Atari’s Infamous 1983 Video Game Burial: The Truth Behind the Urban Legend

The Atari video game burial was a mass burial of unsold video game cartridges, consoles, and computers by Atari in a New Mexico landfill in 1983. Before 2014, the burial was rumored to be unsold copies of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, one of the biggest video game commercial failures.

sketchnote an illustrations by Andy McNally

Atari officials verified that it was around 700.000 cartridges of various games, including E.T.

illustrations by Andy McNally

The burial was long thought to be an urban legend, but the documentary Atari: Game Over worked with the New Mexico government to excavate the site of the landfill. The excavation revealed discarded games and hardware. The cause of the mass game burial is considered to be a result of the video game industry crash of 1983.

Here is the trailer for the documentary.