Which 1982 Atari game was designed by Howard Scott Warshaw as an adaptation of the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial?

The 1982 Atari game designed by Howard Scott Warshaw as an adaptation of the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

Atari commissioned Warshaw to create the game after acquiring the rights to Steven Spielberg’s 1982 film. The project was completed in an exceptionally short period so the cartridge could reach stores for the holiday shopping season. Players guide E.T. through screens of pits while searching for pieces of an interplanetary telephone.

The game sold millions of cartridges, but many consumers returned it because its mechanics and unusual layout were difficult to understand. Unsold cartridges became associated with stories that Atari buried them in a New Mexico landfill in 1983. An excavation in 2014 recovered cartridges, confirming that a burial had occurred, although the landfill contained more than just E.T. copies.

Its reputation is tied to the North American video-game crash, but historians also point to wider market saturation and retailer problems.