Atari: Game Over is a documentary directed by Zak Penn that follows the story of “the worst video game in history”, E.T. released in 1982. It continues to follow it as a game that also brought the collapse of Atari, the first game engineers. An urban legend that also follows Atari’s collapse is that they buried a lot of games into a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico. The main quest of the documentary was to find this urban legend as factual in order to bring a possible explanation to the end of Atari. They found the games, but not as many as the legend had speculated. All of the people who were involved with Atari also explained that the E.T. game just happened to be released on the coming collapse of Atari and thus, was the blame of the collapse. This also ruined the game’s creator’s career.

This documentary was well written in a way to follow a game, but also weaving a history with legends all together. The people interviewed were really well chosen as a band of nerds, the developers, and the owners of Warner and Atari at the time of the collapse. While it was following the collapse, it led to some interesting questions that need to be answered in some way.

Why is it that when we see the collapse of something great, we blame the last thing and associate that with every negative thing? Are we always aiming to be creatures of habit, rather than delving into the possible truth?

Based on the documentary, it seems that it is easier to blame than it is to seek a truth. The discovery of the fall of Atari was actually hidden from the public, as their systems were simply becoming an overworked commodity. They held a poor marketing campaign to keep the people interested in the continuing production of Atari and Atari 2600. They also did not adapt their technology top the coming times of needs from the people. The game of E.T. was just an easy pick for people outside of the company to pick as the downfall of Atari. It was such a common pick that the people of the community created the legend of games throwing.

Legends that end so suddenly need to be explained, even in the gaming world. Sometimes that even means explanations that leave a bunch of games 30 feet underground in an landfill in New Mexico.