Retro Gaming Australia

Ontario-based film company Fuel has obtained permission from the Alamogordo’s City Commission allowing them access to the city’s landfill for a period of six months. The reason? The company wishes to make a documentary on the excavation of of millions of unsold Atari 2600 cartridges which were said to have been buried there.

For those who don’t know, Atari was stuck with millions of unsold copies of games such as Pac-Man and E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial after the 1982 holiday season. The company had foolishly believed that people would buy Atari 2600s solely for these games, and produced more copies of the games than there were 2600 systems in households. These excess copies were said to have been buried in a New Mexico landfill in September 1983.

Susie Galea, the Almogordo city mayor seems to approve of the project, stating “I hope more people find out about Alamogordo through this opportunity that we have to unearth the Atari games in the landfill.”