ET is blamed and it might have just shined the spotlight on the quality issues, since it was a huge blockbuster movie and nearly everyone knew about it. So if you see an ET game in stores, loved the movie, but then got "falling in hole simulator" as a game it's even more egregious because the movie was so good in your opinion.
Maybe it helped people take the rose colored glasses off and realize that games are supposed to be fun, not just functional.
E.T.'s a funny one. It's one of the top-selling Atari games of all time, but they made 5M copies for (at the time) an install base of around 10M. Assuming half of your customers will buy the game is a bit bonkers to me. As far as E.T.'s quality goes: yes, it's extremely flawed, but it's honestly nowhere near the worst game ever made. I think it definitely contributed to Atari's woes, but it probably wasn't solely responsible.
Wikipedia says they produced 4M copies, sold 2.6M by the end of the year, but ultimately 3.5 M were returned as unsold or customer returns.
Wikipedia says, "Atari sold 1.25 million Space Invaders cartridges and over 1 million VCS systems in 1980, nearly doubling the install base to over 2 million, and then an estimated 3.1 million VCS systems in 1981", so if they thought E.T. was going to be as big of a hit as Space Invaders, 4M copies is actually low production. Pac-Man released in 1982, sold 7.2 M copies in 1982 and about 3M more in subsequent years.
> You spend a lot of time accidentally falling in to wells. I believe that I know reason why this happens to so many people, and what can be done to fix it.
This reminds me of the fact the dos teenage mutant ninja turtles game had a jump you literally couldn't make and yet was loved by my whole friend group despite being unable to complete without exploiting a level skip bug.
Maybe it helped people take the rose colored glasses off and realize that games are supposed to be fun, not just functional.