It's Real! The Atari Landfill is Real!

Like some strange twist out of a [rare good] M. Night Shyamalan movie, it turns out that what we thought was impossible is actually real.

The Atari landfill exists.

In 1983, beleaguered Atari dumped thousands [some say millions] of Atari games in the desert. Why?

Because they sucked.

Today, a documentary crew discovered this cache of horrible games, confirming the rumors that have swirled since the early 80's.

Awesome.

The most famous of these terrible games is E.T. The game was destined for failure. It was programmed by a single person, and executives only allowed a six-week development window.

Yeah, that turned out well.

After Atari had truckloads of E.T. and other terrible games that weren't selling, they decided to do what any normal person would do.

Bury them in the middle of the freaking desert.

The only thing is, we didn't know that for sure until now. For over three decades, we've been wondering whether Atari really buried all their terrible games, or whether it was simply fantasy.

Turns out it was true.

Now all we need to do is wait and see how many games they uncover. It could be a few thousand. It could be a few million.

One thing we do know: this is news you can phone home.