Howard Scott Warshaw is the creator of E.T. - The Extraterrestrial for Atari in 1982.
That makes him the man who took one of the most successful movies of all time and turned it into what many consider the worst video game ever. Critics savaged the game. Millions of copies went unsold or were returned. It’s considered one of the most epic failures in the industry's history.
And Warshaw is remarkably OK with that. “I really do prefer people identify it that way because I also did Yar’s Revenge and that’s frequently cited as one of the best games in history. So between those two games I have the greatest range of any designer in history,” he jokes.
Warshaw says Atari only gave him five and a half weeks to create the game in time for that year’s Christmas season. He’s proud it got made at all. “It’s still to this date 30 years later, I believe, the fastest video game ever developed in history,” he points out.
Warshaw also points out that, despite not meeting expectations, E.T. for the Atari still sold a million and a half units. “So they managed to turn a million and a half-seller into a loser.”
The fate of E.T. for the Atari has become an industry legend. It was rumoured the company even went so far as to bury millions of copies in an unknown location just to be rid of them. That rumour was proven true in April when searchers dug up copies in the New Mexico desert . Howard Scott Warshaw was there.
Atari has long since been out of business but Warshaw is thriving. He was a keynote speaker at the Ottawa International Game Conference where he spoke on, what else, how to deal with failure. “The message I bring typically is stay inspired, stay passionate, and be resilient.”
