India, Sept. 30 -- In 1983, a video game giant trucked its surplus games to a desert landfill and left them there. Decades later, that dump turned into an archaeological site. According to Andrew Reinhard's 2015 study in the Journal of Contemporary Archaeology, the 2014 dig in Alamogordo, New Mexico, was the first archaeological excavation of a collection of video games. It also became a blend of archaeology, publicity, and social media attention.

In 1982, Atari was on top of the world. The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History describes it as one of the most successful companies in U.S. history. But there were tough rivals, mainly Mattel's Intellivision and Coleco's Colecovision, and a flood of games from independent studios...