Want a dirty piece of video game history?
And we don’t mean dirty as in porno-movie dirty. We mean, actual covered-in-dirt dirty.
Turns out the city of Alamogordo, New Mexico is going hardcore mercenary after that massive dig last month that confirmed a decades-old urban legend by unearthing unwanted copies of Atari’s E.T. video game dumped there 30 years ago.
Now, Alamogordo city leaders say they’ll be putting 700 of the 1,300 found cartridges up for auction, all but guaranteeing the city a healthy cash infusion from video game fans eager to get their hands on a weird, but very legitimate gaming artifact.
No word yet on exactly how the auction will be conducted, although with the worldwide interest in last month’s dig, eBay or another online auction site would seem to be the most likely avenue.
As for the remaining 600 games, about 100 will be given to staffers with Lightbox and Fuel Entertainment, the production companies who spearheaded the dig as part of a documentary on the infamous game. Another 500 will be doled out to local museums in the area.
As reported by Crave gaming site Destructoid, Alamogordo mayor Susie Galea said the city hopes to turn the landfill site into a tourist attraction — albeit a very bizarre one. Because teams had to dig down 30 feet to find the games — far deeper than the 18 feet they’d expected, the decision was made to leave another estimated 700,000 games down there, an eternal resting place that may actually draw some mildly disturbed tourists to want to come check out the site.
Maybe.
And since E.T. cartridges account for only about 170 of the 1,300 games unearthed, expect some crazy bidding once those relics finally hit the auction block.
Fire up those Atari 2600s, everybody!
