Atari's "ET - The Extra-terrestrial" cartridge was a total failure; even today, it is considered one of the worst games ever made. The bad reviews obviously caused many to give up on buying the game cartridges, which the company then buried in a New Mexico landfill.
The games were unearthed in 2014 in a collaboration between the New Mexico government and several companies, such as Microsoft, for example. A number of them were auctioned off to raise funds for a museum.