DennisSo, we all know that the E.T. Atari game "almost killed the video game market" but did you know that the full development cycle for the whole game was 5 weeks and was done by one dev?
The whole story is pretty wild and I highly recommend reading up on it if you haven't. Hot take, but E.T. wasn't the worst game at the time, it was just the most high profile game that could have benefited from more playtesting.
The fact that it came out, was functional, and relatively bug free in 5 weeks is a huge accomplishment. (I think the production of the cartridges took longer). Especially if you consider that it had a bit of open world and randomized elements. Things that certainly weren't common at the time.
Also, for the people wondering about quality control, Spielberg himself played the game and gave it his approval.
Not only that, the rough spots in game play, difficulty, and the objective (things people criticize the game for) were all known on some level and addressed in the instruction manual (you could change the difficulty!!!)
https://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/manuals/vcs/et.pdf