Bach Seat

Pac-Man turned 40 this Memorial Day weekend. Pac-Man is the best-selling arcade game ever. The video game was created by game designer Toru Iwatani, who was 24 at the time. The idea for Pac-Man came to him when he removed a slice from a pizza. Pac-Man was originally called Puck-Man – but was changed because of how easy it was to turn that into an obscenity.

The game was produced by the Japanese company Namco and distributed in the U.S. by Chicago-based Bally-Midway. Between its debut in a Tokyo theater on May 22, 1980, and 1990 Namco sold 400,000 Pac-Man gaming cabinets to arcades around the world and made $3.5 billion ($7.7 billion in 2020) in lifetime sales. The arcade game was played more than 10 billion times in the 20th century.

Pac-Man’s success

A large part of Pac-Man’s success, in an era where almost all games were space-themed shooters (Galaga, Missile Command, Space Invaders), was its non-violent, maze-chase gameplay. The game presented something fresh and new. The new ideas in Pac-Man did something few other games did at that time – it appealed to female gamers. This universal attraction helped bring an unprecedented number of players into arcades around the world, who shoveled billions of quarters into its slots.

Pac-Man was also a pioneer in character development. The game had a defined main character, which was unheard of at the time. Chris Melissinos, curator of the 2012 Smithsonian American Art Museum exhibition “The Art of Video Games.” told CNN

Here comes this game that’s brightly colored and centered around a character that really doesn’t have a gender … And all of a sudden, we found a mascot — the first character in video games that existed not just in the artwork, but in the game itself. 

The ghosts

Mr. Iwatani told Wired that Popeye was the inspiration for Pac-Man’s ability to attack his enemies by eating fruit. Pac-Man’s protagonists, the ghosts Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde each have their own personalities based on early artificial intelligence (AI) routines. Blinky  (red) constantly chases Pac-Man, Pinky (pink) attempts to ambush him, Inky (light blue) is randomized depending on Pac-Man’s position and Clyde (orange) will get close to the player then attempt to flee to the bottom left corner, potentially cutting off escape routes. Mr. Iwatani told CNN, “We introduced an AI-like algorithm that sent the ghosts to surround Pac-Man from all sides.”

Pac-Man has conquered all media

The popularity of Pac-Man opened the door to the first generation of gaming merchandise. Pac-Man has conquered all media – Online, print, music, and merchandising. Here are 12 other things you should know about Pac-Man.

1. When a playable version of Pac-Man appeared on the Google Doodle it cost the world almost 5 million man-hours and $120 million in lost productivity.
2. Pac-Man has appeared in more than 90 games. The Pac-Man spin-off, Ms. Pac-Man, is a top 5 best-selling arcade game, according to U.S. Gamer.
3. He has been on the cover of Time Magazine.
4. Pac-Man is a rock star. The Pac-Man inspired song Pac-Man Fever reached number nine on Billboard’s Top 100 chart in March 1982. The song sold more than a million copies
5. “Weird” Al Yankovic recorded “Pac-Man” in 1981 set to the music of the Beatles classic “Taxman.”  It was not officially released until 2017.
6. The game’s distinctive sound was an inspiration to early hip-hop pioneers; including Jonzun Crew’s Pack Jam and Newcleus’s Jam on Revenge (The Wikki-Wikki Song).
7. He is a TV star. In a 1982 episode Taxi, Louie (Danny DeVito) installs a Pac-Man cabinet in the garage and Jim (Christopher Lloyd) becomes addicted to the game. The scene is effectively a how-to guide and an ad for Pac-Man rolled into one.
8. Pac-Man has appeared on The Simpsons‘ 5 times. In episode 343, Homer was researching previous Super Bowl halftime performances and looked back on a tape of Pac-Man marrying Ms. Pac-Man as the ghosts danced and celebrated to the song “Physical” by Olivia Newton-John.
9. He has had two television cartoons. First was Pac-Man: The Animated Series from Hanna-Barbera which ran on ABC from 1982-83 and then there was Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures (2013-2016) that was launched to support the new 3-D Pac-Man on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii U.
10. Pac-Man is a merchandising maniac. Sports-card manufacturer Fleer produced three Pac-Man trading card sets. One set is based on the original arcade game, one is centered on Ms. Pac-Man, and a third is based on the Super Pac-Man game.
11. Chef Boyardee released Pac-Man pasta in three varieties: cheese, meatballs, and chicken. Of course, the pasta’s were formed in the shape of Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man.
12. Counter-intuitively, the video game even had a board game. Milton Bradley published the Pac-Man board game in 1982  – which is going for $75.00 on eBay these days.

rb-

I recall playing Pac-Man on a console at Pizzuti’s Pizza while in HS. My arcade game really stepped up when I lived around the corner from Pinball Pete’s in Ann Arbor (which burned down in 2009) and was dodging work while on campus.

Stay safe out there!

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.