@BarryFromMars  
There was some dislike of the game before AVGN, but definitely not the irrational hate. At least not within any circles I was ever in. Then again I was mainly dealing with people who had been gaming since at least the 80s if not the late 70s.
 
In my experience most people who claim to hate the game either haven’t played it or approached it with no intention of actually giving it a fair chance. Those who give it a serious try seem to find it at least reasonably playable.

@BarryFromMars  
I really don’t think E.T. was really all that bad, in my eyes. The game just wasn’t what people expected and it came out at the wrong time, dooming it to a bad reputation.

@xargos32
 
I was retrogaming before AVGN; the hate/dislike for the game was there then. I played E.T. and I wasn’t a kid playing it for Christmas 1982 (I wasn’t born yet & I didn’t get the game until maybe 2004) but I didn’t ever think it was that bad (then again, I didn’t have high expectations for it which I suppose is just most kids had way back when; plus, maybe they expected it to be like other Atari games which this one’s not really like; not everything’s so self-explanatory.) The game was rushed out, it’s not the programmer’s fault for it at all (6 weeks programming time?!) and he made Yars’ Revenge which was a top selling title. Nobody at Atari blamed him for it.

Nice piece. I actually like the game, too. I have since the 80s. The nearly universal “hatred” of the game started after the Angry Video Game Nerd made a video about it.
 
Also, a study of video game history will show that this game itself wasn’t the cause of the crash. There were plenty of things that added up including personal computer sales eating into game console sales.

added pure unfiltered evil tag because you know exactly why
 
also, @Background Pony #5F82
 
E.T The Extraterrestrial was released in 1982, and was the number one best selling film of the year earning $359,197,037 in theaters - almost three times as much as the film below it, Tootsie. Credited as one of Stephen Spielberg’s greatest masterpieces, it set the stage in society for “friendly alien stories”, as was its intention because of a lack of said kind of stories in the media where films like Ridley Scott’s Alien dominated the genre. Still being re-released today, its has earned a total lifetime domestic gross of $435,110,554 and it’s still growing as people keep buying the blu-rays today. Let’s also not forget that its original theatrical earnings were several decades ago, and a lot of adjustments for inflation are necessary to really understand just how immensely successful this film was, regardless of any shitty spin-offs of the franchise.
 
The point I’m trying to get to is get the fuck out. Even its musical score won awards.

@Background Pony #5F82  
Heh, the funniest part about what you said is that you’re wrong about the movie.

IMBECILES! Do you have ANY idea what you’re doing? Or maybe you WANT to be ridiculed for the rest of your lives for playing the abomination of the game that slaughtered the gaming industry in 83!

E.t. Is the worst game in history and so does the movie,well this year Stephen won’t disappoint us