Post
The year Atari nearly buried the entire gaming industry, literally, in a New Mexico landfill.
In the early 80s, the home console market was printing money, and everyone wanted in. Atari flooded shelves with rushed, low-quality games while dozens of third-party publishers did the same. The result was consumer trust hitting rock bottom. Revenue in the US games market dropped about 97% between 1983 and 1985. Atari famously dumped millions of unsold E.T. cartridges in a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico. The industry didn't recover until Nintendo arrived with strict quality control and the NES in 1985.
Example
Atari's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) was developed in just five weeks to meet a holiday deadline. It sold poorly and became the symbol of the crash, with unsold copies literally buried in the desert.
Why it matters
This crash is why Nintendo invented the 'Seal of Quality' and locked down third-party publishing. Every platform certification process today, from Sony to Apple, traces back to the lessons of 1983.
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