A rare Atari 2600 game titled Extra Terrestrials received very little critical attention upon its release in 1983. The game was modeled after the affable E.T. character created by Steven Spielberg, within a year of the film's release in theaters worldwide. Regardless of its apparent inauthenticity, and perhaps its playability (or lack thereof) - an original cartridge of the game is now selling on eBay for the flat sum of $90,000, the seller choosing the "buy now" option in lieu of the conventional bidding process.
Sealed, rare copies of proto-video games like Extra Terrestrials, or the popular Stadium Events released by Nintendo (NES) in 1986, have garnered the attention from retro collectors the world over. Unlike the point of interest in obtaining Stadium Events, collectors would only be interested in the purchase of Extra Terrestrials for one lone reason: ET is the rare title to come out on the Atari 2600 console following the two-year recession (83-85) the video game industry suffered at large. ET was published in 1984, while "console gaming" was momentarily out of style.
Extra Terrestrials was self-published by a game developer operating out of Burlington, Ontario - as confirmed by the eBay seller named gamewizard69. As the auctioneer explained in the bio description, the ET cartridge is the only one in existence, information bestowed to the would-be-buyer in ever they sought to question the game's less than mint condition. Buyer beware!