Atari Dump Nets More Than $100,000 For Collectors

There is money in garbage!

More than a year ago, we reported on a landfill dig in New Mexico that finally unearthed more-than 30-year old Atari cartridges that had been buried by the company.  At the time, the excavators wondered if there was cash to be made on the haul;  now it appears that the answer is "yes".

The 1983 burial of almost 800,000 video game cartridges became legendary in gamer circles.  The dump occurred after the company spent millions of dollars developing an E.T.-themed game that is considered by most experts to be the "worst game ever" in the history of the genre.  Industry watchers blame this game on the eventual-demise of the Atari company.  To cut their losses and prevent the games from flooding the market, it was believed that Atari officials buried the game cartridges to prevent them from being sold.

The legend became reality in April 2014 as a documentary producer arranged a dig at the landfill in question and found proof that the burial had occurred.

881 of the games were put up for sale - netting $100,000.  While the dollar amount was less than officials had hoped, it still wasn't a bad yield on what was effectively left for garbage more than 30 years ago.