The man who made 'the worst video game in history'

[hunter]

By Richard Hooper
BBC World Service
22 February 2016

The video game of Steven Spielberg's ET is considered to be one of the worst of all time and has even been blamed for triggering the collapse of Atari. Howard Scott Warshaw, the gifted programmer who made it, explains how it was rushed out in a matter of weeks - and how he feels about those events in California now.

Spielberg was unimpressed.

"Couldn't you do something more like Pac-Man?" he asked.

It was July 1982 and Atari, then one of the world's most successful tech companies, had just paid a reported $21m for the video game rights to Spielberg's new blockbuster, ET the Extra-Terrestrial.

--more--

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35560458

ET is actually pretty damned amazing for a game written in five weeks by one person lacking any modern programming tools.

Even more amazing is that the aspects of the game that made people hate it are easily repaired. (Warning: Lots of 6502 assembly language at this link.)

I think this tells us something about the nature of "deadlines." The only real deadlines are when someone is actually going to die, the sorts of situations emergency medical technicians and hospital staff deal with. All those shallow "deadlines" of the businessman rarely make the world a better place.

[hobbit709]

1. There's never enough time to do the job right, but there's always plenty of time to do it over.

[Yavin4]

2. I'm stealing that! n/t

[Wounded Bear]

4. I'm pretty sure it's public domain...

[47of74]

3. I wouldn't call ET the worst video game in history.

There are others that are far, far worse. Such as Custer's Revenge.