A cartridge of the game "E.T." Atari were unearthed this year of a New Mexico landfill was added to the collection on the history of video games Smithsonian.

The museum specialist Drew Robarge made the announcement and included a photograph of the cartridge mistreated along with the official serial number assigned to the game by the city of Alamogordo, New Mexico.

The game was one of hundreds that were recovered from the city dump earlier this year when a team of documentary filmmakers investigated an old urban legend that Atari secretly discarded cartridges. The game of "E.T." had the reputation of being the worst in history, and have contributed to the downfall of the company.

Robarge said the Smithsonian has some amazing artifacts depicting great moments in gaming history as the "Brown Box" Ralph Baer-the prototype of the first video game console - and a cabinet of the game Pong.

But there was something that represented what he described as "the darkest days" of the early 1980s, when it collapsed the video game industry in the United States.

He said cartridge "E.T." is a key artifact that talks about the challenges of adapting video games and movies about the end of an era in the gaming industry.

Traslation Belén Zapata