see it as punishment, to be have her beauty stripped from her and sent to live in the shadows. Medusa should have been KILLED for supposedly defiling the temple, whether she truly did or not, but she was given the gift of life, and the ability to protect herself and her daughters (who she bore thanks to Poseidon). This is why Medusa’s image was used to signify woman’s shelters and safe houses.
Medusa means “guardian; protectress”, and she was.

holy shit.

    

        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
    

    

        

            
            

                
                Blessed, Club, and Life: Medusa
 was
 defendin
 herself
 rs
geekremix:
xenaamazon:

awkward-dark-mori-girl:

takealookatyourlife:

takealookatyourlife:
Athena blessed her with the ability to protect herself and men beheaded her for it.

That’s actually a really intetesting intpretation of it I hadn’t thought of. Most people seem to think Athena turned Medusa into a gorgon as punishment for defiling her temple, but thinking that she did so to protect her from being abused again is interesting and I like it!


Athena’s hands were tied. Yes, she was a powerful Goddess, but she was very much a woman in a “boys club”, and the true offending party (don’t think for a moment that Athena blamed Medusa for being raped in the temple, Athena knows better) held all the cards. There was nothing that Athena could do to punish the true criminal, and she was expected to punish Medusa by everyone else. What’s a Goddess to do when she cannot punish those who need to be punished and is expected to punish not only the truly innocent party, but her most beloved follower? Use that incredible brain power she had to protect Medusa at all costs, and of course the men would see it as punishment, to be have her beauty stripped from her and sent to live in the shadows. Medusa should have been KILLED for supposedly defiling the temple, whether she truly did or not, but she was given the gift of life, and the ability to protect herself and her daughters (who she bore thanks to Poseidon). This is why Medusa’s image was used to signify woman’s shelters and safe houses.
Medusa means “guardian; protectress”, and she was.

holy shit.

                
            

            
            
geekremix:
xenaamazon:

awkward-dark-mori-girl:

takealookatyourlife:

takealookatyourlife:
Athena blessed her with the ability to protect h...

            
            
        

    



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            



        

            
        
        

            




    80s, Bad, and Christmas: Chris Kohler @kobunheat 18m
 We have ET. WE HAVE ET pic.twitter.com/fIPTXgsyoo
 Expand
 4, Reply
 Retweet ★ Favorite More

 Chris Kohler @kobunheat-4m
 Close up. pic.twitter.com/inSKukib24
 ATARI
 75
 Expand
 Reply Retweet FavoriteMoe
lightspeedsound:

videogamesarepurehappiness:

maqdaddio:

ask-gallows-callibrator:

vergess:

coelasquid:

derples:

raisehelia:

cavebae:

estpolis:

mrdappersden:

They did it, they fucking did it.

holyfducjk

HISTORY

holy shit!

can someone explain this to me

Thirty years ago a legendary ET game came to fruition, so awful that as the tale told, all unsold copies of it were buried in a pit in New Mexico. A documentary film crew has just unearthed the stash, proving the legend true.

I don’t think people fully grasp just how awful it was. This one game, by the sheer merit of its unmatched shittiness, destroyed the video game and console market so thoroughly that the at home video game nearly went the way of the 8-track player.
It was literally so awful that it nearly changed the entire course of technology.

how can a video game possibly be that bad

People don’t really understand why it was terrible though, and the reasons why are extremely important and relevant especially today.
The game itself is bad, yes. It was built up to be an exciting hit for kids to play at Christmas in 1982. So much in fact, that retailers bought WAY more stock then could every be sold based on the hype.
However, people at the time liked the game. It looks bad now, but the game itself was pretty on par with the times. It wound up selling 1.5 million copies. Which would be great, except Atari was expecting to sell 4-5 million.
While initial reception was positive, critics started panning the game as critics do. While it was no worse than most other games at the time, it was stil frustrating and hard to play. It could not live up to the hype that had been built and negative press built up quickly.
But what was ALSO happening was a flood of cheap imitations on the market. ET is a licensed game, and like all licenses comes at a higher markup. So if you wanted to buy a game for yourself or your kid, would you buy 1 game, or 2 for the same price?
Atari was also screwing around with how they handled their distributors. Just before the game went to public, but AFTER the game had been bought and shipped, Atari announced that they were cancelling every existing contract with distributors and signing with only a select few.
So distributors, now pissed off and with an abundance of games that were NOT selling and with prices slashed horribly to sell games that people were quickly losing interest in, retailers put their claims to return a collective 2.5-3.5 million copies back to Atari. Atari, unable to recycle the cartridges or resell them in any way, wound up burying them in the Nevada desert.


This caused the Video Game Crash of the early 80s that put a dark mark on video games until Nintendo (and in some small part other game companies) to revive later. 
 It was the perfect storm. An over-hyped overpriced game sold to an increasingly frustrated and over-saturated market with retailers scrambling to make a dime while Game Devs blame the market for poor sales.

Some say the proverbial planets are aligning again, with way too many consoles putting way too samey games on the market at way too high a cost with a strong dependence on Pre-orders and pre-order exclusives.

Wanna give the game a shot?  Internet Archives actually has a copy of it at this link:
https://archive.org/details/E.T._The_Extra-Terrestrial_1982_Atari_NTSC

this is like the dutch tulip bubble of our times

    

        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
    

    

        

            
            

                
                80s, Bad, and Christmas: Chris Kohler @kobunheat 18m
 We have ET. WE HAVE ET pic.twitter.com/fIPTXgsyoo
 Expand
 4, Reply
 Retweet ★ Favorite More

 Chris Kohler @kobunheat-4m
 Close up. pic.twitter.com/inSKukib24
 ATARI
 75
 Expand
 Reply Retweet FavoriteMoe
lightspeedsound:

videogamesarepurehappiness:

maqdaddio:

ask-gallows-callibrator:

vergess:

coelasquid:

derples:

raisehelia:

cavebae:

estpolis:

mrdappersden:

They did it, they fucking did it.

holyfducjk

HISTORY

holy shit!

can someone explain this to me

Thirty years ago a legendary ET game came to fruition, so awful that as the tale told, all unsold copies of it were buried in a pit in New Mexico. A documentary film crew has just unearthed the stash, proving the legend true.

I don’t think people fully grasp just how awful it was. This one game, by the sheer merit of its unmatched shittiness, destroyed the video game and console market so thoroughly that the at home video game nearly went the way of the 8-track player.
It was literally so awful that it nearly changed the entire course of technology.

how can a video game possibly be that bad

People don’t really understand why it was terrible though, and the reasons why are extremely important and relevant especially today.
The game itself is bad, yes. It was built up to be an exciting hit for kids to play at Christmas in 1982. So much in fact, that retailers bought WAY more stock then could every be sold based on the hype.
However, people at the time liked the game. It looks bad now, but the game itself was pretty on par with the times. It wound up selling 1.5 million copies. Which would be great, except Atari was expecting to sell 4-5 million.
While initial reception was positive, critics started panning the game as critics do. While it was no worse than most other games at the time, it was stil frustrating and hard to play. It could not live up to the hype that had been built and negative press built up quickly.
But what was ALSO happening was a flood of cheap imitations on the market. ET is a licensed game, and like all licenses comes at a higher markup. So if you wanted to buy a game for yourself or your kid, would you buy 1 game, or 2 for the same price?
Atari was also screwing around with how they handled their distributors. Just before the game went to public, but AFTER the game had been bought and shipped, Atari announced that they were cancelling every existing contract with distributors and signing with only a select few.
So distributors, now pissed off and with an abundance of games that were NOT selling and with prices slashed horribly to sell games that people were quickly losing interest in, retailers put their claims to return a collective 2.5-3.5 million copies back to Atari. Atari, unable to recycle the cartridges or resell them in any way, wound up burying them in the Nevada desert.


This caused the Video Game Crash of the early 80s that put a dark mark on video games until Nintendo (and in some small part other game companies) to revive later. 
 It was the perfect storm. An over-hyped overpriced game sold to an increasingly frustrated and over-saturated market with retailers scrambling to make a dime while Game Devs blame the market for poor sales.

Some say the proverbial planets are aligning again, with way too many consoles putting way too samey games on the market at way too high a cost with a strong dependence on Pre-orders and pre-order exclusives.

Wanna give the game a shot?  Internet Archives actually has a copy of it at this link:
https://archive.org/details/E.T._The_Extra-Terrestrial_1982_Atari_NTSC

this is like the dutch tulip bubble of our times

                
            

            
            
lightspeedsound:

videogamesarepurehappiness:

maqdaddio:

ask-gallows-callibrator:

vergess:

coelasquid:

derples:

raisehelia:

cavebae:
...