Hi Dark,
Well, that er bin legend is only partly true. At the time E.T. was
released the movie was a huge success at the box office, and a lot of
E.T. merchandise t-shirts, toys, serial, you name it was a major
financial success. So the the developer who wrote the E.T. video game
assumed that the video game would do equally well, and made the mistake
of spending a lot of money on mass marketing the game, created something
like 2,000,000 copies for release world wide, and it didn't sell. I did
some research today on this topic and apparently most gaming magazines
etc gave the game an abysmally low rating, and some more vocal reviewers
went as far to say it was the worst game ever written for the Atari
2600. We may never know if people actually buried 80,000 copies in the
desert, but given the very low rating, the actual sales figures, I'm
pretty sure most of the copies did find their way into landfills
eventually. :D
However, one thing I can say is my parents bought me the game thinking I
would like it, since I loved the movie, and I actually hated the video
game. There were several reasons why.
First, even though the game included the E.T. trademark on it and had
E.T. in it the game was nothing like the movie.It was basically all one
level that included the forest, Elliot's house, the hospital, and an
area outside with some sort of holes or wells that E.T. had to fly into
in order to find pieces of his telephone. Meanwhile a federal agent and
a scientist chased E.T. around the screen. When E.T. made it to the
ship, took off, the same exact level would repeat until E.T. ran out of
energy. I was only like five when I got the game and I found it very
stupid, boring, and too easy. If a five year old who loved E.T. thought
the game was junk I can only imagine what the die-hard gamers thought. :D
As far as games that are based on a copyright and trademark you are
right. A lot of retro remakes use the fair use stipulations in the U.S.
copyright laws which states you can legally use a copyright or trademark
for educational purposes, for public review, or for personal use
provided it is given away for free. Copyright holders try to challenge
this in courts, but usually lose. Fan fiction, retro remakes, etc seem
to be doing well by sticking to this area of the copyright law.
My point being if I wanted to write a game based on Star Trek, Star
Wars, E.T. whatever I could probably do so provided it was freeware and
listed as a type of fan fiction.
Cheers!
On 5/22/2012 4:22 AM, dark wrote:
Actually there are graphical retro remakes of a large number of games
with film licenses, including starwars, batman and indiana jones.
of course, these are all free. Probably if you wanted to make a
commercial game things could get quite sticky financially.
Btw, I've never played the eT! game myself, but there is an amusing
urban myth about it.
The company who produced the game expected it to sell through the
roof, so made 100000 copies. However, because (as Tom said), it was
such a generic and easy game and generally not too well put together,
less than 10000 copies were sold.
So, what to do with the other 80000 or so coppies?
Apparently, they were taken out to a disused cquarry somewhere in the
desert in nevada and berried!
I love the thought of some future archaeologist finding 80000 copies
of the eT game. "hmmmm, was this a votive offering to the frog god of
the 20th century?" :D.
Of course, this is an urban myth and so likely might not be true, but
it's an amusing thought even so.
Beware the grue!
Dark.
---
Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org
If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to
gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org.
You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at
http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org.
All messages are archived and can be searched and read at
http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the
list,
please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
---
Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org
If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org.
You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at
http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org.
All messages are archived and can be searched and read at
http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list,
please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
