Atari Warshaw asked to complete the project in just five weeks. At that time it was regarded as one of the greatest talents in the field of development and had just finished work on the tie-in of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. The same Spielberg considered him a "guaranteed genius" of the video game programming.
"One day I got a call from the CEO of Atari," says Warshaw at the BBC. "He asked me if I could make the game of E. T. Sure! I responded immediately." On the spot he thought the delivery would have been to the Christmas season: certain timings were tight but it remained feasible. The games for the Atari 2600 were stored on cartridges that required several weeks to be manufactured and made publishable.
"We need it for the September 1," said the voice at the other end of the phone. Warshaw words had five weeks to do so, while at the time served from 6 to 8 months to create a video game of that type. "He begins to think about the design of the game because Thursday will meet Steven Spielberg," said the CEO of Atari. Warshaw was enthusiastic about it, but perhaps underestimated the impact that that game could have had on the Atari, and more.
Warshaw went to Atari headquarters in Sunnyvale, Silicon Valley, to bring his game idea to Spielberg. She had thought of an adventure game in which E. T. It would have to go in search of components to build its inter-planetary phone and make the famous phone call "home."
"I told Spielberg that I think was very important to do something innovative. E. T. was a film that marked an era and therefore also the video game would have to do it in his field. But there remained the problem of the five weeks."
Atari was essential that that game was a success, even considering the amount spent to get the license. In 1982 it recorded sales of $ 2 billion, but was beginning to feel the breath on the Commodore 64, which was met with great public success neck.
"It was the hardest work I've ever done in my life," said the BBC still Warshaw. Also because he has developed the game all by himself in an era pioneer in the world of video games and technology who lived in very different rules from those of today. "I started working in the office, but I soon realized that to go home, eat and sleep was becoming a problem, because I took away too long."
"So I decided to do it all at home in order to optimize the timing. I was assigned a tutor so that Atari was sure I ate regularly and thus were able to move forward."
Atari had planned to print 4 million copies of the game E. T. and purpose invested 5 million dollars. He staged what at the time was the biggest advertising campaign ever done for a video game. Were several TV commercials prepared, some with the presence of the same Spielberg, while Warshaw was invited to attend a premiere in the UK in the presence of the Princess of Wales.
"The Atari executives believed that the mere presence of E. T. on the cover was a guarantee of big profits," says Warshaw today. Of course all of this put the programmer into great pressure, because they began to circulate rumors about the technical difficulties that plagued the development. All signals which unfortunately did emerge a certain ignorance on what are the demands of the players about the quality and depth of play, dullness which certainly can not be said not to exist anymore nowadays.
The game came out in the pre-established times but it was evident that there was something wrong. In many circumstances, in fact, players can become locked permanently without being able to do anything to continue the adventure. He knew at once that sales for Atari would be very disappointing. After the Christmas season had been sold 1.5 million copies, well below the initial estimates of the manufacturer. Not only that, since the case was controversial putting a bad light on the entire world of video games and producing showy declines in sales also for other manufacturers.
For the second quarter of fiscal 1983 Atari announced losses of 310 million dollars. "It's awesome to be able to reduce with a simple 8-kilobyte program an entire billion-dollar industry," said Warshaw that, though, as we are seeing, has many excuses in his favor.
The industry was saturated, and developers could not create truly creative products. The producers reduced the prices of games, but it was not enough and, among the many actions of the same type, Warner decided to disengage from Atari. "It was too much for me, and that's why I took a break and I devoted myself to other things," yet says the programmer E. T. "After several years I came back in the game industry and I started to program, but it had a different charm than in those days." In 2008 he decided to retrain as a psychotherapist.
Today Warshaw is defined as the Silicon Valley psychotherapist. "Use your own story of colossal failure to help your patients?" he was asked. "Yes, sometimes I use it," is his reply.
The history of the videogame E. T. The Extra-Terrestrial has a most famous part. In the '80s, in fact, Atari buried in the desert many of the unsold copies of the game. Which we were recently found and all of history has become the star of a documentary.
"Do not believe it, it seemed absurd," said Warshaw. "But when we went there to watch the excavations there was a huge crowd of fans from all parts of the country. It was a very strange feeling, as if your past is suddenly resurrected. But from a certain point of view it was a positive feeling, because that little game I had created several years earlier still aroused so much enthusiasm ".
Probably E. T. is not actually the worst video game of all time, says the BBC, but its history corresponds so perfectly at the beginning of the crisis in the video game of the 80s from inextricably become its symbol.
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