In April of last year the city of Alamogordo dug up the graveyard of hundreds of the Atari's E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial game cartridges. The copies of the game had been buried in 1983, in an attempt to forget that fact that the game existed.
In truth, it did receive and overwhelmingly negative response to the game.
A year and a half since they dug up the graveyard, what happened to all the game cartridges? Operational Consultant Joe Lewandowski, the man who found and dug up the games, has come out to reveal the grand total from the Atari dig sale on eBay to City Commissioners at their regular City Commission in Alamogordo, New Mexico meeting.
The final sale resulted in 881 cartridges sold — totalling $107,930.15. The home of the game's graveyard (Alamogordo) will receive $65,037.78 of the total, the Tularosa Basin Historical Society will get $16,259.44 and $26,632.93 going towards shipping fees (which leaves a whopping $0 left).
Lewandowski confirmed that 297 cartridges were not sold and instead archived for potential sale in the future. It would be somewhat humorous if those 297 cartridges remained because no one wanted them, just like when the game was released.
