Pac-Man
Encyclopedia
is an arcade game
developed by Namco
and licensed for distribution in the United States by Midway
, first released in Japan on May 22, 1980. Immensely popular from its original release to the present day, Pac-Man is considered one of the classics of the medium, virtually synonymous with video games, and an icon of 1980s popular culture
. Upon its release, the game—and, subsequently, Pac-Man derivatives—became a social phenomenon that sold a bevy of merchandise and also inspired, among other things, an animated television series
and a top-ten hit single
.
When Pac-Man was released, the most popular arcade video games were space shooters
, in particular Space Invaders
and Asteroids. The most visible minority were sports games that were mostly derivative of Pong
. Pac-Man succeeded by creating a new genre and appealing to both genders. Pac-Man is often credited with being a landmark in video game history, and is among the most famous arcade games of all time. It is also the highest-grossing video game of all time, having generated more than $2.5 billion in quarters
by the 1990s.
The character has appeared in more than 30 officially licensed game spin-offs, as well as in numerous unauthorized clones and bootlegs. According to the Davie-Brown Index
, Pac-Man has the highest brand awareness
of any video game character among American consumers, recognized by 94 percent of them. Pac-Man is one of the longest running video game franchises from the golden age of video arcade games, and one of only three video games that are on display at the Smithsonian
in Washington D.C. (along with Pong
and Dragon's Lair
).
The player controls Pac-Man through a maze
, eating pac-dots. When all dots are eaten, Pac-Man is taken to the next stage, between some stages one of three intermission animations plays. Four enemies (Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde) roam the maze, trying to catch Pac-Man. If an enemy touches Pac-Man, a life is lost. When all lives have been lost, the game ends. Pac-Man is awarded a single bonus life at 10,000 points by default—DIP switch
es inside the machine can change the required points or disable the bonus life altogether. Near the corners of the maze are four larger, flashing dots known as power pellets
that provide Pac-Man with the temporary ability to eat the enemies. The enemies turn deep blue, reverse direction and usually move more slowly. When an enemy is eaten, its eyes remain and return to the center box where it is regenerated in its normal color. Blue enemies flash white before they become dangerous again and the length of time for which the enemies remain vulnerable varies from one stage to the next, generally becoming shorter as the game progresses. In later stages, the enemies go straight to flashing, bypassing blue, although they still reverse direction when a power pellet is eaten.
The enemies in Pac-Man are known variously as "ghost
s" and "monster
s".
Despite the seemingly random nature of the enemies, their movements are strictly deterministic, which players have used to their advantage. In an interview, creator Toru Iwatani stated that he had designed each enemy with its own distinct personality in order to keep the game from becoming impossibly difficult or boring to play. More recently, Iwatani described the enemy behaviors in more detail at the 2011 Game Developers Conference. He stated that the red enemy chases Pac-Man, and the pink and blue enemies try to position themselves in front of Pac-Man's mouth. While he claimed that the orange enemy's behavior is random, a careful analysis of the game's code reveals that it actually chases Pac-Man most of the time, but also moves toward the lower-left corner of the maze when Pac-Man is facing a certain direction.
Pac-Man was designed to have no ending – as long as the player keeps at least one life, he or she should be able to play the game indefinitely. However, a bug keeps this from happening: Normally, no more than seven fruit are displayed at the bottom of the screen at any one time. But when the internal level counter, which is stored in a single byte, reaches 255, the subroutine that draws the fruit erroneously "rolls over
" this number to zero, causing it to try to draw 256 fruit instead of the usual seven. This corrupts the bottom of the screen and the entire right half of the maze with seemingly random symbols, making it impossible to eat enough dots to beat the level. Because this effectively ends the game, this "split-screen" level is often referred to as the "kill screen". Emulators and code analysis have revealed what would happen should this 255th level be cleared: The fruit and intermissions would restart at level 1 conditions, but the enemies would retain their higher speed and invulnerability to power pellets from the higher stages.
International Scoreboard on July 3, 1999, the first person to achieve this maximum possible score (3,333,360 points) was Billy Mitchell
of Hollywood, Florida
, who performed the feat in about six hours.
In September 2009, David Race of Beavercreek, Ohio
, became the sixth person to achieve a perfect score. His time of 3 hours, 41 minutes, and 22 seconds set a new record for the fastest time to obtain a perfect score.
In December 1982, an 8-year-old boy, Jeffrey R. Yee, supposedly received a letter from U.S. President Ronald Reagan
congratulating him on a worldwide record of 6,131,940 points, a score only possible if he had passed the Split-Screen Level. Whether or not this event happened as described has remained in heated debate among video-game circles since its supposed occurrence. In September 1983, Walter Day
, chief scorekeeper at Twin Galaxies, took the US National Video Game Team on a tour of the East Coast to visit video game players who claimed they could get through the Split-Screen Level. No video game player could demonstrate this ability. In 1999, Billy Mitchell offered $100,000 to anyone who could pass through the Split-Screen Level before January 1, 2000. The prize went unclaimed.
The game was developed primarily by a young Namco employee named Tōru Iwatani over the course of a year, beginning in April 1979, employing a nine-man team. It was based on the concept of eating, and the original Japanese title was , inspired by the Japanese onomatopoeic slang phrase , where paku-paku describes (the sound of) the mouth movement when widely opened and then closed in succession.
Although Iwatani has repeatedly stated that the character's shape was inspired by a pizza missing a slice, he admitted in a 1986 interview that this was a half-truth and the character design also came from simplifying and rounding out the Japanese character for mouth, kuchi . Iwatani attempted to appeal to a wider audience—beyond the typical demographics of young boys and teenagers. This led him to add elements of a maze, as well as cute ghost enemy characters. The result was a game he named Puck Man.
Later in 1980, the game was picked up for manufacture in the United States by Bally division Midway
, which changed the game's name from Puck Man to Pac-Man in an effort to avoid vandalism
to the letter 'P
'. The cabinet artwork was also changed.
and other similar games were more popular at the time. However, the game found far more success in North America. Pac-Mans success in North America took competitors and distributors completely by surprise in 1980. Marketing executives who saw Pac-Man at a trade show prior to release completely overlooked the game (along with the now classic Defender), while they looked to a racing car game called Rally-X
as the game to outdo that year. The appeal of Pac-Man was such that the game caught on immediately with the public; it quickly became far more popular than anything seen in the game industry up to that point. Pac-Man outstripped Asteroids
as the best-selling arcade game in North America, where it would sell more than 350,000 arcade cabinets (retailing at around $2400 each) for $1 billion (equivalent to over $2.3 billion in 2011) within 18 months, and gross over $1 billion in quarters
within a year. Towards the end of the 20th century, the game's total gross in quarters had been estimated at more than 10 billion quarters ($2.5 billion), equivalent to over $3.4 billion in 2011, making it the highest-grossing video game of all time.
The game is regarded as one of the most influential video games of all time, for a number of reasons: its titular character was the first original gaming mascot
, the game established the maze chase game genre, it demonstrated the potential of characters in video games
, it opened gaming to female audiences, and it was gaming's first licensing success. In addition, it was the first video game to feature power-up
s, and it is frequently credited as the first game to feature cut scenes, in the form of brief comical interludes about Pac-Man and the ghosts chasing each other around during those interludes, though Space Invaders Part II employed a similar technique that same year. Pac-Man is also credited for laying the foundations for the stealth game genre, as it emphasized avoiding enemies rather than fighting them, and had an influence on the early stealth game Metal Gear
(where guards chase Solid Snake
in a similar manner to Pac-Man when he is spotted). Pac-Man has also influenced many other games, ranging from the sandbox
game Grand Theft Auto
(where the player runs over pedestrians and gets chased by police in a similar manner) to early first-person shooter
s such as MIDI Maze
(which had similar maze-based gameplay and character designs), Wolfenstein 3D
(which was similar in level design
and featured a Pac-Man level from a first-person perspective) and Doom (with its similar emphasis on mazes, power-ups, killing monsters, and reaching the next level).
One of the first ports to be released was the much maligned port for the Atari 2600. The Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man
only somewhat resembled the original, and its flickering ghosts were widely criticized. Despite the criticism, it sold seven million units, costing $37.95 each, becoming the best selling game on the Atari 2600
console, though it would eventually become one of the contributing factors to Atari's decline and the North American video game crash of 1983, alongside Atari's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
It was also released for the Apple II series
, Atari's 5200
and 8-bit computers
, IBM Personal Computer, Intellivision
, the Commodore 64
and VIC-20
and Nintendo Entertainment System
. For handheld game console
s, it was released on the Game Boy
, Sega Game Gear
, Game Boy Color
, and the Neo Geo Pocket Color
.
The game has also been featured in Namco's long-running Namco Museum
video game compilations. Downloads of the game have been made available on game services such as Xbox Live Arcade
, GameTap
and Virtual Console
. Namco has also released mobile versions for BREW
, Java
, iOS, as well as Palm PDAs and Windows Mobile
-based devices. A port of Pac-Man for Android can be controlled not only through an Android phone's trackball but through touch gestures or its on-board accelerometer.
In addition, Namco has repeatedly re-released the game to arcades. In 2001, Namco released a Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga
"Class of 1981 Reunion Edition" cabinet with Pac-Man available for play as a hidden game. To commemorate Pac-Mans 25th anniversary in 2005, Namco released a revision that officially featured all three games.
Namco Networks
ported Pac-Man to the PC (bought online) in 2009 which also includes an "Enhanced" mode which replaces all of the original sprites with the sprites from Pac-Man Championship Edition
but it's still the original Pac-Man otherwise, Namco Networks also made a bundle (also bought online) which includes their PC version of Pac-Man as well as their port of Dig Dug
called Namco All-Stars: Pac-Man and Dig Dug.
In 2010 Namco Bandai
has announced that they are releasing this game on Windows Phone 7
as an Xbox Live game.
Pac-Man's spawned sequels and spin-offs includes only one which was designed by Tōru Iwatani . Some of the follow-ups were not developed by Namco either – including the most significant, Ms. Pac-Man
, released in the United States in 1981. Originally called Crazy Otto, this unauthorized hack of Pac-Man was created by General Computer Corporation
and sold to Midway without Namco's permission. The game features several changes from the original Pac-Man, including faster gameplay, more mazes, new intermissions, and moving bonus items. Some consider Ms. Pac-Man to be superior to the original, and even the best in the entire series. Namco sued Midway for exceeding their license. Eventually, Bally Midway struck a deal with Namco to officially license Ms. Pac-Man as a sequel.
Following Ms. Pac-Man, Bally Midway released several other unauthorized spin-offs, such as Pac-Man Plus
, Jr. Pac-Man
, Baby Pac-Man
and Professor Pac-Man
, resulting in Namco severing business relations with Midway.
Various platform game
s based on the series have also been released by Namco, such as 1984's Pac-Land
and the Pac-Man World
series, which features Pac-Man in a 3-D world. More modern versions of the original game have also been developed, such as the multiplayer Pac-Man Vs.
for the Nintendo GameCube
and Tōru Iwatani-developed Pac-Man Championship Edition
and its sequel
.
For the weekend of May 21–23, 2010, Google
changed the Google logo
on its homepage to a Google Doodle of a fully playable version of the game in recognition of the 30th anniversary of the game's release. The game featured the ability to play both Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man
simultaneously. After finishing the game, the website automatically redirected the user to a search of Pac-Man 30th Anniversary. Companies across the world experienced slight drops in productivity due to the game, though the reported $120 million total loss "spread out across the entire world isn't a huge loss, comparatively speaking". Some organizations even temporarily blocked Google's website from workplace computers on the Friday it was uploaded, particularly where it violated regulations against recreational games. Because of the popularity of the Pac-Man doodle, Google decided to allow access to the game through a separate web page.
In 2011, Namco sent a DMCA notice to the team that made the programming language
Scratch saying that a programmer had infringed copyright by making a Pacman game using the language and uploading it to Scratch's official website.
In April 2011, Soap Creative published World's Biggest Pac-Man
working together with Microsoft
and Namco-Bandai to celebrate Pac-Man's 30th anniversary. It is a multiplayer browser-based game with user-created, interlocking mazes.
s and toys to hand-held video game imitations and even specially shaped pasta. An animated TV series
produced by Hanna–Barbera aired on ABC
from 1982 to 1983. The Killer List of Videogames
lists Pac-Man as the #1 video game on its "Top 10 Most Popular Video games" list. At one time, a feature film based on the game was also in development. In 2010, a computer-generated animated series was reported to be in the works.
Guinness World Records
has awarded the Pac-Man series eight records in Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008, including First Perfect Pac-Man Game for Billy Mitchell
's July 3, 1999 score and "Most Successful Coin-Operated Game". On June 3, 2010, at the NLGD Festival of Games, the game's creator Toru Iwatani officially received the certificate from Guinness World Records for Pac-Man having had the most "coin-operated arcade machines" installed world wide: 293,822. The record was set and recognized in 2005 and mentioned in the Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008, but finally actually awarded in 2010.
Pac-Man has been referenced in numerous other media. In music, the Buckner & Garcia
song "Pac-Man Fever
" went to #9 on the Billboard Hot 100
charts, and received a Gold certification
with over a million records sold. Their Pac-Man Fever
album also received a Gold certification for selling over a million records. "Weird Al" Yankovic
recorded a song titled "Pac-Man" that was a parody of The Beatles
' "Taxman
", in 1981. Hip hop emcee Lil' Flip
sampled sounds from the game Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man to make his top-20 single "Game Over
". Namco America filed a lawsuit against Sony Music Entertainment
for unauthorized use of these samples. The suit was eventually settled out of court.
The game has also inspired various real-life recreations, involving either real people or robots. One event called Pac-Manhattan
set a Guinness World Record for "Largest Pac-Man Game" in 2004.
The term Pac-Man defense
in mergers and acquisitions
refers to a hostile takeover
target that attempts to reverse the situation and take over its would-be acquirer instead, a reference to Pac-Man's power pellets.
Arcade game
An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...
developed by Namco
Namco
is a Japanese corporation best known as a former video game developer and publisher. Following a merger with Bandai in September 2005, the two companies' game production assets were spun off into Namco Bandai Games on March 31, 2006. Namco Ltd. was re-established to continue domestic operation of...
and licensed for distribution in the United States by Midway
Midway Games
Midway Games, Inc. is an American company that was formerly a major video game publisher. Following a bankruptcy filing in 2009, it is no longer active and is in the process of liquidating all of its assets. Midway's titles included Mortal Kombat, Ms.Pac-Man, Spy Hunter, Tron, Rampage, the...
, first released in Japan on May 22, 1980. Immensely popular from its original release to the present day, Pac-Man is considered one of the classics of the medium, virtually synonymous with video games, and an icon of 1980s popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
. Upon its release, the game—and, subsequently, Pac-Man derivatives—became a social phenomenon that sold a bevy of merchandise and also inspired, among other things, an animated television series
Pac-Man (TV series)
Pac-Man is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera based on the video game Pac-Man by Namco, which premiered on ABC and ran from 1982 to 1983. During the first airing of the show, the large number of advertisers sponsoring it caused commercial breaks to be double their normal length...
and a top-ten hit single
Pac-Man Fever (song)
"Pac-Man Fever" is a hit single by Buckner & Garcia. Capitalizing on the video game craze of the early 1980s, the song, about the classic video game Pac-Man, peaked at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US in March 1982. That same month, it was certified Gold by the RIAA for over 1,000,000 units...
.
When Pac-Man was released, the most popular arcade video games were space shooters
Shoot 'em up
Shoot 'em up is a subgenre of shooter video games. In a shoot 'em up, the player controls a lone character, often in a spacecraft or aircraft, shooting large numbers of enemies while dodging their attacks. The genre in turn encompasses various types or subgenres and critics differ on exactly what...
, in particular Space Invaders
Space Invaders
is an arcade video game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, and released in 1978. It was originally manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and was later licensed for production in the United States by the Midway division of Bally. Space Invaders is one of the earliest shooting games and the aim is to...
and Asteroids. The most visible minority were sports games that were mostly derivative of Pong
Pong
Pong is one of the earliest arcade video games, and is a tennis sports game featuring simple two-dimensional graphics. While other arcade video games such as Computer Space came before it, Pong was one of the first video games to reach mainstream popularity...
. Pac-Man succeeded by creating a new genre and appealing to both genders. Pac-Man is often credited with being a landmark in video game history, and is among the most famous arcade games of all time. It is also the highest-grossing video game of all time, having generated more than $2.5 billion in quarters
Quarter (United States coin)
A quarter dollar, commonly shortened to quarter, is a coin worth ¼ of a United States dollar, or 25 cents. The quarter has been produced since 1796. The choice of 25¢ as a denomination, as opposed to 20¢ which is more common in other parts of the world, originated with the practice of dividing...
by the 1990s.
The character has appeared in more than 30 officially licensed game spin-offs, as well as in numerous unauthorized clones and bootlegs. According to the Davie-Brown Index
Davie-Brown Index (DBI)
The Davie Brown Index is an independent index for brand marketers and agencies that quantifies consumer perceptions of more than 2,900 celebrities, including TV and film stars, musical artists, reality TV stars, news personalities, politicians, athletes, and business leaders.Developed by the...
, Pac-Man has the highest brand awareness
Brand awareness
Brand awareness is a marketing concept that enables marketers to quantify levels and trends in consumer knowledge and awareness of a brand's existence...
of any video game character among American consumers, recognized by 94 percent of them. Pac-Man is one of the longest running video game franchises from the golden age of video arcade games, and one of only three video games that are on display at the Smithsonian
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
in Washington D.C. (along with Pong
Pong
Pong is one of the earliest arcade video games, and is a tennis sports game featuring simple two-dimensional graphics. While other arcade video games such as Computer Space came before it, Pong was one of the first video games to reach mainstream popularity...
and Dragon's Lair
Dragon's Lair
Dragon's Lair is a laserdisc video game published by Cinematronics in 1983. It featured animation created by ex-Disney animator Don Bluth....
).
Gameplay
Maze
A maze is a tour puzzle in the form of a complex branching passage through which the solver must find a route. In everyday speech, both maze and labyrinth denote a complex and confusing series of pathways, but technically the maze is distinguished from the labyrinth, as the labyrinth has a single...
, eating pac-dots. When all dots are eaten, Pac-Man is taken to the next stage, between some stages one of three intermission animations plays. Four enemies (Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde) roam the maze, trying to catch Pac-Man. If an enemy touches Pac-Man, a life is lost. When all lives have been lost, the game ends. Pac-Man is awarded a single bonus life at 10,000 points by default—DIP switch
DIP switch
DIP switches are manual electric switches that are packaged in a group in a standard dual in-line package...
es inside the machine can change the required points or disable the bonus life altogether. Near the corners of the maze are four larger, flashing dots known as power pellets
Power-up
In computer and video games, power-ups are objects that instantly benefit or add extra abilities to the game character as a game mechanic. This is in contrast to an item, which may or may not have a benefit and can be used at a time chosen by the player...
that provide Pac-Man with the temporary ability to eat the enemies. The enemies turn deep blue, reverse direction and usually move more slowly. When an enemy is eaten, its eyes remain and return to the center box where it is regenerated in its normal color. Blue enemies flash white before they become dangerous again and the length of time for which the enemies remain vulnerable varies from one stage to the next, generally becoming shorter as the game progresses. In later stages, the enemies go straight to flashing, bypassing blue, although they still reverse direction when a power pellet is eaten.
Enemies
Ghost
In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...
s" and "monster
Monster
A monster is any fictional creature, usually found in legends or horror fiction, that is somewhat hideous and may produce physical harm or mental fear by either its appearance or its actions...
s".
Despite the seemingly random nature of the enemies, their movements are strictly deterministic, which players have used to their advantage. In an interview, creator Toru Iwatani stated that he had designed each enemy with its own distinct personality in order to keep the game from becoming impossibly difficult or boring to play. More recently, Iwatani described the enemy behaviors in more detail at the 2011 Game Developers Conference. He stated that the red enemy chases Pac-Man, and the pink and blue enemies try to position themselves in front of Pac-Man's mouth. While he claimed that the orange enemy's behavior is random, a careful analysis of the game's code reveals that it actually chases Pac-Man most of the time, but also moves toward the lower-left corner of the maze when Pac-Man is facing a certain direction.
| Enemy Color | Original Puck Man | American Pac-Man | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Character (Personality) | Translation | Nickname | Translation | Alternate character |
Alternate nickname |
Character (Personality) | Nickname | |
| Red | Oikake | chaser | Akabei | red guy | Urchin | Macky | Shadow | Blinky |
| Pink | Machibuse | ambusher | Pinky | pink guy | Romp | Micky | Speedy | Pinky |
| Cyan | Kimagure | fickle | Aosuke | blue guy | Stylist | Mucky | Bashful | Inky |
| Orange | Otoboke | stupid | Guzuta | slow guy | Crybaby | Mocky | Pokey | Clyde |
Split-screen
Integer overflow
In computer programming, an integer overflow occurs when an arithmetic operation attempts to create a numeric value that is too large to be represented within the available storage space. For instance, adding 1 to the largest value that can be represented constitutes an integer overflow...
" this number to zero, causing it to try to draw 256 fruit instead of the usual seven. This corrupts the bottom of the screen and the entire right half of the maze with seemingly random symbols, making it impossible to eat enough dots to beat the level. Because this effectively ends the game, this "split-screen" level is often referred to as the "kill screen". Emulators and code analysis have revealed what would happen should this 255th level be cleared: The fruit and intermissions would restart at level 1 conditions, but the enemies would retain their higher speed and invulnerability to power pellets from the higher stages.
Perfect play
A perfect Pac-Man game occurs when the player achieves the maximum possible score on the first 255 levels (by eating every possible dot, power pellet, fruit, and enemy) without losing a single life, and then scoring as many points as possible in the last level. As verified by the Twin GalaxiesTwin Galaxies
Twin Galaxies is an American organization that tracks video game world records and conducts a program of electronic-gaming promotions. It operates the Twin Galaxies website and publishes the Twin Galaxies' Official Video Game & Pinball Book of World Records, with the Arcade Volume released on June...
International Scoreboard on July 3, 1999, the first person to achieve this maximum possible score (3,333,360 points) was Billy Mitchell
Billy Mitchell (gamer)
Billy L. Mitchell, born July 16, 1965, in Holyoke, Massachusetts, is best known for recording high scores in classic video games from the Golden Age of Arcade Games. He has been claimed by some as the "greatest arcade-video-game player of all time". His achievements include the first perfect score...
of Hollywood, Florida
Hollywood, Florida
-Demographics:As of 2000, there were 59,673 households out of which 24.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 41.5% were married couples living together, 11.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 42.2% were non-families. 34.4% of all households were made up of...
, who performed the feat in about six hours.
In September 2009, David Race of Beavercreek, Ohio
Beavercreek, Ohio
Beavercreek is the largest city in Greene County, Ohio, United States, and is the second largest suburb of Dayton behind Kettering. The population was 45,193 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area...
, became the sixth person to achieve a perfect score. His time of 3 hours, 41 minutes, and 22 seconds set a new record for the fastest time to obtain a perfect score.
In December 1982, an 8-year-old boy, Jeffrey R. Yee, supposedly received a letter from U.S. President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
congratulating him on a worldwide record of 6,131,940 points, a score only possible if he had passed the Split-Screen Level. Whether or not this event happened as described has remained in heated debate among video-game circles since its supposed occurrence. In September 1983, Walter Day
Walter Day
Walter Aldro Day, Jr. is the founder of Twin Galaxies, an international organization based in Fairfield, Iowa, that tracks high score statistics for the worldwide electronic video gaming hobby...
, chief scorekeeper at Twin Galaxies, took the US National Video Game Team on a tour of the East Coast to visit video game players who claimed they could get through the Split-Screen Level. No video game player could demonstrate this ability. In 1999, Billy Mitchell offered $100,000 to anyone who could pass through the Split-Screen Level before January 1, 2000. The prize went unclaimed.
Development
Although Iwatani has repeatedly stated that the character's shape was inspired by a pizza missing a slice, he admitted in a 1986 interview that this was a half-truth and the character design also came from simplifying and rounding out the Japanese character for mouth, kuchi . Iwatani attempted to appeal to a wider audience—beyond the typical demographics of young boys and teenagers. This led him to add elements of a maze, as well as cute ghost enemy characters. The result was a game he named Puck Man.
Later in 1980, the game was picked up for manufacture in the United States by Bally division Midway
Midway Games
Midway Games, Inc. is an American company that was formerly a major video game publisher. Following a bankruptcy filing in 2009, it is no longer active and is in the process of liquidating all of its assets. Midway's titles included Mortal Kombat, Ms.Pac-Man, Spy Hunter, Tron, Rampage, the...
, which changed the game's name from Puck Man to Pac-Man in an effort to avoid vandalism
Vandalism
Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...
to the letter 'P
P
P is the sixteenth letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.-Usage:In English and most other European languages, P is a voiceless bilabial plosive. Both initial and final Ps can be combined with many other discrete consonants in English words...
'. The cabinet artwork was also changed.
Impact and legacy
When first launched in Japan by Namco in 1980, the game received a lukewarm response, as Space InvadersSpace Invaders
is an arcade video game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, and released in 1978. It was originally manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and was later licensed for production in the United States by the Midway division of Bally. Space Invaders is one of the earliest shooting games and the aim is to...
and other similar games were more popular at the time. However, the game found far more success in North America. Pac-Mans success in North America took competitors and distributors completely by surprise in 1980. Marketing executives who saw Pac-Man at a trade show prior to release completely overlooked the game (along with the now classic Defender), while they looked to a racing car game called Rally-X
Rally-X
Rally-X is a maze driving arcade game that was released by Namco in 1980. It runs on Namco Pac-Man hardware, and was the first Namco game to feature "Special Flags", which would become a recurring object in later games .It was the first game to ever feature a "bonus round." The object is to...
as the game to outdo that year. The appeal of Pac-Man was such that the game caught on immediately with the public; it quickly became far more popular than anything seen in the game industry up to that point. Pac-Man outstripped Asteroids
Asteroids (computer game)
Asteroids is a video arcade game released in 1979 by Atari Inc. It was one of the most popular and influential games of the Golden Age of Arcade Games. Asteroids uses a vector display and a two-dimensional view that wraps around in both screen axes. The player controls a spaceship in an asteroid...
as the best-selling arcade game in North America, where it would sell more than 350,000 arcade cabinets (retailing at around $2400 each) for $1 billion (equivalent to over $2.3 billion in 2011) within 18 months, and gross over $1 billion in quarters
Quarter (United States coin)
A quarter dollar, commonly shortened to quarter, is a coin worth ¼ of a United States dollar, or 25 cents. The quarter has been produced since 1796. The choice of 25¢ as a denomination, as opposed to 20¢ which is more common in other parts of the world, originated with the practice of dividing...
within a year. Towards the end of the 20th century, the game's total gross in quarters had been estimated at more than 10 billion quarters ($2.5 billion), equivalent to over $3.4 billion in 2011, making it the highest-grossing video game of all time.
The game is regarded as one of the most influential video games of all time, for a number of reasons: its titular character was the first original gaming mascot
Mascot
The term mascot – defined as a term for any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck – colloquially includes anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name...
, the game established the maze chase game genre, it demonstrated the potential of characters in video games
Player character
A player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...
, it opened gaming to female audiences, and it was gaming's first licensing success. In addition, it was the first video game to feature power-up
Power-up
In computer and video games, power-ups are objects that instantly benefit or add extra abilities to the game character as a game mechanic. This is in contrast to an item, which may or may not have a benefit and can be used at a time chosen by the player...
s, and it is frequently credited as the first game to feature cut scenes, in the form of brief comical interludes about Pac-Man and the ghosts chasing each other around during those interludes, though Space Invaders Part II employed a similar technique that same year. Pac-Man is also credited for laying the foundations for the stealth game genre, as it emphasized avoiding enemies rather than fighting them, and had an influence on the early stealth game Metal Gear
Metal Gear
Metal Gear is a series of video games.Metal Gear may also refer to:*Metal Gear , bipedal tanks appearing in the Metal Gear series-Metal Gear video game series:...
(where guards chase Solid Snake
Solid Snake
Metal Gear, initially released in 1987, introduces Solid Snake, the rookie recruit of the elite special-forces unit FOXHOUND. Snake is sent by team leader Big Boss into the rogue nation Outer Heaven to rescue his missing teammate Gray Fox and discover who or what the "METAL GEAR" mentioned is, and...
in a similar manner to Pac-Man when he is spotted). Pac-Man has also influenced many other games, ranging from the sandbox
Open world
An open world is a type of video game level design where a player can roam freely through a virtual world and is given considerable freedom in choosing how to approach objectives...
game Grand Theft Auto
Grand Theft Auto (series)
Grand Theft Auto is a multi-award-winning British video game series created in the United Kingdom by Dave Jones, then later by brothers Dan Houser and Sam Houser, and game designer Zachary Clarke. It is primarily developed by Edinburgh based Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games...
(where the player runs over pedestrians and gets chased by police in a similar manner) to early first-person shooter
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
s such as MIDI Maze
MIDI Maze
MIDI Maze is an early first person shooter maze video game for the Atari ST developed by Xanth Software F/X, published by Hybrid Arts, and released around 1987. It owes a significant debt to what may be the first of its genre, Maze War...
(which had similar maze-based gameplay and character designs), Wolfenstein 3D
Wolfenstein 3D
Wolfenstein 3D is a video game that is generally regarded by critics and gaming journalists as having both popularized the first-person shooter genre on the PC and created the basic archetype upon which all subsequent games of the same genre would be built. It was created by id Software and...
(which was similar in level design
Level design
Level design, environment design or game mapping is a discipline of game development involving creation of video game levels—locales, stages, or missions. This is commonly done using level editor, a game development software designed for building levels; however some games feature built-in...
and featured a Pac-Man level from a first-person perspective) and Doom (with its similar emphasis on mazes, power-ups, killing monsters, and reaching the next level).
Remakes and sequels
Pac-Man is one of the few games to have been consistently published for over three decades, having been remade on numerous platforms and spawned many sequels. Re-releases include ported and updated versions of the original arcade game.One of the first ports to be released was the much maligned port for the Atari 2600. The Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man
Pac-Man (Atari 2600)
In 1982, Atari Inc. released a port of Namco's hit arcade game Pac-Man for its Atari 2600 video game console. Like the original arcade version, the player controls the titular character with a joystick...
only somewhat resembled the original, and its flickering ghosts were widely criticized. Despite the criticism, it sold seven million units, costing $37.95 each, becoming the best selling game on the Atari 2600
Atari 2600
The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in...
console, though it would eventually become one of the contributing factors to Atari's decline and the North American video game crash of 1983, alongside Atari's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
It was also released for the Apple II series
Apple II series
The Apple II series is a set of 8-bit home computers, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977 with the original Apple II...
, Atari's 5200
Atari 5200
The Atari 5200 SuperSystem, commonly known as the Atari 5200, is a video game console that was introduced in 1982 by Atari Inc. as a higher end complementary console for the popular Atari 2600...
and 8-bit computers
Atari 8-bit family
The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers manufactured from 1979 to 1992. All are based on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU and were the first home computers designed with custom coprocessor chips...
, IBM Personal Computer, Intellivision
Intellivision
The Intellivision is a video game console released by Mattel in 1979. Development of the console began in 1978, less than a year after the introduction of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. The word intellivision is a portmanteau of "intelligent television"...
, the Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
and VIC-20
Commodore VIC-20
The VIC-20 is an 8-bit home computer which was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore's first personal computer, the PET...
and Nintendo Entertainment System
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...
. For handheld game console
Handheld game console
A handheld game console is a lightweight, portable electronic device with a built-in screen, game controls and speakers. Handheld game consoles are run on machines of small size allowing people to carry them and play them at any time or place...
s, it was released on the Game Boy
Game Boy
The , is an 8-bit handheld video game device developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on , in North America in , and in Europe on...
, Sega Game Gear
Sega Game Gear
The was Sega's first handheld game console. It was the third commercially available color handheld console, after the Atari Lynx and the TurboExpress....
, Game Boy Color
Game Boy Color
The is Nintendo's successor to the 8-bit Game Boy handheld game console, and was released on October 21, 1998 in Japan, November 19, 1998 in North America, November 23, 1998 in Europe and November 27, 1998 in the United Kingdom. It features a color screen and is slightly thicker and taller than...
, and the Neo Geo Pocket Color
Neo Geo Pocket Color
The Neo Geo Pocket Color , is a 16-bit colour handheld game console by SNK. It was the last console they produced in the Neo Geo family...
.
The game has also been featured in Namco's long-running Namco Museum
Namco Museum
Namco Museum refers to the series of video game compilations released by Namco for various 32-bit and above consoles, containing releases of their games from the 1980s and early 1990s...
video game compilations. Downloads of the game have been made available on game services such as Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade is a type of video game download distribution available primarily in a section of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Microsoft's digital distribution network for the Xbox 360, that focuses on smaller downloadable games from both major publishers and independent game developers...
, GameTap
GameTap
GameTap is an American online video game service established by Turner Broadcasting System . Dubbed by TBS as a "first of its kind broadband gaming network", the service provides users with classic arcade video games and game-related video content...
and Virtual Console
Virtual console
A virtual console – also known as a virtual terminal – is a conceptual combination of the keyboard and display for a computer user interface. It is a feature of some operating systems such as UnixWare, Linux, and BSD, in which the system console of the computer can be used to switch between...
. Namco has also released mobile versions for BREW
Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless
Brew is an application development platform created by Qualcomm, originally for CDMA mobile phones, featuring third party applications such as mobile games. It is offered in some feature phones but not in smart phones...
, Java
Java (programming language)
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
, iOS, as well as Palm PDAs and Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft that was used in smartphones and Pocket PCs, but by 2011 was rarely supplied on new phones. The last version is "Windows Mobile 6.5.5"; it is superseded by Windows Phone, which does not run Windows Mobile software.Windows Mobile is...
-based devices. A port of Pac-Man for Android can be controlled not only through an Android phone's trackball but through touch gestures or its on-board accelerometer.
In addition, Namco has repeatedly re-released the game to arcades. In 2001, Namco released a Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga
Galaga
is a fixed shooter arcade game developed and published by Namco in Japan and published by Midway in North America in 1981. It is the sequel to Galaxian, released in 1979. The gameplay of Galaga puts the player in control of a space ship which is situated on the bottom of the screen...
"Class of 1981 Reunion Edition" cabinet with Pac-Man available for play as a hidden game. To commemorate Pac-Mans 25th anniversary in 2005, Namco released a revision that officially featured all three games.
Namco Networks
Namco Networks
Namco Networks America, Inc. is a developer and publisher of small-scale games targeting the mobile and casual game markets. The startup company based in San Jose, California was strategically acquired by Namco Bandai Holdings and renamed as Namco Networks to serve as its mobile games...
ported Pac-Man to the PC (bought online) in 2009 which also includes an "Enhanced" mode which replaces all of the original sprites with the sprites from Pac-Man Championship Edition
Pac-Man Championship Edition
is a 2007 video game in the Pac-Man series, developed by Namco Bandai Games. The game was designed by Tōru Iwatani, the creator of the classic original 1980 arcade game Pac-Man, and it was Iwatani's final game before his retirement...
but it's still the original Pac-Man otherwise, Namco Networks also made a bundle (also bought online) which includes their PC version of Pac-Man as well as their port of Dig Dug
Dig Dug
is an arcade game developed and published by Namco in Japan in 1982 for Namco Galaga hardware. It was later published outside of Japan by Atari. A popular game based on a simple concept, it was also released as a video game on many consoles.-Objective:...
called Namco All-Stars: Pac-Man and Dig Dug.
In 2010 Namco Bandai
Namco Bandai
, also known as the Bandai Namco Group, is a Japanese holding company formed from the merger of Namco and Bandai. It has interests in toys, video games and arcades, anime, and amusement parks. The new entity was founded on September 29, 2005...
has announced that they are releasing this game on Windows Phone 7
Windows Phone 7
Windows Phone is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft, and is the successor to its Windows Mobile platform, although incompatible with it. Unlike its predecessor, it is primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market...
as an Xbox Live game.
Pac-Man's spawned sequels and spin-offs includes only one which was designed by Tōru Iwatani . Some of the follow-ups were not developed by Namco either – including the most significant, Ms. Pac-Man
Ms. Pac-Man
Ms. Pac-Man is an arcade video game produced by Midway as an unauthorized sequel to Pac-Man. It was released in North America in 1981 and became one of the most popular video games of all time, leading to its adoption by Pac-Man licensor Namco as an official title...
, released in the United States in 1981. Originally called Crazy Otto, this unauthorized hack of Pac-Man was created by General Computer Corporation
General Computer Corp.
The General Computer Corporation is a printer company today, but was started in 1981 by Doug Macrae, John Tylko and Kevin Curran as a video game company....
and sold to Midway without Namco's permission. The game features several changes from the original Pac-Man, including faster gameplay, more mazes, new intermissions, and moving bonus items. Some consider Ms. Pac-Man to be superior to the original, and even the best in the entire series. Namco sued Midway for exceeding their license. Eventually, Bally Midway struck a deal with Namco to officially license Ms. Pac-Man as a sequel.
Following Ms. Pac-Man, Bally Midway released several other unauthorized spin-offs, such as Pac-Man Plus
Pac-Man Plus
Pac-Man Plus is an arcade game released by Bally Midway in 1982, and is the 4th title in the Pac-Man series of games.- Gameplay :The gameplay in Pac-Man Plus is nearly identical to that of the original Pac-Man...
, Jr. Pac-Man
Jr. Pac-Man
Jr. Pac-Man is an arcade game released in 1983 by Bally Midway. It is based on Pac-Man and its derivatives, but is not officially part of the Pac-Man series—along with Baby Pac-Man, this game was created without the authorization of Namco...
, Baby Pac-Man
Baby Pac-Man
Baby Pac-Man is a hybrid arcade/pinball game produced by Bally Midway in 1982.- Description :The development of Baby Pac-Man was not authorized by Namco, rather, designed and released entirely by Bally-Midway, and along with Pac-Man Plus, Jr. Pac-Man, and Professor Pac-Man would eventually lead to...
and Professor Pac-Man
Professor Pac-Man
Professor Pac-Man is an arcade game produced by Bally Midway in 1983.-Description:Designed to capitalize on the perceived quiz game niche, the game presents simple visual puzzles and requires the player to solve each within a short time limit...
, resulting in Namco severing business relations with Midway.
Platform game
A platform game is a video game characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles . It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps...
s based on the series have also been released by Namco, such as 1984's Pac-Land
Pac-Land
is an entry in the Pac-Man series of arcade video games, released into arcades by Namco, and its American distributor Bally Midway , in 1984. It was the first Namco arcade game to use the then-new arcade system later titled as Namco Pac-Land...
and the Pac-Man World
Pac-Man World
was released on the 20th anniversary of the creation of Pac-Man. It is a 3D based free roaming platform game for the PlayStation released on September 30, 1999...
series, which features Pac-Man in a 3-D world. More modern versions of the original game have also been developed, such as the multiplayer Pac-Man Vs.
Pac-Man Vs.
is a Pac-Man video game originally designed exclusively for the Nintendo GameCube that was included as an extra bonus disc with the Player's Choice edition of Pac-Man World 2...
for the Nintendo GameCube
Nintendo GameCube
The , officially abbreviated to NGC in Japan and GCN in other regions, is a sixth generation video game console released by Nintendo on September 15, 2001 in Japan, November 18, 2001 in North America, May 3, 2002 in Europe, and May 17, 2002 in Australia...
and Tōru Iwatani-developed Pac-Man Championship Edition
Pac-Man Championship Edition
is a 2007 video game in the Pac-Man series, developed by Namco Bandai Games. The game was designed by Tōru Iwatani, the creator of the classic original 1980 arcade game Pac-Man, and it was Iwatani's final game before his retirement...
and its sequel
Pac-Man Championship Edition DX
The game has received universal praise from critics and gaming websites, citing a big improvement over the original. IGN gave the game a perfect 10/10 and an Editor's Choice award, calling it "a master class in game design." GameSpot gave the game 9.0/10, praising the new elements which make...
.
For the weekend of May 21–23, 2010, Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
changed the Google logo
Google logo
Google has had several logos since its renaming from BackRub. The current official Google logo was designed by Ruth Kedar, and is a wordmark based on the Catull typeface....
on its homepage to a Google Doodle of a fully playable version of the game in recognition of the 30th anniversary of the game's release. The game featured the ability to play both Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man
Ms. Pac-Man
Ms. Pac-Man is an arcade video game produced by Midway as an unauthorized sequel to Pac-Man. It was released in North America in 1981 and became one of the most popular video games of all time, leading to its adoption by Pac-Man licensor Namco as an official title...
simultaneously. After finishing the game, the website automatically redirected the user to a search of Pac-Man 30th Anniversary. Companies across the world experienced slight drops in productivity due to the game, though the reported $120 million total loss "spread out across the entire world isn't a huge loss, comparatively speaking". Some organizations even temporarily blocked Google's website from workplace computers on the Friday it was uploaded, particularly where it violated regulations against recreational games. Because of the popularity of the Pac-Man doodle, Google decided to allow access to the game through a separate web page.
In 2011, Namco sent a DMCA notice to the team that made the programming language
Programming language
A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....
Scratch saying that a programmer had infringed copyright by making a Pacman game using the language and uploading it to Scratch's official website.
In April 2011, Soap Creative published World's Biggest Pac-Man
World's Biggest Pac-Man
World's Biggest Pac-Man is a browser game created by an Australian Soap Creative along with Microsoft and Namco-Bandai. It is a Pac-Man game which differs from the original by having multiple players playing together in a series of user-created, customizable and interlocking mazes...
working together with Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
and Namco-Bandai to celebrate Pac-Man's 30th anniversary. It is a multiplayer browser-based game with user-created, interlocking mazes.
In popular culture
Pac-Man went on to become an icon of video game culture during the 1980s, and a wide variety of Pac-Man merchandise was marketed with the character's image, from t-shirtT-shirt
A T-shirt is a style of shirt. A T-shirt is buttonless and collarless, with short sleeves and frequently a round neck line....
s and toys to hand-held video game imitations and even specially shaped pasta. An animated TV series
Pac-Man (TV series)
Pac-Man is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera based on the video game Pac-Man by Namco, which premiered on ABC and ran from 1982 to 1983. During the first airing of the show, the large number of advertisers sponsoring it caused commercial breaks to be double their normal length...
produced by Hanna–Barbera aired on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
from 1982 to 1983. The Killer List of Videogames
Killer List of Videogames
The Killer List of Videogames is a web site featuring an online encyclopedia devoted to cataloging arcade games past and present. It is the video game department of the International Arcade Museum, and has been referred to as "the IMDb for players."....
lists Pac-Man as the #1 video game on its "Top 10 Most Popular Video games" list. At one time, a feature film based on the game was also in development. In 2010, a computer-generated animated series was reported to be in the works.
Guinness World Records
Guinness World Records
Guinness World Records, known until 2000 as The Guinness Book of Records , is a reference book published annually, containing a collection of world records, both human achievements and the extremes of the natural world...
has awarded the Pac-Man series eight records in Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008, including First Perfect Pac-Man Game for Billy Mitchell
Billy Mitchell (gamer)
Billy L. Mitchell, born July 16, 1965, in Holyoke, Massachusetts, is best known for recording high scores in classic video games from the Golden Age of Arcade Games. He has been claimed by some as the "greatest arcade-video-game player of all time". His achievements include the first perfect score...
's July 3, 1999 score and "Most Successful Coin-Operated Game". On June 3, 2010, at the NLGD Festival of Games, the game's creator Toru Iwatani officially received the certificate from Guinness World Records for Pac-Man having had the most "coin-operated arcade machines" installed world wide: 293,822. The record was set and recognized in 2005 and mentioned in the Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008, but finally actually awarded in 2010.
Pac-Man has been referenced in numerous other media. In music, the Buckner & Garcia
Buckner & Garcia
Buckner & Garcia was a duo consisting of Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia from Akron, Ohio. Their first collaboration was in 1980, when they wrote a novelty Christmas song, "Merry Christmas in the NFL", imagining Howard Cosell as Santa Claus...
song "Pac-Man Fever
Pac-Man Fever (song)
"Pac-Man Fever" is a hit single by Buckner & Garcia. Capitalizing on the video game craze of the early 1980s, the song, about the classic video game Pac-Man, peaked at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US in March 1982. That same month, it was certified Gold by the RIAA for over 1,000,000 units...
" went to #9 on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
charts, and received a Gold certification
RIAA certification
In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America awards certification based on the number of albums and singles sold through retail and other ancillary markets. Other countries have similar awards...
with over a million records sold. Their Pac-Man Fever
Pac-Man Fever (album)
Pac-Man Fever is a 1982 concept album recorded by Buckner & Garcia. It is also the name of the first song on that album. Each song on the album is about a different classic arcade game, and uses sound effects from that game. The album was released as an LP, a cassette, an 8-track tape, and later...
album also received a Gold certification for selling over a million records. "Weird Al" Yankovic
"Weird Al" Yankovic
Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic is an American singer-songwriter, music producer, accordionist, actor, comedian, writer, satirist, and parodist. Yankovic is known for his humorous songs that make light of popular culture and that often parody specific songs by contemporary musical acts...
recorded a song titled "Pac-Man" that was a parody of The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
' "Taxman
Taxman
"Taxman" is a song written by George Harrison released as the opening track on The Beatles' 1966 album Revolver. Its lyrics attack the high levels of progressive tax taken by the British Labour government of Harold Wilson.-Composition:...
", in 1981. Hip hop emcee Lil' Flip
Lil' Flip
Wesley Eric Weston, Jr. , better known by his stage name Lil' Flip, is a American multi-platinum hiphop artist best known for his singles Sunshine, "Game Over" and Rollin on 20's from the 2 Fast 2 Furious Soundtrack....
sampled sounds from the game Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man to make his top-20 single "Game Over
Game over
Game Over is a message in video games which signals that the game has ended, often due to a negative outcome - although the phrase sometimes follows the end credits after successful completion of a game...
". Namco America filed a lawsuit against Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Entertainment ' is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corporation....
for unauthorized use of these samples. The suit was eventually settled out of court.
The game has also inspired various real-life recreations, involving either real people or robots. One event called Pac-Manhattan
Pac-Manhattan
Pac-Manhattan is a real-life version of Pac-Man created in 2004 and covered by the New York Times that year. It was invented by graduate students at the Interactive Telecommunications Program in the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University...
set a Guinness World Record for "Largest Pac-Man Game" in 2004.
The term Pac-Man defense
Pac-Man defense
The Pac-Man defense is a defensive option to stave off a hostile takeover in which a company that is threatened with a hostile takeover "turns the tables" by attempting to acquire its would-be buyer....
in mergers and acquisitions
Mergers and acquisitions
Mergers and acquisitions refers to the aspect of corporate strategy, corporate finance and management dealing with the buying, selling, dividing and combining of different companies and similar entities that can help an enterprise grow rapidly in its sector or location of origin, or a new field or...
refers to a hostile takeover
Takeover
In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company by another . In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are listed on a stock exchange, in contrast to the acquisition of a private company.- Friendly takeovers :Before a bidder makes an offer for another...
target that attempts to reverse the situation and take over its would-be acquirer instead, a reference to Pac-Man's power pellets.
Further reading
- Trueman, Doug (November 10, 1999). "The History of Pac-Man". GameSpotGameSpotGameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
. Comprehensive coverage on the history of the entire series up through 1999. - Müller, Martijn (June 3, 2010). "Tōru Iwatani on how Pac-Man came to be". NG-GamerNG-GamerNext Generation Gamer, commonly abbreviated as NG-Gamer, is one of the largest gaming websites in the Benelux. It can be accessed via the extensions .eu, .be or .nl, though the latter is the main extension...
. - Morris, Chris (May 10, 2005). "Pac Man Turns 25". CNN Money.
- Vargas, Jose Antonio (June 22, 2005). "Still Love at First Bite: At 25, Pac-Man Remains a Hot Pursuit". The Washington PostThe Washington PostThe Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
. - Hirschfeld, Tom. How to Master the Video Games, Bantam Books, 1981. ISBN 0-553-20164-6 Arcade strategy guide to several games including incarnations of Pac-Man. Includes hand drawings of some of the common patterns for use in the arcade Pac-Man. 1982 edition ISBN 0-553-20195 covers home versions.