‘Atari: Game Over’ will be making its way on to video on demand (VOD) services digitally on February 2 in North America, UK, Japan and Australia.
‘Atari: Game Over’ is a documentary by Zak Penn (‘The Avengers’, ‘X-Men 2’) that covers the landfill dig performed in Alamogordo, New Mexico last year for the 3.5 million hidden unsold copies of the infamous ‘E.T.’ for the Atari 2600, a game that has been blamed for Atari’s downfall in 1984.
For those unaware of the background of the landfill, it goes like this. Atari had been faced with such overwhelmingly negative response from their ‘E.T.’ video game back in 1983 that the company had to dispose of millions of unsold Atari 2600 cartridges by burying them in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Since then, the landfill where these games were buried had become something of an urban myth amongst fans and gamers everywhere.
While generally uncovering the truth behind the Atari landfill, ‘Atari: Game Over’ goes into much contextual detail about history of Atari within the gaming industry during the 1970s up until the second video game crash and burial in 1983, featuring interviews from industry veterans and behind-the-scene details on the development of ‘E.T.’ by its original creator, Howard Scott Warshaw.
Initially made available to watch as an exclusive preview on Xbox One, Xbox 360 and Xbox video, ‘Atari: Game Over’ will now be making its way digitally on to other services for all the people who weren’t able to catch it. As far as what services the documentary will be available on, it will be purchasable on iTunes, Google Play, Vimeo, Amazon Instant Video, Wuaki and Blinkbox.
Recently, a ‘Centipede’ cartridge that was discovered from the Atari excavation documented in ‘Atari: Game Over’ was donated by history professor Bill Caraher to the University of North Dakota’s Department of Special Collections. Caraher had participated in the dig and donated the cartridge to preserve it as an relevant artifact of the recent past.
‘Atari: Game Over’ will be released digitally on February 2.
