The New York Times for Atari

June 5, 2014

It’s a fitting symbol for Atari that the most attention it has received in years occurred when one of its products, a notorious flop, was excavated from a landfill in April.

For three decades, it was rumored that Atari had buried that product, an unsuccessful video game based on the movie “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” in the New Mexico desert to get rid of unsold inventory. It took a documentary film crew scratching some copies out of the earth to confirm the legend.