The Unholiest of gaming urban legends is true.... Massive Atari horde found in New Mexico

[Ratty]

Now the most important question needs to be answered:

Do they still work?

Another important question is is any of that stuff worth anything? No seriously, I'm genuinely curious as to whether any of that is worth more now than when it was buried.

If this town does the smart thing and numbers/issues letters of authenticity with these attesting to the fact these particular copies were "found in the legendary E.T. landfill" they will probably be more valuable to collectors. But generally speaking no, these games haven't held their value very well. E.T. and Centipede are pretty common cartridges. I've got like 2 or 3 copies of E.T. myself, not even on purpose.

And E.T. is NOT the worst game on the 2600, you just have to read the instructions to know what the hell you're doing, which is par for the course back then for almost any game more complicated than "shoot the square with your triangle".

 

[Saltyk]

It was real!? I always figured it was a joke exaggerating just how bad the game was. I can't believe that they actually did that.

It's equally shocking that someone actually found it. Was it part of an landfill or did they just dig a random hole out somewhere and dump the things on in? I ask as it would be very hard to find something like that in a landfill. There would be so much other random stuff to look through.

 

[FPLOON]

Good... Now, they should play it and see what happens to their soul or something...

Call it a "seal of approval" or something like that...

 

[tangoprime]

Don't they know what they have done? We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but this day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from this revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

Truer words have not been spoken. These men have uncovered that which should not be, and I fear our very existence may not be able to survive even learning what hath been reawakened from it's dark torpor.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Such concentrated evil, given thirty years of darkness to fester, to grow, to know. And now they've gone and brought it back into the light of day.

If anyone needs me, I'll be on the street corner, waving an "The End is Nigh" sign.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

At first I thought that the news about uncovering the hoax was in itself a hoax, but it looks legit. And to think I grew up hearing stories of this anti-Dorado of gaming.

 

[Nowhere Man]

Wouldn't it be funny if it's the sinister forces this excavation unleashed that finally causes the great gaming crash of 2014?

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

That site should now become Mecca for the video gaming world. We must all go on at least one pilgrimage there in our lifetimes.

 

[Stg]

I knew living in New Mexico would pay off eventually.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

...Well sonovabitch, the rumors were true after all! Question is why anyone would go looking for a game that might not have been the worse ever made... but still was bad enough for them to bury copies of the game. Frankly, I'm more interested in what they're going to do with all this shovelware...

 

[Sean Hollyman]

This is the most important discovery since Lego. But now I get a weird feeling that some great evil Atari spirit has been unleashed on the world.

 

[Mr.Mattress]

I thought most people believed hat this was true, and that gaming's unholiest of gaming urban legends was Polybius [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polybius_(video_game)]?

Still, it's cool that they finally found it.