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Upcoming documentary tells the story behind Atari games buried in landfill

Upcoming documentary tells the story behind Atari games buried in landfill

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It's rare for people to discuss bad video games, but an upcoming documentary is doing just that. Atari: Game Over focuses on the truly terrible Atari 2600 game E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial — a game so bad that it's often cited as single-handedly bringing down the video game industry in the early ’80s.

Legend had it that Atari dumped a massive stockpile of worthless, unsold copies of the game in a New Mexico landfill, and film crews this past April unearthed the cache for the documentary. The first trailer's been released at Comic Con — you can check it out above. The documentary was meant to be part of a series focusing on the impact of technology in entertainment and business, but Microsoft recently shut down its entire original content division focused on taking on Netflix. While Xbox Originals is no more, projects like Atari: Game Over and Halo: Nightfall are some of the last to come out of it. Atari: Game Over will be available on Xbox 360 and Xbox One this fall.