10 REAL Reasons Behind Annoying Video Game Moments

2. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1987) - The End Of Atari

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Atari

While the other entries on this list account for one specific moment of gaming frustration, the Atari 2600 adaptation of E.T. was so infamously terrible that it wasn’t only dubbed the worst game ever made, it's been recognised as one of the reasons behind the 1980s video game crash, as well as Atari’s eventual downfall.

With Spielberg’s film becoming a pop-culture juggernaut, Atari wanted to capitalise on the film’s success and snapped up the licence to make the game for an obscene amount of money. Spielberg requested that Atari developer Howard Scott Warshaw create the game following Warshaw's success with Yar's Revenge and the Raiders Of The Lost Ark tie-in.

Alongside a ridiculous amount of money riding on this game’s success, Warshaw had the insane deadline of just five weeks to complete the game, so it could be released in time for the holiday season.

What he produced in that time, however, was an indecipherable mess of pitfalls that saw the titular alien search for pieces of a phone so that he could return home.

Nobody liked it and thousands of cartridges were dumped in the desert.

Had Warshaw had a week or two longer, the gaming industry could be quite different today.

Contributor
Contributor

Glasgow-based cinephile who earned a Masters degree in film studies to spend their time writing about cinema, video games, and horror.