I'm not trying to offend you, but the reason why most modern games take years is that now there are 3D graphics, tons of different art styles, more coding to make the gameplay longer and better, and a lot more features to implement. Atari games probably only take a few weeks to make because there's 2D graphics, only a single art style (the blocky one seen in the video), and there's not enough memory for gameplay and a lot of features. TL;DR: There's a lot more coding involved when making modern games.
Hard to call a game a failure that people are still obsessing over 30 years later. Name one other Atari game that has such cult status! It’s like the Tommy Wiseau of video games....
I really like seeing the other side of the story. This man doesn't deserve as much flack as he got, he was given very little to work with, with very little time. It was the company's fault for not giving him time, not his for making mistakes born out of a rush.
Duster and kumatora have crippling depression I wish she was there too, but requests like those are reasonable, but still will never happen. Nintendo is already barely giving Mother 3 any more attention. If some American players barely recognize the main character (cuz his game was Japan only, many never heard of him) why would they recognize a side character? Still, it would be cool, and we always have... Ugh... Mii Fighters.
A challenger who happened to approach Or something ikr it's stupid lucas' specials make no sense he can't use a single one of them but kumatora can come on at least an alternate costume because it totally makes sense we got a duster alt
Gold example of CORPORATE GREED. They only gave him 5 weeks so that they can sell for incoming christmas season. The company paid the price for being too greedy.
So, let me get this straight. Atari has titles that sell millions of copies, thus generating millions in profit. Atari tosses Howard Scott a few bucks to make E.T. in 5 weeks, which ALSO sold over a million copies, generating millions in profit. And somehow it is Howard Scott's fault that Atari had to layoff thousands of people? ......ok. One guy made a game in 5 weeks that generated millions of dollars.
That would be correct. So no, it´s not Howard Scott Warshaw´s fault that Atari had to lay off a lot of people (I also find it to be somewhat bizarre that some people blame the North American video game crash on Warshaw as well).
Yeah it's not true. Most game historians agree that the game crash was caused by a mixture of the PC price war between Commodore and Apple, the overabundance of low quality games and too many consoles released at the same time (There were a total of 15 consoles released through the 2nd generation (1976-1983)). A lot of these claims were made in the 90's without any sources or references to back it up.
Problem was, they made too many ET Carts. 5-8 million depending on the source. Only about 3 million got sold in total. So whatever stock they cleared out one distribution center and that went to Alamagordo which is where they dug up some of them (there is more than likely still a shitload of Atari stuff in that landfill. They didn't dig all of it up, they only had 1/2 a day to do it in and they never cracked the cement barrier that sealed the rest off, they found the cement though so the cementing part was true as well.
I love how accomplished his tone is, despite the controversy the game had. If I ever meet him in person, I want to shake his hand out of pure respect. Also like everyone else said, having only 5 weeks is way out of anyone's league to be at fault of a bad game design. I point that mistake to the company.
GoldenFox i fully agree. What is up with that freaking CEO? I bet five weeks is not enough, and what’s worse is that Howard got all the blame for nothing. The CEO didn’t even admit that he was responsible. Bruh, what is wrong with people back then?
@@rickengaming9136 well, you didn't create the game from scratch, and you have modern computers and so much more knowledge than the developers back then.
MBisgarbo - yeah AND he took responsibility for the glitch that made the game almost unplayable. Tou are so right - this guy faced his mistskes and chose to evolve rathet than sink into pity. Bravo!
True. It shouldn't be on this guy's shoulders that they released a buggy game where you fall down a pit while trying to get out. There are bosses to approve it, and playtesters to check it (like in the video about Imagic's _Atlantis)._ They decided that anything with a good license will sell and they were right with _Pac-Man, E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark,_ and _Donkey Kong_ which all sold over a million. I was thinking of the guy who made one of the worst Atari games, _Chase the Chuckwagon_ in 3 days, where you don't even chase it. I would have called in sick to give me another 3 days. People feel sorry for all those kids that ate dogfood to get a "free" Atari cartridge. Joke.
Worst game ever? This man did his damnedest for only having 5 weeks! There are games made today (and that will continually be pushed out into the market) that are truely terrible because no effort, thought, nor planning went into 'em. They're soulless. Most kid's games are a "great" example of this. As are most of the ipad, tablet, or phone games out there.
Kids game are made in weeks too and let be honnest, no one is motivated at making kid games. Also 5 week isnt that much but it still isnt too bad for the time. Today games are complexes and require alot of time but todays game coding is like millions pf time bigger than it was at the time. If anything ET most likely is a 15 page of code game. But yea I think he should just not have picked this job, 5 week and a shity Idea? Fuck no
My dad had a copy and I played it when I was very young, it was a confusing game. Coming from games like Super Mario 64 and Pokemon Snap, there was very little given on what to do in the E.T. Video game. Knowing now that it was rushed, makes sense. It was a messy game, but, a memorable one still talked about years later.
Five weeks? They give this guy a miserly five weeks to work on the game? No wonder the game was bad. The guy didn't had enough time to work on it. Man, Imagine how things would've turned out if he did had more time to work on the game. It would probably been way more better then what we had gotten. All I can say is that this guy don't deserve any flack for this game. It's all Atari's fault.
Five weeks? They give this guy a miserly five weeks to work on the game? No wonder the game was bad. The guy didn't had enough time to work on it. Man, Imagine how things would've turned out if he did had more time to work on the game. It would probably been way more better then what we had gotten. All I can say is that this guy don't deserve any flack for this game. It's all Atari's fault.
Talk to Ray Kassar, it was his orders to do the game in 5 weeks. They didn't contract HSW until late July as it took Atari that long to get the game rights from Spielberg. Spielberg did ok the game. Now you can enjoy it on the NES, thanks to homebrew creator Khan Games who ported it over. I have the NES version.
Five weeks? They give this guy a miserly five weeks to work on the game? No wonder the game was bad. The guy didn't had enough time to work on it. Man, Imagine how things would've turned out if he did had more time to work on the game. It would probably been way more better then what we had gotten. All I can say is that this guy don't deserve any flack for this game. It's all Atari's fault.
Not the worst game of all time. It can be beaten if you know what you're doing. There are plenty of games out there that don't even do that. No, it didn't cause the video game crash, either. That was due to the hubris of Atari of America's president at the time. He believed that brand name alone - E.T. and Pac-Man - would sell ANYTHING. Hell, he even got fired amidst the backlash of it all.
It’s Atari’s fault, they gave him a shot amount of time to create it just five weeks?!! And plus they literally skipped the testing due to time limitations because they have to release the game by Christmas Edit: the game released on December 1982
Some of their other games came out in January or Spring (like Pac-Man) and sold, so it was short-term thinking. The head of Atari, worth millions, was charged with insider trading because he dumped his stock to save $50,000 in losses before his announcement that profits were not as expected. (He won on appeal, probably because he wasn't a woman like Martha Stewart years later.)
Believe it or not, AVGN (Angry Video Game Nerd) approves this game. He says it can be frustrating and challenging,but that's what makes the game addicting...
GamingXPLego / CubingXPLego Im not sure about addicting but he did say the game should be treated with respect because its a major part of video game history.
PixCel Little Miss Gamer even said serious tips and instructions were also made for the game. But people like Irate Gamer thought instructions were a waste of time, so when the original F-ZERO came out, possibly most people just popped in the cartridge without reading the manual. Therefore, when Captain Falcon was added to the Super Smash Bros. series, many thought he never fought, but the manual proves it.
That last line he said, with the animation, really touched me. I felt like crying. Loving the game he had made despite the world laughing at it, mocking it, looking down on it. Amazing attitude.
At least he's honest about his game being bad and he accepts it, unlike a certain gaming giant (yes EA, I'm looking at you). He's essentially the Jon Basso of gaming.
***** no on the original console, people do make games for them still. i mean the re-made pac man just shows that it's capable of amazing games given the time. They just rushed the games out.
The game would be much better But it would also be funny to see E.T on the Nintendo switch or something even though the whole turning movies into games stuff was like way 80s
I think a big contributor to the game's infamy is that the majority of people calling it the worst game ever have never played a 2600 game, so have no idea how it actually stacks up to other games of the time. Atari wasn't able to do what Nintendo would a few years later and have mandatory quality checks before a game could be released for their system: there are tons of absolutely terrible 2600 games, much worse than ET, which probably did a lot more to cause the crash. That said, ET isn't a GREAT game, and it under-performing (compared to what Atari expected) was definitely a big issue... but c'mon, it's nowhere near the worst game ever. Just look at Steam Greenlight.
Yeah such quality checks which allowed Uncanny X-Men, Hydlide,Total Recall (I like that game though, most people think it sucks), Back to the Future games (I like the first game, hated the sequels games), Bill and Ted Shitty Video game Adventure just to name a few of the garbage ass games on the NES that ALL had the Nintendo Seal of Approval.
I don't remember E.T. being that bad. It got played from time to time unlike other games we had. As far as Sonic, I never liked any of them because of all the colors where it was hard to tell what was going on, I still have that problem today, specially with some of the mario cart like racing games, I can't tell where the road is going half the time, if they left out lots of these effects and coins flashing all over maybe I could see where I'm going.
Imagine if a best selling game like Super Mario Galaxy, Minecraft or even Call fo Duty had only 5 weeks to be made. This is what that guy had to go through.
Super Mario Galaxy’s a masterpiece and my favorite game of all time! With such a short deadline it wouldn’t have been anything spectacular, not even close.
I mean... A great failure is still really great. The game still has publicity even 35 years later. And it will always have a special place in almost any "video game history timeline"
endutaas 212131 Wrong reasons though? I would have preferred if he had more time to work on the game so he could've made a good E.T. game, but if Atari hadn't crashed and burned Nintendo wouldn't have risen so much and probably even Sega (in its early days, not what has become of Sega now). He caused a major dent in gaming by making a game in five weeks, it's quite epic honestly.
I'm 42, i started with Atari, i played ET, i don't remember what i did in the game, but seeing it again brings back those times. Pitfall was the really fun one, i'd play it now if i could.
This interview didn't really make it clear as to whether he accepted Atari's offer BEFORE he knew the terms of the contract (which was that he had less than 5 weeks to complete it) or if he accepted Atari's offer AFTER he knew the conditions. If he blindly accepted the job BEFORE knowing anything about the work being asked, he's an uninformed idiot. If he accepted the job AFTER knowing about the fact that he was only given less than 5 weeks then he's an informed idiot.
The average development of game in the 80's is usally many months or even years it would be pretty reasonable for him to think et would have a similar time develop
@@GiordanDiodato _Chase the Chuckwagon_ was done in 3 days, I'm told and is unplayable after a couple minutes, and the dog doesn't even chase the chuckwagon. (Think about those poor kids who ate dogfood to get a free Atari cart.) But how many disappointing games would you buy before saying, "No more," or "Atari sucks?" _E.T._ was one of 4 disappointing games that sold over 1 million copies (no Intellivision game sold that except _Poker and Blackjack_ which was bundled). *_Raiders of the Lost Ark,_ *_Donkey Kong,_ and *_Pac-Man._ But at least kids enjoyed playing the last two, not so much Raiders. Why these two movie adaptations couldn't be action games like _Wild Western_ and _Paperboy_ is beyond me.
Having played both ET and Raiders for the Atari when I was a kid and having recently figured out how Yar's Revenge works, I can say that Howard's games are not the kind that you just pick up and play. You have to read the manual first. Kind of like most board games.
I mean if I bullshitted a game in 5 weeks with only a computer from the 80's and it make national coverage then I would be way more surprised than embarrassed.
silver Sam second zip fast forward 2017, add ark survival/atlas, bvroom in the night sky, and why not No man sky in the beginning. All of them were just bad and what’s worse is, they get worse.
I'm an Atari fan and I do like E.T it's a good game all you have to do is just read the instructions it's simple when you read the instructions. It's really easy when you read them
"I'm an Atari fan" Really? In 2018? Really? Atari sucked balls dude. The ONLY reason people like it is because of nostalgia for games they played as kids in a time where games were so primitive they couldn't even move past a primitive vector system.
Well, most Atari fans are coming from a place of nostalgia. Warren Robinett was widely praised for Atari 2600 Adventure, my personal favorite, and how advanced it was considered in 1979. Catacombs and about twenty separate locations and one of the first (if not THE first) Easter eggs, even if the dragons did resemble ducks. The games were primitive, but we had no way of knowing how stunning graphics would become or how many options games would contain. And some of us aged out of video games (not saying they aren't a great lifelong pastime for millions, but some of us moved on to other hobbies). The last one I played regularly was Super Mario Bros. 2, and every arcade still offers Ms. PacMan for us older players.
Who programmed the Atari 2600 Pac Man? That "failed", too. I remember reading that the programmer was not even familiar with the game except that he saw it a couple of times. Heard he received a big pay day in advance and shortly was driving to work in a very fancy car. Any truth and / or clarification to those stories?
I think they actually published a prototype of the game and not the final version. They accidentally loaded the data for a earlier version but they didn’t care to change itProbably another reason why it failed.
"And so when people ask me was E.T a failure? I don't mind when people call it that, but it will never be a failure to me." Is probably the best way to end that video just kind of made me happy hearing that you know?
You'd think they'd have a sound and music guy working with the main programmers and going from game to game, but it was supposed to be a solo project, though maybe you could ask experienced programmers for tricks they've learned, before they all left for Activision and other places.
When I was 6-years-old I pretty much loved every singe Atari game.... except ET. I distinctly remember thinking in my young brain... THIS ONE SUCKS. So, that's the test. Kids hated it. It was a failure.
Why people blame this man for single handedly causing the video game market crash? The crash was because of too many consoles and to many games all at once I mean their wasn't any kind of rules for video game developers they would make a game and put it out for whatever console that caused an overflow of not just games but bad games. That's why Nintendo when it launched it had a chip in it so only they can monitor the games that were for their system
Story as old as time: Big promises, short time frame, crunch mode activated, buggy mess at launch. It does make you wonder what a proper version of the game would look like.
My question is why didn't they give him another chance to re-do the whole E.T Atari game with a longer amount of time after hearing so many people complain about the game's glitches and faults.
I guess they didn't realize how many people would return it after Christmas. Maybe if kids had returned _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ and _Pac-Man_ (and Donkey Kong) earlier that year they might have thought twice and released it in January or February. Kind of ironic that the best game of Christmas 1982 was called _Pitfall!_ since that's what's most wrong about E.T.
I just don't how understand how no other game was able to pass ET in terms of bad quality, since it is a much older game. That means that kids nowadays won't understand why this game was garbage, even by looking at the gameplay. But, there are games much worse than this. Much more noticeable and understandable bad quality.
People say its a bad game, but they don't realize how much time it takes to make a good game. In the time taken of the games production, its a great game. Yes, there are some flaws, but thats because it was developed in 5 WEEKS, not 5 MONTHS, not 5 YEARS, but 5 WEEKS
every worst decision result a big changing in industry imagine if E.T was actually good, and atari becomes more sucessfull, we would never get nintendo and super mario bross imagine if nintendo didn't mess their nintendo play station, we will never got ps4
5 weeks to work on a fucking video game, with the only problem being that the game would move into weird places? This man deserves a medal for the amount of inhumane crunch he put himself through to work on a game by himself in a span of 5 weeks with only one Major problem.
I am not charitable to Warshaw despite the tight timeframe. He pitched the game idea to Spielberg, indicating that he had time at the beginning of the process for planning before the coding. Also, there are 10,000 employees at the company. Not one of them could have helped him with at least some of the code? Also, Warshaw had time to program random easter eggs. Finally, I doubt he would have churned out a substantially different product given more time. His other game Indiana Jones suffers the same drawbacks as did E.T. but to a lesser degree. 1:56. So, the main error is that the game did not have enough continuity and so didn't make sense. After hearing Warshaw's pitch, Spielberg told him to make a Pacman-like game. So, this game already has a bunch of similarities to Pacman. There isn't a story, it is collect stuff and avoid being caught: Pacman E.T. Similarities: A puzzle like game -- eat the pellets A puzzle like game -- collect the pieces Eat the powerups, avoid the enemies Eat the powerups, avoid the enemies Enemies send you to some fixed location Enemies send you to some fixed location Differences: One continuous screen with walls 3-4 green maps with obstacles, one blue map No holes everything is visible Stuff is hidden in holes It is his innovations over Pacman (the holes, hiding stuff, and map transitions) that caused the problem with the random transitioning during game play. It is unlikely Spielberg meant "knock off Pacman." More likely, Spielberg could have been saying that Warshaw's ideas needed to be simplified in order to be implemented given the time allowed. This was GOOD and TIMELY advice from a creative person who is both smart and accomplished. Fixing this game shouldn't have been hard. All games kinda sucked back then. Just get rid of the holes (while finding a different ways to hide objects) and add some elements that survive the screen transition (like a wall or an object straddling both screens) to help with the disorientation. The timeframe provided and non-concern for quality makes the terribleness of the game mostly the fault of management. However, Warshaw himself is far from blameless. The moral of the story is to recognize the expertise of others and do not ignore constructive criticism from someone like Spielberg even if you find it hard to listen to criticism.
I used to play this when I was little. It was so frustrating and didn’t make any sense. Looking back and knowing what I know now, it was simply a hot mess.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
*creates game in five weeks*
*named “worst video game in history”*
*game is still recognizable after years of making it*
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Made my day dude.
Noice.
Underated comment.
gan average youtube comment. fortnite
*_I see this as an absolute win!_*
5 weeks to make a game? That game could have been good if there wasn't a short deadline
Agree.
6 months for me, so it can have better programming.
In 70s / 80s the memory was pretty limited So they would have to remove some stuff or leave some glitches
For five weeks though thats pretty good ngl I would’ve gave him 7 - 8 months to complete it
They were aiming for christmas
give this dude some credit, he made a game and he only had 5 weeks!
most games take years ;^;
military boi at least he tried
@@MMayel26 mhm
I actually heard it takes two years to make a video game and that’s for 2d one
I'm not trying to offend you, but the reason why most modern games take years is that now there are 3D graphics, tons of different art styles, more coding to make the gameplay longer and better, and a lot more features to implement. Atari games probably only take a few weeks to make because there's 2D graphics, only a single art style (the blocky one seen in the video), and there's not enough memory for gameplay and a lot of features.
TL;DR: There's a lot more coding involved when making modern games.
TheGalaxyCreeper 2d games are still being made
Hard to call a game a failure that people are still obsessing over 30 years later. Name one other Atari game that has such cult status! It’s like the Tommy Wiseau of video games....
Exactly, and funny they both are really great with the situation they're in.
That is very true....
The difference is Infamous and Famous. This game lives in infamy because of how bad it is.
I remember really liking pitfall :v
Obsessing over the failure of ET doesn't therefore mean it was a success. People obsess over Ted Bundy, but it doesn't mean he wasn't evil.
I really like seeing the other side of the story. This man doesn't deserve as much flack as he got, he was given very little to work with, with very little time. It was the company's fault for not giving him time, not his for making mistakes born out of a rush.
Exactly. It was only a matter of time before Atari flopped from a stupid mistake like rushing a project. They had their run in time, it was done.
Astral Showers I don't think it's a bad game at all, once you learn how to play. It's not the worst ever.
Astral Showers et is almost as bad as kumatora not being in smash
Duster and kumatora have crippling depression
I wish she was there too, but requests like those are reasonable, but still will never happen. Nintendo is already barely giving Mother 3 any more attention. If some American players barely recognize the main character (cuz his game was Japan only, many never heard of him) why would they recognize a side character? Still, it would be cool, and we always have...
Ugh...
Mii Fighters.
A challenger who happened to approach Or something ikr it's stupid lucas' specials make no sense he can't use a single one of them but kumatora can come on at least an alternate costume because it totally makes sense we got a duster alt
It’s Atari’s fault for only giving him 5 weeks
I'd give him 5 months XD
Gold example of CORPORATE GREED. They only gave him 5 weeks so that they can sell for incoming christmas season. The company paid the price for being too greedy.
I would give him an entire year
I'd give him 7 months or even 1 year!
@@thehomegrowngamerz5871 no. 5 years!
I'm glad he didn't let judgment take control of him
Creeper528 I agree my fellow creeper friend
Creeper528 I
Yeah, I mean, this guy was a pretty good model by showing that.
Creeper52
Yep he was a strong man.
So, let me get this straight.
Atari has titles that sell millions of copies, thus generating millions in profit.
Atari tosses Howard Scott a few bucks to make E.T. in 5 weeks, which ALSO sold over a million copies, generating millions in profit.
And somehow it is Howard Scott's fault that Atari had to layoff thousands of people?
......ok.
One guy made a game in 5 weeks that generated millions of dollars.
That would be correct. So no, it´s not Howard Scott Warshaw´s fault that Atari had to lay off a lot of people (I also find it to be somewhat bizarre that some people blame the North American video game crash on Warshaw as well).
Yes E.T. sold a million copies initially, but most of them were returned to retailers, so Atari had to give retailers their money back.
soulescape corporatism my dude
Yeah it's not true. Most game historians agree that the game crash was caused by a mixture of the PC price war between Commodore and Apple, the overabundance of low quality games and too many consoles released at the same time (There were a total of 15 consoles released through the 2nd generation (1976-1983)). A lot of these claims were made in the 90's without any sources or references to back it up.
Problem was, they made too many ET Carts. 5-8 million depending on the source. Only about 3 million got sold in total. So whatever stock they cleared out one distribution center and that went to Alamagordo which is where they dug up some of them (there is more than likely still a shitload of Atari stuff in that landfill. They didn't dig all of it up, they only had 1/2 a day to do it in and they never cracked the cement barrier that sealed the rest off, they found the cement though so the cementing part was true as well.
Nintendo: takes a year to make one smash bros stage
Atari: Makes a game in five weeks
*Atari game ends up being shit*
*then ataro game becomes regonizable and famous for years*
@@Yawnford Ah yes *ataro*
@@aflower6955 That's my *step-sister's* name
Dani makes 1 in a hour.
Why do people insist on calling E.T. the worst game ever? There are countless examples of far far worse games.
Love your channel bro.
Larry Bundy Jr superman 64
Larry Bundy Jr true.
E.T wasn't the worst game ever..
Fire Fly on Atari 2600 was.
*Looks at No Mans Sky.*
Larry Bundy Jr Its because when the video game crash happened, people pointed at the E.T games's design flaws as even worse.
I love how accomplished his tone is, despite the controversy the game had. If I ever meet him in person, I want to shake his hand out of pure respect. Also like everyone else said, having only 5 weeks is way out of anyone's league to be at fault of a bad game design. I point that mistake to the company.
True. He needed more time to actually think and play test for any major bugs. If he has more time, it would have been a huge success.
yeah, nowadays its more like 5 years with hundreds employees working on it
Agreed!
True true
GoldenFox i fully agree. What is up with that freaking CEO? I bet five weeks is not enough, and what’s worse is that Howard got all the blame for nothing. The CEO didn’t even admit that he was responsible. Bruh, what is wrong with people back then?
I mean you can’t blame him he had 5 weeks😂
Eat your cereal
You better eat your cereal
NO DON'T EAT YOUR CEREAL!!!
THESE THREE PEOPLE POISONED YOUR MILK!!!
Dont eat cereal, they are just little chips of boring baked wheat
@The Nuka Cola Man Cereal, Serial, Cerial, Serial, Cereal, Serial, Cereal, Serial Killer, and you are a Cereal killee
I even feel like 5 weeks to be very little time to make a school project, let alone a game.
Rafael 2105 Bruh, takes me less than 2 weeks to get a project down.
bruh, 5 weeks for a school project is soo much for me.. we only have 2 days for a 10 page essay... but you are right tho
As a programmer it took me under 3 hours to make pong
@@rickengaming9136 well, you didn't create the game from scratch, and you have modern computers and so much more knowledge than the developers back then.
Existential Machine bruh of course is easy for you to make pong under 3 hours, you are using far advanced technology then they had in 1970s😑😑
I want to have that positive of an outlook on life
Oath
MBisgarbo - yeah AND he took responsibility for the glitch that made the game almost unplayable. Tou are so right - this guy faced his mistskes and chose to evolve rathet than sink into pity. Bravo!
The CEO's fault actually for a terrible time frame. You try making a successful video game in 5 weeks including what the obstacles would be.
I mean, Cyberpunk took over 7 years and it still got rushed to production.... and look what happened. 5 weeks is practically nothing.
@@tedioussugar384 well no they only started development in 2016 after years of hyping it up
True. It shouldn't be on this guy's shoulders that they released a buggy game where you fall down a pit while trying to get out. There are bosses to approve it, and playtesters to check it (like in the video about Imagic's _Atlantis)._ They decided that anything with a good license will sell and they were right with _Pac-Man, E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark,_ and _Donkey Kong_ which all sold over a million.
I was thinking of the guy who made one of the worst Atari games, _Chase the Chuckwagon_ in 3 days, where you don't even chase it. I would have called in sick to give me another 3 days. People feel sorry for all those kids that ate dogfood to get a "free" Atari cartridge. Joke.
Worst game ever? This man did his damnedest for only having 5 weeks!
There are games made today (and that will continually be pushed out into the market) that are truely terrible because no effort, thought, nor planning went into 'em.
They're soulless.
Most kid's games are a "great" example of this. As are most of the ipad, tablet, or phone games out there.
Kids game are made in weeks too and let be honnest, no one is motivated at making kid games. Also 5 week isnt that much but it still isnt too bad for the time. Today games are complexes and require alot of time but todays game coding is like millions pf time bigger than it was at the time. If anything ET most likely is a 15 page of code game. But yea I think he should just not have picked this job, 5 week and a shity Idea? Fuck no
Colonel Gayfur is
baby hazel games are the best
So. basically 90% of "Indie" Unity games?
(jk, don't kill me 😂)
I agree with ya
About 50 years from now some late night talk show host will be playing No Mans Sky
good one
JC Even 50 years from now, nobody will touch that game.
it actually had the same problem as et they were pressured to make a game fast and then that ended up as the result
hahahha Woord
JC don't forget about nuts and bolts
is it just me or the animation for this video is so cool, no doubt.
It is cool, yes.
is it me or someone is using bold text again
He had five werks to do it.
@@devrim-oguz ah yes five werks
Thank you. I'm the animator for all GBS videos. Happy to see some appreciation. Have a great day!
A lot of people have said it before,and I'll say it again.
*_FIVE WEEKS_*
A stupid obby in ROBLOX requires 2 months (free models excluded). That game should require at least months to be developed the way the CEO wants.
@@aflower6955 Yeah my space game on roblox toom almost one yearnto develop even with a team of more than 5 devs
Only built in five weeks!? Could you imagine how bad Anthem would be if it was built in five wee......
Nevermind.
That's because Anthem was built in 5 weeks (joke)
It wasn't?
Wait no way was even that built in 5 weeks!
Alrighty, an easy jab......... take my begrudging like......
😂😂😂😂
My dad had a copy and I played it when I was very young, it was a confusing game. Coming from games like Super Mario 64 and Pokemon Snap, there was very little given on what to do in the E.T. Video game.
Knowing now that it was rushed, makes sense. It was a messy game, but, a memorable one still talked about years later.
Five weeks? They give this guy a miserly five weeks to work on the game? No wonder the game was bad. The guy didn't had enough time to work on it. Man, Imagine how things would've turned out if he did had more time to work on the game. It would probably been way more better then what we had gotten. All I can say is that this guy don't deserve any flack for this game. It's all Atari's fault.
Five weeks? They give this guy a miserly five weeks to work on the game? No wonder the game was bad. The guy didn't had enough time to work on it. Man, Imagine how things would've turned out if he did had more time to work on the game. It would probably been way more better then what we had gotten. All I can say is that this guy don't deserve any flack for this game. It's all Atari's fault.
Talk to Ray Kassar, it was his orders to do the game in 5 weeks. They didn't contract HSW until late July as it took Atari that long to get the game rights from Spielberg. Spielberg did ok the game.
Now you can enjoy it on the NES, thanks to homebrew creator Khan Games who ported it over. I have the NES version.
Five weeks? They give this guy a miserly five weeks to work on the game? No wonder the game was bad. The guy didn't had enough time to work on it. Man, Imagine how things would've turned out if he did had more time to work on the game. It would probably been way more better then what we had gotten. All I can say is that this guy don't deserve any flack for this game. It's all Atari's fault.
TheMarquilandia so can I copy and paste?
*More better*
Not the worst game of all time. It can be beaten if you know what you're doing. There are plenty of games out there that don't even do that.
No, it didn't cause the video game crash, either. That was due to the hubris of Atari of America's president at the time. He believed that brand name alone - E.T. and Pac-Man - would sell ANYTHING. Hell, he even got fired amidst the backlash of it all.
wow!
E.T didnt cause the crash by itself, but it did play a big role.
I bet you $10 AVGN can find a game 10X as atrocious as E.T
It's not that it was impossible to beat.
It's because that it become so glitchy, boring, and unenjoyable to play.
That's why it 'failed'.
The worst game of all time is *cough* Superman 64 *cough*
"the worst game ever made"
Big Rigs would like to know your location.
Desertbus*
Fortnite
Most mobile games
Awesome Possum and Bubsy 3D
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Story's moral:
Blame the CEO, not the producer.
He’s the developer
Not the producer
Love the happy ending
If you like happy endings you should get a massage sometime.
It’s Atari’s fault, they gave him a shot amount of time to create it just five weeks?!! And plus they literally skipped the testing due to time limitations because they have to release the game by Christmas
Edit: the game released on December 1982
Some of their other games came out in January or Spring (like Pac-Man) and sold, so it was short-term thinking. The head of Atari, worth millions, was charged with insider trading because he dumped his stock to save $50,000 in losses before his announcement that profits were not as expected. (He won on appeal, probably because he wasn't a woman like Martha Stewart years later.)
Believe it or not, AVGN (Angry Video Game Nerd) approves this game. He says it can be frustrating and challenging,but that's what makes the game addicting...
GamingXPLego / CubingXPLego Im not sure about addicting but he did say the game should be treated with respect because its a major part of video game history.
PixCel Little Miss Gamer even said serious tips and instructions were also made for the game. But people like Irate Gamer thought instructions were a waste of time, so when the original F-ZERO came out, possibly most people just popped in the cartridge without reading the manual. Therefore, when Captain Falcon was added to the Super Smash Bros. series, many thought he never fought, but the manual proves it.
That last line he said, with the animation, really touched me. I felt like crying. Loving the game he had made despite the world laughing at it, mocking it, looking down on it. Amazing attitude.
At least he's honest about his game being bad and he accepts it, unlike a certain gaming giant (yes EA, I'm looking at you). He's essentially the Jon Basso of gaming.
realistically it was not his fault, it was the fault of the guy that said "we need this in 5 weeks"
Daddy Supreme what do you mean?
Daddy Supreme you mean its Atari faults?
Daddy Supreme Why?
Mad Hamzo Because the CEO of Atari want it in 5 weeks
He needed Graphic designer
Damn the game was create in 5 weeks. imagine gta v was create in 5 weeks what could go wrong :v XD lol
noteamaasime notch created minecraft in 2 days!
MemeAnimator ! Oops
Well it would be SHIT
Everything really
That Pony Girl after updating it hmmmm 64 times or so
And this, Derek-San, is how you take criticism
Wonder if he has the balls to remake it with plenty of time.....
*****
no on the original console, people do make games for them still.
i mean the re-made pac man just shows that it's capable of amazing games given the time.
They just rushed the games out.
The game would be much better
But it would also be funny to see E.T on the Nintendo switch or something even though the whole turning movies into games stuff was like way 80s
I heard someone redid the pixel-checking online so you won't fall in the pits as easily when you try to leave.
I think a big contributor to the game's infamy is that the majority of people calling it the worst game ever have never played a 2600 game, so have no idea how it actually stacks up to other games of the time. Atari wasn't able to do what Nintendo would a few years later and have mandatory quality checks before a game could be released for their system: there are tons of absolutely terrible 2600 games, much worse than ET, which probably did a lot more to cause the crash.
That said, ET isn't a GREAT game, and it under-performing (compared to what Atari expected) was definitely a big issue... but c'mon, it's nowhere near the worst game ever. Just look at Steam Greenlight.
It's in high valued company such as Sonic 06, Sonic Boom, Superman 64, Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, etc.
I was going to say something similar. E.T. for the 2600 is far from the worst game ever. Now that shit heap Fire Fly for the 2600 on the other hand...
Yeah such quality checks which allowed Uncanny X-Men, Hydlide,Total Recall (I like that game though, most people think it sucks), Back to the Future games (I like the first game, hated the sequels games), Bill and Ted Shitty Video game Adventure just to name a few of the garbage ass games on the NES that ALL had the Nintendo Seal of Approval.
I don't remember E.T. being that bad. It got played from time to time unlike other games we had. As far as Sonic, I never liked any of them because of all the colors where it was hard to tell what was going on, I still have that problem today, specially with some of the mario cart like racing games, I can't tell where the road is going half the time, if they left out lots of these effects and coins flashing all over maybe I could see where I'm going.
We all need to have an outlook on life like Howard.
I love this mans positivity!
Warshaw should make a remaster of E.T. with all the things he wanted to do to it without the 5 week block.
Would it be a 3d game though?
@@beefanly4315 3d ET doesn't sound cool though. Maybe better pixel graphics?
Yes, but he does not work at Atari anymore.
superfreddycool_ Playz he can be a solo dev
*brain brain* Intel grapichs compatible. *Wabby wabbo*
Imagine if a best selling game like Super Mario Galaxy, Minecraft or even Call fo Duty had only 5 weeks to be made. This is what that guy had to go through.
Super Mario Galaxy’s a masterpiece and my favorite game of all time! With such a short deadline it wouldn’t have been anything spectacular, not even close.
Don't blame the player, blame the game. He has done nothing wrong, the five weeks deadline is too rush for anyone to make a good game at that time.
He could have made a bicycle chase game in 5 weeks I think.
What a great attitude to have, he is still proud and does not let any negativity tarnish his accomplishment!
Who’s here after Sony’s biggest failure with concord?
wow, good job, GBS, for including legit 6502 assembly as a graphic, that's dedication to detail.
Nerde
yeah NERD.
i totally knew that already, like i am definitely old enough to have used assembly as once my main programming language...
“It’ll never be a failure to me.” I want parents like that.
Hey
How you doing?
Well I’m doing just fine
I lied I’m dying inside
I’ll go now.
Wow the gaming industry in its early phase was so brutal and unforgiving
I mean... A great failure is still really great. The game still has publicity even 35 years later. And it will always have a special place in almost any "video game history timeline"
Ulises S Yup, it makes it's place in gaming history although for all the wrong reason
endutaas 212131 Wrong reasons though? I would have preferred if he had more time to work on the game so he could've made a good E.T. game, but if Atari hadn't crashed and burned Nintendo wouldn't have risen so much and probably even Sega (in its early days, not what has become of Sega now). He caused a major dent in gaming by making a game in five weeks, it's quite epic honestly.
Faraae yup, making something that's still remembered at talked till this day is quite an achievement
His face looks like Australia
buzzBurridge holy shit ur right
buzzBurridge He is Australia
WowSham DUN DUN DUUUUUNNN
Lol
I'm 42, i started with Atari, i played ET, i don't remember what i did in the game, but seeing it again brings back those times. Pitfall was the really fun one, i'd play it now if i could.
Ironic that the problem with E.T. is falling in pits, and a game called _Pitfall!_ was the top game at Christmas 1982.
If you think this was Scott's fault in anyway shape or form, rather than Atari's than you're not a very smart one.
slapmyfunkybass That was the company's call to make, not his.
This interview didn't really make it clear as to whether he accepted Atari's offer BEFORE he knew the terms of the contract (which was that he had less than 5 weeks to complete it) or if he accepted Atari's offer AFTER he knew the conditions.
If he blindly accepted the job BEFORE knowing anything about the work being asked, he's an uninformed idiot. If he accepted the job AFTER knowing about the fact that he was only given less than 5 weeks then he's an informed idiot.
I mean 5 weeks? An entire game?
The average development of game in the 80's is usally many months or even years it would be pretty reasonable for him to think et would have a similar time develop
slapmyfunkybass he couldnt just decline it simply, its decline and get fired or do the work and keep your job and money.
I don't think the game was so bad by early 1980s standards. Sounds like the game was the scapegoat for Atari's crash.
It wasnt bad, it was to complex to understand what you have to do
@@woopro1234 "Raiders of the Lost Ark was just as convoluted, and that game was met with unreal praise." -AVGN, circa 2017
That's how Atari planned it; they *knew* the crash was inevitable...
yeah there were terrible games made all the time like Chase the Chuckwagon made by Purina, the pet food company lmao
@@GiordanDiodato _Chase the Chuckwagon_ was done in 3 days, I'm told and is unplayable after a couple minutes, and the dog doesn't even chase the chuckwagon. (Think about those poor kids who ate dogfood to get a free Atari cart.) But how many disappointing games would you buy before saying, "No more," or "Atari sucks?" _E.T._ was one of 4 disappointing games that sold over 1 million copies (no Intellivision game sold that except _Poker and Blackjack_ which was bundled).
*_Raiders of the Lost Ark,_
*_Donkey Kong,_ and
*_Pac-Man._
But at least kids enjoyed playing the last two, not so much Raiders. Why these two movie adaptations couldn't be action games like _Wild Western_ and _Paperboy_ is beyond me.
This game is better than Cyberpunk
Considers a failure a success?
I must be a very successful person then...
Having played both ET and Raiders for the Atari when I was a kid and having recently figured out how Yar's Revenge works, I can say that Howard's games are not the kind that you just pick up and play. You have to read the manual first. Kind of like most board games.
Atari: We have new project called E.T, the extraterrestrial and it has to be done within 5 weeks!
TaleWorlds Entertainment: *starts sweating*
5 weeks? No wonder why the game was crap, it was a rushed game
just like sonic boom
hm m sonic 06*
SONIC BOOM ISNT THAT BAD ITS JUST THE JOKES AND GLITCHES AND THE STORY BEING RUSHED!
What a perfect attitude to have about it. 👍 Love him.
He has the full right to say he speed runned the game!
2:31 that rubik's cube has an edge piece with 2 reds.
Atleast its not as worst as
Hong kong 97
Big rigs
Crazybus
Doctor jekyll and mr hyde
LJN GAMES
LORD Hydra or superman 64.
LORD Hydra ot Aquaman
Desert Bus (Sega CD) (Angry Video Game Nerd)
*the new COD games
crazybus is the best game and you cant deny it
"Was E.T. a failure?"
Howard: Well yes, but no.
Something so bad that it becomes a wonderful phenomenon and making arguably more famous than it was meant to be. Damn son, you did one hell of a job.
This was a great video. Thank you for putting this together!
Say what you want but he created a game from scratch in 5 weeks and that’s pretty damn impressive in it of itself
title: the story behind the worst video game of all time 0:19 looks like the worst drawing because of his duck mouth
he made the "worst" game
but his game is still remembered till today, and copies still cost a lot of money
so is it still considered bad
Hunt Down The Freeman and Yandere Simulator: am I a joke to you?
Yandere sim aint bad its just not being made
O_O
Im a mobile user why am i here
@@eren7350 the guy making it is a huge jackass tho
Fallout 76:
I mean if I bullshitted a game in 5 weeks with only a computer from the 80's and it make national coverage then I would be way more surprised than embarrassed.
Atari e.t : one of the worst games of all time
A couple years later
Superman 64,bubsy 3d, sonic 06
Hold my beer
silver Sam second zip fast forward 2017, add ark survival/atlas, bvroom in the night sky, and why not No man sky in the beginning. All of them were just bad and what’s worse is, they get worse.
Fortnite: allow me to introduce myself
Big Rigs: Am I a joke to you?
Samuel Ricardo Padron Sonic 06 isn’t even that bad it’s 1000000 times better than 06
Concord: Is that a challenge?
We need a CONCORD video
I'm an Atari fan and I do like E.T it's a good game all you have to do is just read the instructions it's simple when you read the instructions. It's really easy when you read them
Smash Up 10 nice picture
"I'm an Atari fan"
Really? In 2018? Really? Atari sucked balls dude. The ONLY reason people like it is because of nostalgia for games they played as kids in a time where games were so primitive they couldn't even move past a primitive vector system.
Well, most Atari fans are coming from a place of nostalgia. Warren Robinett was widely praised for Atari 2600 Adventure, my personal favorite, and how advanced it was considered in 1979. Catacombs and about twenty separate locations and one of the first (if not THE first) Easter eggs, even if the dragons did resemble ducks. The games were primitive, but we had no way of knowing how stunning graphics would become or how many options games would contain. And some of us aged out of video games (not saying they aren't a great lifelong pastime for millions, but some of us moved on to other hobbies). The last one I played regularly was Super Mario Bros. 2, and every arcade still offers Ms. PacMan for us older players.
who animated this? well done
sumone w
Movie: successful
Game: causes games to be almost forgotten
Seems pretty legit.
he has a very positive attitude towards thing. I like him
Who programmed the Atari 2600 Pac Man? That "failed", too. I remember reading that the programmer was not even familiar with the game except that he saw it a couple of times. Heard he received a big pay day in advance and shortly was driving to work in a very fancy car. Any truth and / or clarification to those stories?
I think they actually published a prototype of the game and not the final version. They accidentally loaded the data for a earlier version but they didn’t care to change itProbably another reason why it failed.
"And so when people ask me was E.T a failure? I don't mind when people call it that, but it will never be a failure to me." Is probably the best way to end that video just kind of made me happy hearing that you know?
5 weeks with only one person working on it? bad game or not, that was hard work.
You'd think they'd have a sound and music guy working with the main programmers and going from game to game, but it was supposed to be a solo project, though maybe you could ask experienced programmers for tricks they've learned, before they all left for Activision and other places.
When I was 6-years-old I pretty much loved every singe Atari game.... except ET. I distinctly remember thinking in my young brain... THIS ONE SUCKS. So, that's the test. Kids hated it. It was a failure.
2:41 What music is this?
Concord: Hold my Beer 🍺
Why people blame this man for single handedly causing the video game market crash? The crash was because of too many consoles and to many games all at once I mean their wasn't any kind of rules for video game developers they would make a game and put it out for whatever console that caused an overflow of not just games but bad games. That's why Nintendo when it launched it had a chip in it so only they can monitor the games that were for their system
Story as old as time: Big promises, short time frame, crunch mode activated, buggy mess at launch. It does make you wonder what a proper version of the game would look like.
My question is why didn't they give him another chance to re-do the whole E.T Atari game with a longer amount of time after hearing so many people complain about the game's glitches and faults.
the crash
I guess they didn't realize how many people would return it after Christmas. Maybe if kids had returned _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ and _Pac-Man_ (and Donkey Kong) earlier that year they might have thought twice and released it in January or February. Kind of ironic that the best game of Christmas 1982 was called _Pitfall!_ since that's what's most wrong about E.T.
When execs demand a extreme rush job, the end result is almost never good.
Cyberpunk 2077: finally! A worthy Opponent, our fight will be legendary.
Cyberpunk is great now
I just don't how understand how no other game was able to pass ET in terms of bad quality, since it is a much older game. That means that kids nowadays won't understand why this game was garbage, even by looking at the gameplay.
But, there are games much worse than this. Much more noticeable and understandable bad quality.
People say its a bad game, but they don't realize how much time it takes to make a good game. In the time taken of the games production, its a great game. Yes, there are some flaws, but thats because it was developed in 5 WEEKS, not 5 MONTHS, not 5 YEARS, but 5 WEEKS
Because of the Graphics
1:15 The month has more than 30 days and less than 5 weeks were colored
every worst decision result a big changing in industry
imagine if E.T was actually good, and atari becomes more sucessfull, we would never get nintendo and super mario bross
imagine if nintendo didn't mess their nintendo play station, we will never got ps4
David Mathew sorry i mean nes
SuperPikachu Jexs Ps4 is better, in my opinion. And i dont play online
tmcrz actually, Atari and Nintendo nearly entered a deal with each other to bring the Famicom to the US so it might have still happened.
Nintendo playstation failed? at least we got CD-i and YTP!
@@ZmeyKolbasnik yeah and also gay luigi
Pause on 0:30
Name of a Poland’s capital : Warsaw
See anything?
5 weeks to work on a fucking video game, with the only problem being that the game would move into weird places? This man deserves a medal for the amount of inhumane crunch he put himself through to work on a game by himself in a span of 5 weeks with only one Major problem.
There is a documentary that goes more into detail about this. IT IS AWESOME!
Mans created a game that crashed the industry and pissed off millions and he doesnt give a crap. I respect that.
Probably why he didn't leave Atari like the good programmers did.
The worst game ever made that Atari dumped it in a landfill
I am not charitable to Warshaw despite the tight timeframe. He pitched the game idea to Spielberg, indicating that he had time at the beginning of the process for planning before the coding. Also, there are 10,000 employees at the company. Not one of them could have helped him with at least some of the code? Also, Warshaw had time to program random easter eggs. Finally, I doubt he would have churned out a substantially different product given more time. His other game Indiana Jones suffers the same drawbacks as did E.T. but to a lesser degree.
1:56. So, the main error is that the game did not have enough continuity and so didn't make sense. After hearing Warshaw's pitch, Spielberg told him to make a Pacman-like game. So, this game already has a bunch of similarities to Pacman. There isn't a story, it is collect stuff and avoid being caught:
Pacman E.T.
Similarities:
A puzzle like game -- eat the pellets A puzzle like game -- collect the pieces
Eat the powerups, avoid the enemies Eat the powerups, avoid the enemies
Enemies send you to some fixed location Enemies send you to some fixed location
Differences:
One continuous screen with walls 3-4 green maps with obstacles, one blue map
No holes everything is visible Stuff is hidden in holes
It is his innovations over Pacman (the holes, hiding stuff, and map transitions) that caused the problem with the random transitioning during game play. It is unlikely Spielberg meant "knock off Pacman." More likely, Spielberg could have been saying that Warshaw's ideas needed to be simplified in order to be implemented given the time allowed. This was GOOD and TIMELY advice from a creative person who is both smart and accomplished.
Fixing this game shouldn't have been hard. All games kinda sucked back then. Just get rid of the holes (while finding a different ways to hide objects) and add some elements that survive the screen transition (like a wall or an object straddling both screens) to help with the disorientation.
The timeframe provided and non-concern for quality makes the terribleness of the game mostly the fault of management. However, Warshaw himself is far from blameless. The moral of the story is to recognize the expertise of others and do not ignore constructive criticism from someone like Spielberg even if you find it hard to listen to criticism.
For some reason, I thought Steven Spielberg is impersonating the game designer as a voiceover.
And here we are again 7 years later coming back to this exact video to start bringing up the monstrosity that was concord
change prospective
This Isint the worst game sonic 06 is the worst game
Superman 64 would like a word with you.
Nah, Call of duty infinite warfare might have a bit of discussion
Awangku Dean That is nowhere near the discussion for worst game of all time.
***** Why not?
***** Hehe you're one of the fans?
I used to play this when I was little. It was so frustrating and didn’t make any sense. Looking back and knowing what I know now, it was simply a hot mess.
it could have been an awesome game if only he were given more time to work on it.