I beat E.T. on the Atari 2600 when I was 8. At the time, I didn't know anything about public opinion of the game. I remember that it was indeed very, very frustrating. There was some sort of easy mode where no one came after you, which was even emptier than the regular version.

I wholeheartedly agree with this article. As a voracious consumer of baseball statistics - in my case, I'm more interested in sabermetrics than I am in the actual games - I would love to see this for the entertainment industry.