10 TERRIBLE Video Games (That Revolutionised The Industry)

If you thought ZT Online's influence on the industry was bad, at least it didn't almost straight-up kill video games as we knew them.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is one of the most infamously terrible video games ever made, even for the subterranean standards of licensed games based on hit movies.

E.T. was rushed to market after just five weeks of development, and boy, it sure shows.

But rather than the game simply making some quick, easy bank and disappearing into the void of ephemera, it ended up flopping horribly at retail, enough that it had a major impact on publisher Atari's financials.

More to the point, it further impacted the already-volatile state of the gaming 'biz in 1983, leading to a devastating industry recession which caused revenues to shrink by an eye-watering 97% by 1985.

Yet the business began to recover in 1985 when Nintendo decided to break into the home console market with the NES, which proved successful enough that, by 1988, revenues were close to pre-recession levels, with Nintendo holding a gigantic 70% market share.

Causally speaking, E.T.'s failure basically led to the modern Nintendo we all know and love. Without this flaming trash-fire of a game wounding an already injured industry, would we even have the Nintendo Switch today? Makes you think.