Concept to Console: The history of Pac-Man

Whether you’re a gamer or not, there are certain games you’ll just know. Characters like Mario and Pikachu are now cultural mainstays, but this wouldn’t have been possible without the influence of the first gaming icon. It’s time to delve into the rich history of Pac-Man and explore how he reshaped society’s attitude to gaming.

According to Japanese game designer Toru Iwatani, Pac-Man was conceived as an antidote to the overwhelming number of games at the time with violent themes, like Space Invaders and Galaxian. The shoot-em-ups ruled the arcades, and Pac-Man was a conscious choice to do something innovative, in part to attract what was perceived as the missing market of females. Games had very little in the way of characters in the early 80s, typically putting you in control of a generic spaceship, and Pac-Man changed all of that. The game was pushed on the strength of its main character, with Pac-Man plastered all over the arcade machine.

As Pac-Man is a game about eating, it’s wonderfully ironic that the character’s design emerged from a piece of food. “I had ordered a round pizza, and it was missing a piece. In a eureka moment, the shape of what is now Pac-Man flashed through my mind,” Mr Iwatani said. His yellow circular design was easy to animate and instantly iconic – indeed, according to the May 2008 report by the Davie Brown Celebrity Index, Pac-Man was recognised by 94% of US consumers. As for his name, it was derived from the Japanese ‘puck-puck’, an onomatopoeic expression for eating (and the sound the character makes). His original name was Puck-Man, but this was changed in America because of the potential for vandalism.

In its first year in America, Pac-Man made over $1 billion in quarters

In case you’re unfamiliar with the game, Pac-Man saw you move the eponymous hero around a maze, earning points for eating dots. There are four different coloured ghosts on-screen – Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde – and you lose a life if you collide with one. If Pac-Man eats a power pellet, all the ghosts turn dark-blue and can be eaten for a limited period. Bonus objects in the form of fruit and other objects can be eaten to earn additional points. The game continues on a loop until Pac-Man has lost all of his (usually three) lives. It was simple to grasp and easy to play, and it proved irresistible to gamers.

Pac-Man was released in Japanese arcades in 1980, receiving a particularly lukewarm response. When it came to America the same year, the difficulty and pace of the game was increased, but investors saw little merit. They expected that a racing game called Rally-X would be the most popular of the year, but they were wrong – it was an overnight hit, quickly surpassing Asteroids in revenue. In its first year in America, Pac-Man made over $1 billion in quarters. In 1982, it was estimated that 30 million Americans spent $8 million a week playing the game, and it had generated approximately $2.5 billion by the 1990s.

Pac-Man fever swept the country, including in the form of a song – novelty duo Buckner and Garcia wrote a single inspired by the game that cracked the Billboard Top Ten. In 1982, the character made the cover of Time, illustrating a piece about games lobbyists, and he had his own Hanna-Barbera cartoon, which ran between 1982 and 1984.  For many parents, Pac-Man’s popularity was terrifying: many towns passed statutes to regulate or restrict the games. Des Plaines, Illinois, banned people under 21 from playing video games unless accompanied by a parent, and Marshfield, Massachusetts, just banned games outright.

A Pac-Man Google Doodle released 21 May 2010 absorbed 4.8 million hours of gameplay and potentially $148 million in wasted wages

As the game was a hit, a slew of spin-offs followed. Ms. Pac-Man was an unauthorised game when it debuted in 1981, but Namco loved it and made it official. It followed the same basic formula but included varying numbers of dots, more lifelines and different villain names. Past that, it began to get weird. 1984’s Pac-Land was a side-scroller that saw Pac-Man premiere his new ‘limbed’ version, the character most people now know. Super Pac-Man introduced strange power-ups and locked doors in the maze, while Baby Pac-Man alternated between the arcade game and a pinball machine. Jr. Pac-Man featured a scrolling maze, and the character got his own educational puzzle game in Professor Pac-Man. These are just a few of the many Pac-Man games we’ve seen over the past 40 years.

Pac-Man remains a hugely culturally-important property. In the summer of 2013, Disney XD debuted the bizarre cartoon Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures, and there were even talks of creating a Pac-Man reality TV show in 2011. It was described by the head of Merv Griffin Entertainment, Roy Bank, as follows: “A big crazy Wipeout-type event with a lot of energy. The idea we have is to take what Pac-Man is and bring it to life, to bring what is the world’s biggest game of tag to television.” The idea never went further than that pitch. There was also a Google Doodle of the game on 21 May 2010, which in one day absorbed 4.8 million hours of gameplay and potentially $148 million in wasted wages.

Pac-Man is now Namco Bandai’s mascot, and continues to release games almost annually – the most recent instalment was last year’s Pac-Man Party Royale, released for the Apple Arcade. He’s made tons of cameos, fighting Space Invaders, playing PlayStation golf, battling in Tekken, and facing Mario in the Mario Kart arcade experience. And, of course, as a family-friendly gaming legend, Pac-Man was almost obligated to appear in the Super Smash Bros series – he debuted in 2014’s Smash for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, and has remained a fixture ever since.

Pac-Man was lightning in a bottle, infusing gaming with character, and reshaping how developers and fans thought about the games they were playing. But he was also hugely important in making gaming a cultural phenomenon, arguably paving the way for the industry to become as popular as it did. When Toru Iwatani was eating a pizza in 1979, he had no idea that that lunch would be pivotal in turning video games into the cultural force they are today.