Pac-Man

About

Pac-Man is an arcade video game published by Namco. It consists of a yellow circular character that eats white dots while escaping from ghosts in a blue maze, with the objective being to collect all the white dots before the ghosts catch you. Pac-Man is considered one of the most popular video-games of all time, with Pac-Man himself being regarded as the first gaming mascot. The game has remained as one of the most iconic video games among both pop culture and gaming culture, spawning millions of spin offs, cameo's, merchandise, apparel, and copies of the game itself.

History

When Toru Iwatani, an employee at Namco^[1] started development in 1979 on what would become Pac-Man, the idea was to produce a game that was different from typical space shooters, which had saturated the market by the 1980's. The game was originally aimed at young girl gamers, with the character concept being inspired by a pizza missing a slice. Upon release on May 22nd 1980, the game was an astounding success, quickly becoming one of the most popular arcade games at that time. The game generated more than $2.5 billion by the year 2000 from arcade machines alone (inflation adjusted: $7.16 billion in 2014).

TV Shows

Pac-man has also had two television spin offs, the first being referred to as simply as "Pac-Man", which premiered on ABC and ran from 1982 to 1983. It was also the first cartoon based on a video game. The second cartoon, Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures, is a CGI cartoon which currently airs on Disney XD, and is currently in the middle of its 2nd season.

Fandom

Fan Art

The site DeviantArt has over 25,000 search results for "Pac-Man"

Merchandises

Pac-Man's success has led to many licensed distributions of the intellectual property, Including apparel, printed artwork, decorative features, and more.

Impact

Pac-Man's success in the 1980's and sheer ubiquity of platforms to experience the game has led to a huge impact around the world, both in gaming culture, pop culture, and as an icon of retro gaming. It has been referenced in numerous video games, movies, television shows and websites. Including an interactive doodle by the multi-billion dollar corporation Google which was first shown on the 21st of May 2010. Pac-Man himself appears in numerous games as both Easter eggs & as playable characters, most notably and most recently, as a playable character in the latest installment of Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 3DS & Wii-U.

Search Interest

External References