E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

No one remembers the worst game ever made. We don't remember the games that are purely awful; we remember the games that fail spectacularly. Amidst a grey sea of interactive flash ads and licensed LCD key chains, occasionally something truly terrible rises ominous from the waves of normalcy.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is frequently regarded as the worst game ever. The financial collapse of Atari Inc and the 1983 crash of the entire North American video game market are blamed on E.T. It's completely unfair of course. [ . . . ]

This article was originally written for Hardcore Gaming 101 (HG 101), a site that explores the history and culture of videogames. You can read or discuss it there: