
Total production costs were estimated to be US$125 million.
...about 3.5 million of the 4 million produced were sent back to the company as unsold inventory or customer returns. Despite sales figures, the quantity of unsold merchandise, coupled with the expensive movie license and the large amount of returns, made E.T. a major financial failure for Atari. Next Generation Magazine reported that Atari grossed US$25 million in sales, but netted a loss of US$100 million due to overproduction and returns.
I think making games is really risk taking, especially making the new IP titles. I believe game developers should make the new system that allows people to pre-order the game even before the games are being finished. So they only showed the cinematic scenes and gameplay of their new games and see how market's reception. If they're interested, they can just preorder the games. This will give game developers some information whether their games are gonna be failure or otherwise, hug hits.