Context
In the American video game industry at that time, Atari was in full swing. "By 1982 the home console was commonly referred to as the Atari 2600." (Concrete and Clay: The Life and Afterlife of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600, Taylor and Francis Online (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17547075.2009.11643295?needAccess=true&instName=University+of+Toronto)) Because of this, Atari decided to release an unprecedented masterpiece - the Swordquest series. As the first work of the search for the Swordquest series, EarthWorld was successfully released in October 1982 and set a good foundation for the series. But shortly after, the most catastrophic video game ever made in the history of Atari was released during Christmas - E. T. The Extra-Terrestrial. It was this game that broke the prosperous era of the video game industry at the time and defeated the rising Atari.
E.T. is not the first time Atari had adapted a movie into a game. Before that, Atari had launched a game with Indiana Jones. Then when Atari confidently wanted to "profit from Steven Spielberg's summer blockbuster," the result was unexpected. Due to Atari's enthusiasm to put the game on the shelves during the Christmas sales period, the quality of ET did not meet consumer satisfaction. According to design studies from the journal, "the game's design flaws are numerous.” As an adventure game, the graphics of E.T. is "derided as inferior" to Atari's Swordquest "at the time." News later reported that "Atari produced 5 million non-market-tested copies of E. T.," but only "1 to 1.5 million copies" were sold, "and many were sold at discounted prices or returned." (Concrete and Clay: The Life and Afterlife of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600, Taylor and Francis Online (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17547075.2009.11643295?needAccess=true&instName=University+of+Toronto)) Daily News revealed the aftermath of "overproduced, undersold and returned inventory" caused by E.T.; "on
September 22, 1983, Atari's El Paso, Texas facility dumped
truckloads of its unsellable inventory of game cartridges in a city
landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico" to ease them from the financial crisis. (Concrete and Clay: The Life and Afterlife of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600, Taylor and Francis Online (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17547075.2009.11643295?needAccess=true&instName=University+of+Toronto))
After this series of catastrophes, Atari had fallen into a slump and ignited the Video Game Crash of 1983. The critics on The Journal of the Design Studies Forum suggest that E.T. not only impacted Atari but also "destroyed the life of the Atari 2600." (Concrete and Clay: The Life and Afterlife of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600, Taylor and Francis Online (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17547075.2009.11643295?needAccess=true&instName=University+of+Toronto)) Countless anticipated video game plans were aborted due to the crash. This also included WaterWorld and Airworld in the Swordquest series, as the entire series only ran on Atari 2600. In February 1984, WaterWorld was finally released, but it was only available to Atari Club members in a very limited quantity. Though rare and with shrinking content, Atari fanatics still have the chance to witness the true face of WaterWorld. As the company was on the verge of bankruptcy, Atari opted to redistribute its resources.