Video game fans and historians note this game as the biggest flop in home computer game history. Ray Kassar, the CEO of Atari, talked to Steven Spielberg and came back with the licensing rights for E.T. for the shockingly high price of $20 million. (In comparison, Wing Commander, released in 1990, cost "only" $1 million, was a huge hit by industry standards, and still didn't make back its investment without the help of sequels and expansion packs.) Atari] anticipated enormous sales based on the popularity of the movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, but the game ended up having surprisingly poor sales. Opinions on the actual quality of the game range from "unbelievably bad" to "moderately enjoyable." However, as with almost any game, video game enthusiasts could find people who even thought it was quite good.
Atari produced more cartridges than there were 2600 game consoles in existence at the time. Most of them wound up in landfills and as tax writeoff. This game was one of many bad decisions that led to the bankruptcy of Atari, and it is seen as one of two major video game releases (along with the Atari 2600 version of Pac Man) that sparked the video game crash of 1983.
E.T. was written by Howard Warshaw, the same person who wrote Yars' Revenge. Yars' Revenge is considered to be one of the best titles on the 2600. The problem was not the skill of the programmer; the problem was the unreasonably short deadline - a mere eight weeks, when most games needed more than twice that - in order to make the Christmas sales season. Regardless, Howard had some confidence in his creation, ironically introducing it to Steven Spielberg as "the game that would make the movie famous".