E.T. might be considered the worst, but Pac-Man for the 2600 was surely the most disappointing. The plumber wrench Pac-Man had to be one of the worst adaptations ever. The 8-bit Atari computer version was such a amazing leap.
The making of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the “worst” video game
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Re: The making of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the “worst” video game
#12The Icarus effect here is both sad and eye-opening: After Atari crumbled, his outsized role in the video game crisis earned him a scarlet letter in the industry. He found work as a real estate broker and spent nearly 2 decades soul searching before discovering his true passion: psychotherapy. A man of that talent should never have had to work as a real estate broker. It's almost as if the business put him in a positi…
I love his outlook on the whole thing, though. Summed up at the end of the article:
“Now, I kind of prefer it when people call E.T. the worst game ever,” he says. “Yars’ Revenge is considered one of the best games, so as long as E.T. is the worst, I have the greatest range of any designer in history.”
Re: The making of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the “worst” video game
#13I played this as a kid, without knowing anything about it, on my uncle’s Atari. God, it’s such a horrible game. And I loved Yar’s Revenge!
Re: The making of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the “worst” video game
#14Howard Scott Warshaw did a postmortem talk @ GDC for Yars' Revenge, in it he speaks briefly about E.T. as well. I found it interesting, worth a listen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqH4k_OEqhY
Postmortem? He's very much alive
Re: The making of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the “worst” video game
#15[deleted]
Re: The making of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the “worst” video game
#16The Icarus effect here is both sad and eye-opening: After Atari crumbled, his outsized role in the video game crisis earned him a scarlet letter in the industry. He found work as a real estate broker and spent nearly 2 decades soul searching before discovering his true passion: psychotherapy. A man of that talent should never have had to work as a real estate broker. It's almost as if the business put him in a positi…
How important is to learn to say “no”.
Re: The making of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the “worst” video game
#17Howard Scott Warshaw did a postmortem talk @ GDC for Yars' Revenge, in it he speaks briefly about E.T. as well. I found it interesting, worth a listen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqH4k_OEqhY
Postmortem? He's very much alive
Postmortem refers to the subject not the person. It’s a term Beverly commonly used in tech circles: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmortem_documentation
Re: The making of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the “worst” video game
#18E.T. might be considered the worst, but Pac-Man for the 2600 was surely the most disappointing. The plumber wrench Pac-Man had to be one of the worst adaptations ever. The 8-bit Atari computer version was such a amazing leap.
What was disappointing about it? I owned an Atari 2600 and played Pac-Man many times. But I've never played it on another game console or in an arcade, so I'm not sure what I was missing.
Re: The making of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the “worst” video game
#19The Icarus effect here is both sad and eye-opening: After Atari crumbled, his outsized role in the video game crisis earned him a scarlet letter in the industry. He found work as a real estate broker and spent nearly 2 decades soul searching before discovering his true passion: psychotherapy. A man of that talent should never have had to work as a real estate broker. It's almost as if the business put him in a positi…
I know some extremely intelligent and hard working real estate brokers, and they earn salaries above the techies. Every industry has winners!
Re: The making of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the “worst” video game
#20Wikipedia has a really good history on the video game crash of 1983. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983
The revenue curve beautifully resembles the hype cycle.