The 1983 landfill burial that became a video game myth

Technology · Published 20 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: In 1983, Atari buried a mountain of unsold cartridges in a New Mexico landfill, sealing them under a layer of concrete. While it became a legendary symbol of the video game crash, the reality of what was actually buried—and why—is far more complex than the urban legend suggests.

In September 1983, Atari, Inc. disposed of 10 to 20 semi-trailer truckloads of hardware, cartridges, and systems at a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico. While popular culture often frames this as the burial of millions of copies of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Atari officials later clarified that the volume was closer to 700,000 cartridges of various titles. The site was chosen because it prohibited scavenging and crushed waste nightly, though the unusual addition of a concrete layer led to local rumors that the company was hiding something specific.

The burial was a byproduct of a disastrous fiscal year for Atari. By 1982, the company held 80% of the market but saw a massive inventory glut. For example, they manufactured 12 million Pac-Man cartridges despite only owning 10 million consoles. This was exacerbated by a strategy of asking distributors to place large orders all at once; when sales slowed in 1982, distributors returned massive quantities of unsold stock. The E.T. game, developed in a rushed five-week window due to licensing delays, also contributed significantly to the surplus, with only 1.5 million of the 5 million manufactured units sold.

Historians and developers offer conflicting views on the event's significance. Programmer Howard Scott Warshaw has expressed doubt that millions of games were actually destroyed, suggesting Atari's downfall was rooted in business practices like 'block booking' rather than single failures. Others argue the burial served as a tax write-off for disposed material. Regardless of the exact count, the site remains a cultural icon of corporate hubris, immortalized in music videos, novels, and films as the ultimate graveyard of 1980s tech.

In 2014, a documentary team excavated the site, recovering only about 1,300 cartridges. The remaining items were auctioned to fund a museum. The event serves as a cautionary tale of overestimation: Atari expected 50% growth in 1983 but instead lost $536 million, leading to the company's sale by Warner Communications the following year.

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