Atari Game Over : 2014 Documentary
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- Опубликовано: 21 мар 2019
- Atari: Game Over is a 2014 documentary film directed by Zak Penn about the North American video game crash of 1983, using the Atari video game burial excavation as a starting point.
I was fortunately part of the last generation who worked at the original Atari in Sunnyvale during the 90’s. It was a hell of a company and it just kept making missteps until the Jaguar phase. and the demise of the original brand.
What would u say ultimately destroyed Atari?
I would’ve loved to be there when they first got those offices, it sounds like a blast. As someone learning Java/Python and working in IT for the largest online retailer (yes, that one) this modern work culture definitely would never allow for the original Atari office party environment. I was born too late!!
@@simplyluke1584 A perfect storm of poor business decisions and retail glut along with other factors.
@@simplyluke1584 oversaturation
Takes me back to being a kid in the 80s, in my room in the dark just playing my games. No cell. No internet. The world was a bigger place. All I knew was my street and where the video store was. I can still hear the clunk of changing my console tv to channel 3, the smell of the summer night air, and the ripped knees on my Hulkamania sweats from playing outside. It’s honestly a snippet in time that’s locked away in my memory that I often find myself escaping to. If you grew up in my era, you know EXACTLY what I’m describing. Greatest time to be a kid. Further away everyday and the memories only grow fonder.
Sigh
Sounds familiar 🙂 I was born 78 so basically a kid in the 80s and a teen in the 90s and it's definitely something I'm grateful for (even if it does mean I'm now hurtling into my mid 40s!)
One thing though, someone needs to explain the whole Channel 3 thing to me! I've heard it in the AVGN title song lyrics and meant to ask someone. I'm in the UK, so we basically connected games systems, computers and VCRs to the TV via a circular RF lead and then picked a free channel number on the TV to tune it into - by "free" I mean that we hadn't already manually tuned to anything else. So the typical setup in the 80s would be 1=BBC 1, 2=BBC 2, 3=ITV and 4=Channel 4. Our TV then had other buttons numbered/named 5 and VTR (which was identical to the others, just that the manufacturer named it VTR to hint you to tune your video to it). So basically you could tune your computer to any of the channels if you so wanted, by UHF signal over RF lead.
❤️ great memories! Often think of them as well.
😢 I miss these days so very much. Wish I could go back to when I was 8 years old, playing sega in my room, Friday nights at blockbuster, Sunday night family gathering to watch Pay per view wrestling of WWF in the attitude Era! And living in a crowded house surrounded by 3 generations of my family everyday😢 I can't think of anything I'd love more then to go back to those days, and hug my poppy and Mom just a little tighter😪 I miss them so much..but life is painful n lonely most day now.but when I get to spend the weekend with my daughter I get to b a kid again n try n make the same memories for her to look back on..if I had just one more day back in 1995...
If you connected to a TV RF connection, you had to choose either the channel 2 or 3 on your tv, a small switch on the console. Due to interference, one channel would usually look better than the other. The first time I saw anybody hook up a system via composite cables to a VCR was with an NES. But before that, it was all RF boxes (the NES also had one, but you got way better resolution using composite cables)
I remember those days. The old sounds of the tv clicker. When the tv actually had big clunky knobs and you heard that static sometimes when you would change the channel. I remember waking up Christmas morning and getting my Atari, which my Mother and brother had stashed under the couch. Me opening a copy of Space Invaders and having a hysterical fit. Then that Christmas morning I opened my very own copy of ET for Atari. I actually enjoyed playing the game. It was the highlight of my Christmas that year. We only had one television in the house but my Mom had purchased me a small used black and white tv. She was adamant that I didn’t play in the large tv in the living room because and I quote ‘it will tare up the tv’. Sigh. I miss those days. But boy they were fun.
Excellent documentary. I can't believe that people still blame E.T. and Pac-Man for the video game crash. Even today, corporate greed and bad business decisions are still ongoing problems with the video game industry.
Yes. It wasn't the direct cause, but it didn't help with Atari's declining reputation at the time.
Massive respect to Howard Scott Warshaw for making a game in such a short time👏👏👏
My 2600 still functions!
these are the type of people I would have hung out with in high school during the 80's. What a wonderful era to have lived. Great technology, movies, no cell phones, everyone talked to each other and the media actually told the truth!
I've lost count of how many times I've watched this awesome documentary over the years and it still has the same powerful effect on me. A mix of nostalgia and sadness, partly for the loss of Atari obviously, but mostly because of the unjust way that HSW has been maligned over the years. As a child, I got E.T for Christmas and although it wasn't the best game ever, it really wasn't even close to the worst either. In fact in many ways it was a very similar game to Raiders of the Lost Ark. I think that the only thing that really got in the way of it being considered a good game instead of a bad one, was the one issue of falling back into the pits when trying to get out of them. Oh man that was sooo annoying and happened so often, sometimes numerous times in a row. However, despite that flaw, I mostly enjoyed playing it and completed it numerous times, so it couldn't have been that bad. I'm so glad that this documentary was able to set the record straight and hopefully give HSW some peace of mind as well as vindication.
Epic film for fans of video game history! Well done, cheers!
This was the documentary that got me into retro gaming documentaries, and now I've lost count of how many I've watched
Any recommendations?
I’ve seen several myself after this one. 👍 I’m looking for more, so if you have time to suggest some of the ones you’ve seen please share. 🙏🏻
@@Jesse-cx4si I really enjoyed all of the Gaming Historian ones.
@ANDYGIBB GIBB Come on man, you need to say what you really think! Don't sit on the fence or grey area, just say whether you like it or not. I'm gonna go ahead and guess you like it, that's the vibe I'm getting.... 😅
5:15 Had no idea Steve O was running for mayor of Alamogordo
I grew up in this era and had this game in New Zealand at that time , this is One of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen, love it 👍🏽👍🏽
i grew up playing the Atari and yes i even played ET the game but some time in 1985 the ATARI was gone i always wondered what happened and ran across this video about 2 years ago. but in my opinion i enjoyed all the game it was sad to see such a great company who had created great games of the 80"s but no matter what happened i still think ET was the best game ever made
Atari and Amiga. Two sisters. Great period of computer history.
True❤
Thank you for posting this documentary
I'm just reaching the end of (the book) Once Upon Atari by Howard Scott Warshaw, after which I will be watching this film and his own documentary series. Howard is an absolute gem of a man, and from what I understand, this film is well-made and very nicely gauged.
So there's a book too! I think I'll check it out, thanks for sharing. He seems to have a unique type of "trauma" having experienced the best possible job in his early life and then having to live the rest of it!
@@FlorisDVijfde The book is really interesting, it shows all sides of Howard's quirky nature. He was so engaging when I emailed him, has no ego at all, really great chap.
Several reviews at amazon paint a different picture, Howard patting himself on the back too many times...however from the documentaries (including his own) I got the impression of a very decent man. He was probably frustrated being slated as "that worst video game of all time" guy while obviously it was never his fault@@Hologhoul
listening to Howard Warshaw wax nostalgic about how magical the time at Atari was gave me the feels.....
AWESOME VIDEO GAME DOC!!! WOW!!! It's 2 am, I'm high AF and loved every second of this feature. Question, WHAT DID THE TOWN DO WITH EVERYTHING THEY FOUND???? Did they really end up on Ebay????
I think there is a game on ebay from the Alamogordo dump
thanks for the upload!
So fun story. My retro gaming obsession began when I came home one weekend from visiting my grandparents where a surprise that my uncle had found in the trash awaited me. That surprise was an original wood grain Atari 2600 with no controllers, no power supply, nothing but the console itself. I then spent months trying to purchase all the necessary components to get it working which I didn't even know if it did. Finally I had everything I needed and the very first game I got to work on it was E.T. It was after that I began collecting for everything else and I guess you could say that in a way, it all began with my own little landfill.
Wow, this is extremely sad but, you live and you learn.
Awesome video!
Fantastic documentary!!!
I grew up in Timmons, Ontario in Canada. We had an Atari growing up and it was awesome. I remember going to Zellers and seeing the Atari games in through the glass cabinet that was locked. It was such an amazing experience. I hope others share their stories too. Share where you grew up and any thoughts of what it was growing up with Atari. :)
hell yeah dude, Zeller's was the best
The first game I ever played on Atari 2600 was Pac-Man. The very first game I had ever beat was ET.
I remember they had atari games at woolco. And they were behind a glass cabinet but they were for the 7800.
Such a fun documentary.
I do not blame ET for the industry imploding. I got an Atari towards the end of its life in the summer of 1982, and I was about to turn 8. Even as an 8 year old my first impression of the 2600 was that it sucked because the games were nowhere near as good as the arcades. Of couse I was still excited and grateful to have it, but I viewed the games as second rate watered down wannabes.
In a way it reminded me of the Wii which was obscenely popular in the beginning of its life and then dropped dramatically. I think it's last gen graphics killed it especially since the rapid switch from CRT to flatscreen HD happened during it's time which made the graphics look even worse.
Of course thre were a lot of other things that helped kill the 2600.
Emocionante Esse documentario 😢
just an absolutely fantastic film..
Really cool how Ernest Cline was there ngl.
The audio part of this video is awfully low. It's hard to hear.
One of the biggest reasons for the video game crash of 1983 was oversaturation. There were too many consoles, and a few companies popped up trying to capitalize on the success of Activition. There were a lot of crappy game that were released, all just to make a quick buck. Another reason was home computers such as the Commodore 64. Home computers were more powerful than the game consoles, and could do more than just play games. In fact, Commodore had a rebate program that offered a $100 rebate towards the purchase of a Commodore 64 in exchange for a trade in of any video game console. Unfortunately, because of oversaturation, it became unsustainable, and as a result, the entire industry collapsed. Atari lost $536 million in 1983, which led to Warner Communications wanting to sell the division. Former founder and CEO of Commodore International bought the consumer division of Atari in 1984. Arcade Game Centers which popped almost overnight had closed down, and many companies involved in video games either went bankrupt or just threw in the towel.
interesting what they DON'T say;
for the public at large , the E.T. cart was the 3rd strike.
Pac-man (released in March) & Donkey Kong (released in July) showed
how rushed game development was.
Tod Frye presented a working "Proof-of-Concept" Pac-Man & the Marketing dept. bribed him off.
Garry Kitchen did exactly what the Coleco Marketing dept. wanted ; screw Atari over - like they'd done with Pong.
the fact that they manufactured more E.T. carts than Consoles sold (at the time) tells us Warner did not know what they were doing.
they REALLY should have a TEAM program the game -
with an Atari 5200 version as a Pack-in to sell the New Console...
Amazing that Atari was the only survivor from the Crash , though.
In an alternate Universe the 8 year old me is opening up...E.T. the greatest game ever made!
The whole world loves it & HSW goes on to make several more hit games for the Atari Entertainment System.
Watching this because of pat and james
1:03:03 - 1:03:43 These video games will now be studied by top men.
Which top men
TOP...MEN.
@@Tyrunner0097 nice one Tyrunner0097, good fun.
Leans forward....."WHO??"
@@JamesinAZ "TOP. MEN."
I had to watch this in school
80% market share, huh? It sounds like Atari got too big for it’s britches. It also sounds like Atari’s virtual monopoly of the console market was a key player in the video game crash of 1983. When Atari fell, it temporarily took the rest of the console market with it.
Seems to be, and very much isolated to North America as well. In the UK 1982-1985 were big sales years for home computers and computer games. Some of the manufacturers did go bust between 85-88 but that was mostly poor management rather than the market.
Interesting
The original Google
"Dot com" first comes to mind...similar bubble, similar pop.
40:56 still wondering what this song is?
Also this is one of my favorite documentaries to see the rise and fall of Atari
Sounds like stock music, reminiscent of No Bone Movies by Ozzy
could you find the name of the theme?
I'm curious how much of the hate for E.T. is real and how much is bandwagon. I'm sure a lot of people who never played E.T. as a kid have since played it with the preconceived notion that it's really bad and, based on today's gaming, it's primitive and very cryptic so going in, it's already going to be bad. My parents got this game for my sister and I and I found it very challenging (I love challenging) but it was also a "thinking" game. It was also one of the few Atari games that had a goal and an ending. Most Atari games were about score and/or what level of difficulty you could achieve before dying. E.T. was a puzzle game and an RPG, if you will. Your quest, find the parts of the phone, phone home, find the landing zone, and wait. All of this while trying to avoid the man from SETI. It was intelligent and I found myself playing it a lot. IMO, it was the forerunner to games like Myst or Zelda. Collect the items, find symbols, and figure out what to do with minimal or no hints. Sound familiar? Of course, E.T. was way less sophisticated due to the technical limitations. It was one of my favorites on the 2600 and I still play it every now and then, much to the criticism of my peers who, shockingly, never played it as a kid and only scoff at it because of what they have heard about it.
It was frentic. Waiting for the timer to finish for the spaceship to arrive, having finally found the landing spot, and then the goddamn FBI bloke appears and wrecks everything 😧
I got it when it first came out and it never crossed my mind as being the worst game I ever played.
ET was simply not the worst video game ever made. Certainly not back then & most certainly not now, with absolute hindsight. I could list off 10 games right this very moment that are FAR WORSE in my personal & humble opinion…. but I won’t…. you know why? Because somebody somewhere sweated blood, sweat & tears making that, most likely along with hundreds or indeed thousands of other people involved.
it sounds like another game, maybe the answers are within ourselves :)
Why don't they mention the companies with competing consoles that all contributed to the crash? The 5200 system didn't help, either!
12:14 What documentary is that?
Hmm... Good question! Looks like maybe a cut from an interview on something like Computer Chronicles.
You can make an argument that ET is one of the BEST video games ever made if you base it on the fact it was done in a month.
the only thing I don´t like about ET is not the falling but the constant times (maybe every 10 seconds?) the agent comes taking your stuff away actually reseting the game! the rest I enjoy
Just set the difficulty switch to "B", which gets rid of those two clowns and makes the game actually winnable. 😊
@@small_edwow thank you so much! I love exploring the scenery. This will make it a breeze, BUT I play on stella emulator so I don´t how how to set the difficulty. I´ll figure out though
What song is played at the end?
If you find out, I'd like to know too
the song playing over the credits at the end of the film is the instrumental version of Puzzle Pieces by the band Saint Motel@@mkapper9800
The song playing over the credits is an instrumental version of Puzzle Pieces by Saint Motel.
Amazing! Is there any documentary like this but sega game over?
Unfortunately nothing Sega that I'm aware of, the nearest thing I'm aware of is this....
Hey I’m watching Video Games: The Movie. Check it out now on Prime Video!
watch.amazon.co.uk/detail?gti=amzn1.dv.gti.12b702ca-84f7-0b3f-4a32-6ca242eec24c&ref_=atv_dp_share_mv&r=web
@@BananaTV1978 okay :)
Check "Console Wars" in HBO Max
@@GerardoMorones i watched those but that's not 100% about sega
Wrong site. Check out the real documentary and see where they're really buried.
21:53 Big Celso Affini da massa
Okay, is the pictures of Joe a joke? Or did he successfully clone himself...
56:53 spot on!
playing et over any call of duty is crazy
Cheer up Howard. ET isn't the worst game ever made. The worst game ever made is Superman 64.
Someone please type a 2 paragraph summary of this video. It's a school assignment and I must complete it.
Look under the Development section of the wiki article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari:_Game_Over
The only thing I'd add as a correction to this article is that the video game crash was in North America. The description should read "the North American video game crash of 83" as over here in the UK where I grew up 82-84 were stellar sales years for video games!
Good luck with your assignment! 👍
It's not the same
I played this game a kid and it was not only the worst video game ever but also the most disappointing game ever. Being a big ET fan I was so excited to get this game only to be completely frustrated at how to play it. This game made no sense whats so ever.
Bla bla bla
atari age
I prefer Battlefield to Call Of Duty, but COD is better than the ET game. But ET was just like any other Atari game. Not the worst game ever.
Maybe it's time to move on. Warpath?
I always believed “what’s the worst ____ of all time” is an unfair question. Because times are always changing, so the proper question is “what’s the worst ____ of ITS time”? As for “Atari Committed Suicide”. I think that’s the wrong analogy. I think the proper term was “Atari OD’d”. Cuz judging from this story, it seems like Atari was living like a rockstar. Doing so partying. Drinking, smoking, doing drugs, and then they accidentally took to much.
I think I'd agree with that. Time does a lot to clear or at least change the lens! It's not the best game by a long way, but there's (objectively) much worse on the 2600. ET just carried so much expectation and hype that what came must have felt disappointing. But "worst of all time"? I don't think so.
Agreed. Atari just became TOO successful in too short a time that it couldn’t handle its own success.
The game does not look much worse then many games of it's era on that console and i believe it was a convenient scapegoat to the real issue which was the console itself. By that time the 2600 was getting dated and Atari didn't want to compete with itself by selling a better console. The PC makers got into a price war, making PC systems much more affordable and those offered multi-functionality including better gaming HW (they were often monochrome but with higher resolution) so there was an incentive to switch to computers until the NES came.
@@shlomomarkman6374 To me the proper term is Hard. The game isn’t bad it’s just hard, and I don’t see it as a scape goat. It was just the straw that broke the camels back.
LOVE this!!! BUT, The UNTOLD story. The dig at Alamogordo had a 1 DAY DIGGING PERMIT.! JUST 1 DAY!. There were truck loads dumped, I've seen the pictures in newspaper archives. There are STILL thousands of games in that dump, guaranteed, The guy in charge said there was truckloads, but they got only a few hundred games???? Nope, the treasure is still there.
21:53 - Celso Affini from the Defenestrando Games channel
(Celso Affini do canal Defenestrando Jogos) @defenestrandojogos
1982 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Nintendo_Entertainment_System
p.s- Don't forget that the Asteroids Ship is still your car icon on all GPS mapping. Also an Atari invention.
You know the dude who rolled up in the delorean thought he was bad af. Easily one of the worst cars ever made. They are still worth nothing.
Seeing Nintendo do it better and with less people just more time and not being rushed I’m actually glad Atari is legit 5th party.
I don’t have a sense of respect for them if they actually cared about games like they say they do 😂
Greed and shitty ideals killed Atari that’s why it only lasted 3 years.
If Nintendo didn’t save video games
Nolan bushnell and Howard Scott Warshaw would also been known as the two that killed video games.
They have lack of passion for their field
Should’ve stuck to making warheads
atari age