Approximately 800 crushed, dilapidated Atari 2600 game cartridges are scheduled for public auction in the coming months.

The Alamogordo, New Mexico city council voted 7-0 on Sept. 9 to offer the now infamous “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” games for sale on eBay, as well as on the council’s own website, sometime before Christmas of this year.

American video game company Atari, Inc., buried the cartridges in the New Mexico city landfill in September 1983, after suffering from significant financial and quality control issues in the preceding years.

The site remained relatively undisturbed for over 20 years after the burial, until April 26 when it was excavated for a documentary funded by Fuel Industries and Microsoft.

“It’s amazing how the whole event massively impacted the industry,” said Logan Rice, a freshman computer sciences major. “I remember being just so in awe when they dug up those cartridges. It’s just such a cool part of history.”

The burial site of over 700,000 cartridges became a cultural icon and a reminder for many of how the video game market came very close to dying in the early to mid ‘80s.

Between 1983 and 1985, the continental video game industry plummeted and the event is now referred to as the North American Video Game Crash of 1983.

“We have three major competitors when it comes to video games: Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo,” said Sacramento State alumnus Kyle Richardson. “In the early ‘80s, there were too many to even keep track of: Atari, Coleco, Mattel, Bally, and so many others. It was insane.”

The crash was primarily attributed to the over-saturation of both games and consoles in the video game market, as well as a loss of publishing control.

“Companies that had no entertainment experience whatsoever — like Quaker Oats and Purina — started making video games, because they seemed like an endless gold mine,” said Nicholas Werner, in an article for Inside Gaming Daily.

Companies would pop up with the intention of making games they could sell for cheap. In the end, they would only serve to inflate the market, with none of those sales going back to actual game or console developers.

Those published games were considered technically poor, tasteless or both. Commercial tie-ins, such as “E.T.”, were common and often rushed out to an already wary public.

The industry peaked at around $3.2 billion in 1983, but dropped to under $100 million by 1985, a nearly 97 percent drop according to figures researched and released by Nintendo of America.

As a direct result, most investors concluded that video games had been a fad and subsequently ignored them for years afterwards.

The market only began to recover in late 1985, when Nintendo released the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES. By 1988, annual sales climbed back up to $2.3 billion, with 70 percent of the market controlled by Nintendo.

Now considered to be the end of the second generation of console gaming in the U.S., the crash left several companies in bankruptcy, including Atari, and lasting effects on the modern industry.

The Nintendo Seal of Quality was introduced following the crash as a measure of controlling published games for the NES, ensuring that the game has been properly licensed and meets the standards of basic programming and content.

Several other interactive entertainment companies followed this example.

“I wasn’t alive during the crash, but I can definitely recognize it’s importance,” said freshman civil engineering major Toan Nguyen. “The seal has always been around for me. I can’t imagine what games would be like without it.”

In addition, the modern console market shifted during the crash from North America to Japan, and many gamers feel the hindsight gained from the crash has made the industry stronger as a whole.

“I’m going to try buying a copy when they go on auction,” Richardson said of the uncovered Atari games. “I’m not sure I’m going to have the money for it and it’s more likely that they’re going to sell out before I even have a chance.”

Richardson said reality hasn’t dissuaded him from planning on at least participating in the auctions when they begin.

While 800 of the “E.T.” cartridges will be available to the public, the rest of the 1,300 found will be reserved for collectors and museums around the world as a preservation of video gaming history.