Back in the late ‘70s, arcade video games were just starting to become popular with the likes of Space Invaders and Breakout. But these games were mostly aimed toward boys, focusing on war or sports, or just generally featuring crude graphics and violence, and made arcades themselves feel like a possibly seedy environment. A young Japanese game developer, Toru Iwatani, wanted to change all of that with the next game he worked on. He wanted to create something that appealed to women and families, thus bringing more people into arcades. So what did he come up with? Only one of the most influential games of all-time: Pac-Man.
When Iwatani was brainstorming about what sort of game to create that would appeal to women, his mind turned to food, believing that women were big fans of desserts and sweets. Indeed, the original name that he came up with for the game was Pakkuman, based on the Japanese onomatopoeia term “paku paku taberu,” referencing opening and closing one’s mouth over and over again. Eventually that would evolve into Puck Man for the Japanese market (since Pac-Man looked like a hockey puck), but for the American market it had to be changed as there were fears people might vandalize the machines and change the P to an F. So, designers took inspiration from that initial idea and called it Pac-Man in America. Let’s just say, those fears of vandalism were probably warranted, so it was a good decision to change the name!
The character of Pac-Man himself was inspired by a couple of different things. Iwatani has often claimed that he came up with the character while out at lunch and seeing a pizza with a slice missing. But, in a 1986 interview, he clarified that it was only half true — Pac-Man was also based on the Japanese character “kuchi” (口) meaning mouth, which he rounded out to turn into the character. The rest of the game took inspiration from other works — for example, the colorful ghosts were inspired by the television series Casper the Friendly Ghost, as well as the manga Obake no Q-Taro, and the idea of using fruit as bonuses was based on the graphics often utilized in slot machines.
Though the president of Namco, the company where Iwatani was developing the game, wanted all of the ghost characters to be red in color (because obviously red is a “bad” villainous color!), Iwatani believed they should all be different colors. After getting unanimous support from his colleagues, the game moved forward with different colors — but that’s not all. In order to make sure the game didn’t become too boring or difficult to play, the four ghosts created all had different, distinct AI personalities. Shadow (“Blinky”) the red ghost, always chases Pac-Man; Speedy (“Pinky”), the pink ghost, tries to get ahead of Pac-Man; Bashful (“Inky”), the cyan ghost, is often unpredictable; and Pokey (“Clyde”), the orange ghost, is kind of the dumb one of the bunch — sometimes he’ll chase Pac-Man, but other times he’ll wander off.
The last two things added to the game were the sound effects as well as some humorous interludes featuring Pac-Man and Shadow/Blinky to break up the tension of being constantly pursued. With all of the elements in place, the game was ready to head out to the market, and was released in Japan in July 1980, with the United States following a few months later in October. It became an instant hit, selling more than 100,000 arcade units within one year, which grossed more than US$1 billion in quarters. That’s 4 billion quarters, you guys! Wowza. The rest, as they say, is history. The game was ported over to home video game systems, and a miniature tabletop version was created as well, and that’s not even mentioning the sequels (Ms. Pac-Man, anyone?), an animated television series, and mountains of merchandise — it even inspired a song called “Pac-Man Fever” by Buckner and Garcia that made it all the way to number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart in 1981.
These days, you can play Pac-Man on your computer, on your favorite gaming console, or if you’re lucky enough to have an actual arcade still operating near you, it will undoubtedly have some version of Pac-Man available to play. And if it doesn’t, is it really a true arcade? We think not. Still, nothing will ever compare to saving up all of your quarters as a kid so you could head to the arcade with some friends to play some Pac-Man.
But what about you? Did you play Pac-Man? What are your favorite arcade memories? Let us know in the comments!
- Though the four ghost characters are known as Shadow, Speedy, Bashful, and Pokey in the US, the translations for their names in Japanese would actually come out to be Chaser, Ambusher, Fickle, and Feigned Ignorance.
- For the weekend of May 21–23, 2010, Google changed the logo on its homepage to a playable version of the game in recognition of the 30th anniversary of its release. The Google Doodle version of Pac-Man was estimated to have been played by more than 1 billion people worldwide in 2010, so Google later saved the game so people could keep playing — check it out here.
- Pac-Man has appeared in many films over the years, including Pixels (creator Toru Iwatani has a cameo in the beginning of the film), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Wreck-It Ralph, and Ralph Breaks the Internet.
- Billy Mitchell of Florida was the first person to earn the game’s perfect score of 3,333,360 points on July 3, 1999. In order to achieve that perfect score, Mitchell had to clear all 256 stages without a single miss, and consume all PAC-DOTS, fruits, and ghosts (consume 4 ghosts with each Power Pellet).
- The Atari 2600 version of the game sold over 7.9 million copies, making it the console’s best-selling game. In addition, the Coleco mini tabletop version of the game sold over 1.5 million units in 1982. Basically, this game has done gangbusters, and though there aren’t super updated numbers, as of 2016 all versions of Pac-Man are estimated to have grossed a total of more than $12 billion in revenue.
- Though the four ghost characters are known as Shadow, Speedy, Bashful, and Pokey in the US, the translations for their names in Japanese would actually come out to be Chaser, Ambusher, Fickle, and Feigned Ignorance.
- For the weekend of May 21–23, 2010, Google changed the logo on its homepage to a playable version of the game in recognition of the 30th anniversary of its release. The Google Doodle version of Pac-Man was estimated to have been played by more than 1 billion people worldwide in 2010, so Google later saved the game so people could keep playing — check it out here.
- Pac-Man has appeared in many films over the years, including Pixels (creator Toru Iwatani has a cameo in the beginning of the film), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Wreck-It Ralph, and Ralph Breaks the Internet.
- Billy Mitchell of Florida was the first person to earn the game’s perfect score of 3,333,360 points on July 3, 1999. In order to achieve that perfect score, Mitchell had to clear all 256 stages without a single miss, and consume all PAC-DOTS, fruits, and ghosts (consume 4 ghosts with each Power Pellet).
- The Atari 2600 version of the game sold over 7.9 million copies, making it the console’s best-selling game. In addition, the Coleco mini tabletop version of the game sold over 1.5 million units in 1982. Basically, this game has done gangbusters, and though there aren’t super updated numbers, as of 2016 all versions of Pac-Man are estimated to have grossed a total of more than $12 billion in revenue.
