Following the commercial success of the film in June 1982, Steve Ross, chief executive officer (CEO) of Atari's parent company Warner Communications, started negotiations with Steven Spielberg and Universal Pictures to acquire the license to produce a video game based on the film. In late June, Warner announced its exclusive worldwide rights to market coin-operated and console games based on the movie. Although the exact details of the transaction were not disclosed in the announcement, it was later reported that Atari had paid ( when adjusted for inflation to ) for the rights, a high figure for video game licensing at the time. When asked by Ross what he thought about making an "E.T."-based video game, Atari CEO Ray Kassar replied, "I think it's a dumb idea. We've never really made an action game out of a movie." An arcade game based on the "E.T." property had also been planned, but this was deemed to be impossible given the short deadline.