Atari Made $1.7 Billion in 1982. Then It Buried Its Games in the Desert.

In 1982, Atari made $1.7 billion in operating profit. A year later, it lost more than $500 million and buried its unsold games in a New Mexico landfill. Nobody killed Atari. This is the real story of Pong, the Atari 2600, the flood of games, the five-week E.T. deadline, the legend of the desert, and the crash of 1983. Did E.T. kill Atari, or was it already over? Tell us in the comments. Music: "Inspired" and "Crypto" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0. "Wanderlust" by Scott Buckley (scottbuckley.com.au), CC BY 4.0. Subscribe for a new rise-and-fall story every week:    / @riseruin-m1s   CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro 1:49 Pong and a Gamble 4:01 The Money Machine 5:10 Too Many Games 6:36 Five Weeks 7:58 The Desert 9:14 The Crash 10:06 What Survived SOURCES (read them to check the facts) Wikipedia, Atari, Inc.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari,_Inc. Wikipedia, Video game crash of 1983: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_g... Wikipedia, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (video game): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._th...) Wikipedia, Atari 2600: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_2600 NOTES Narration is a synthetic voice. Photos are illustrative and are not always from the place or time described. Some scene images are AI-generated illustrations, not real photographs. Some figures come from secondary sources and are described as estimates or accounts in the video. Photo credits (Wikimedia Commons): Atari-2600-Four-Switch-Black-Console-01.jpg - Evan-Amos (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Atari-2600-Jr-FL.jpg - Evan-Amos (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Atari 2600 Prototype at CHM.jpg - Pargon (CC BY 2.0) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Atari-2600-Light-Sixer-FL.jpg - Evan-Amos (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Atari-2600-Wood-4Sw-Set.jpg - Evan-Amos (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Atari-5200-4-Port-wController-L.jpg - Evan-Amos (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Atari-5200-Console-Set.jpg - Evan-Amos (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Atari-7800-wControl-Pad-L.jpg - Evan-Amos (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... A Street View of Alamogordo, New Mexico.jpg - D&RG Railfan (CC BY 3.0) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Alamogordo New Mexico White Sands Regional Airport terminal.JPG - AllenS (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Video games Asteroids Popeye Klax Pengo.jpg - Rob DiCaterino (CC BY 2.0) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Asteroids cabinet.jpg - Joho345 (CC BY 4.0) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Nolan Bushnell - Game Developers Conference Online 2011 (4).jpg - Max Photography for GDC Online (CC BY 2.0) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Commodore-64-Computer-FL.jpg - Evan-Amos (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Commodore-64-Computer-BL.jpg - Evan-Amos (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Hot Action Pak video game cartridge (42908028634).jpg - Matthew Paul Argall from Australia (CC BY 2.0) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... ColecoVision-Console-FL.jpg - Evan-Amos (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... ColecoVision-wController-L.jpg - Evan-Amos (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Desert Landscape - New Mexico (5989098056).jpg - Thomas Shahan (CC BY 2.0) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Escavada Wash, New Mexico 2025.jpg - Craig Talbert (CC BY 4.0) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Atari E.T. Dig- Alamogordo, New Mexico (14036097792).jpg - taylorhatmaker (CC BY 2.0) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... ET! (14027894224).jpg - Jason from The Wasteland (CC BY 2.0) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... (16 more photo credits omitted here for length; see the pinned comment or the video's credits file) #Atari #VideoGameCrash #Documentary