fbpx
Wikipedia

Pac-Man

February 15, 2024

This article is about the video game. For the character, see Pac-Man (character). For the series of games, see Pac-Man (series). For other uses, see Pac-Man (disambiguation).

Pac-Man,[a] originally called Puck Man in Japan, is a 1980 maze action video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. The player controls Pac-Man, who must eat all the dots inside an enclosed maze while avoiding four colored ghosts. Eating large flashing dots called "Power Pellets" causes the ghosts to temporarily turn blue, allowing Pac-Man to eat them for bonus points.

Pac-Man
North American sales flyer
Developer(s)Namco
Publisher(s)
Designer(s)Toru Iwatani
Programmer(s)Shigeo Funaki
Shigeichi Ishimura
Artist(s)Hiroshi Ono[4]
Composer(s)Shigeichi Ishimura
Toshio Kai
SeriesPac-Man
Platform(s)
Release
  • JP: July 1980[1]
  • WW: December 1980
Genre(s)Maze
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer (alternating turns)

Game development began in early 1979, directed by Toru Iwatani with a nine-man team. Iwatani wanted to create a game that could appeal to women as well as men, because most video games of the time had themes of war or sports.[5][6] Although the inspiration for the Pac-Man character was the image of a pizza with a slice removed, Iwatani has said he rounded out the Japanese character for mouth, kuchi (Japanese: 口). The in-game characters were made to be cute and colorful to appeal to younger players. The original Japanese title of Puck Man was derived from the Japanese phrase paku paku taberu, which refers to gobbling something up; the title was changed to Pac-Man for the North American release.

Pac-Man was a widespread critical and commercial success, leading to several sequels, merchandise, and two television series, as well as a hit single, "Pac-Man Fever", by Buckner & Garcia. The character of Pac-Man has become the official mascot of Bandai Namco Entertainment.[7] The game remains one of the highest-grossing and best-selling games, generating more than $14 billion in revenue (as of 2016) and 43 million units in sales combined, and has an enduring commercial and cultural legacy, commonly listed as one of the greatest video games of all time.

Gameplay

 
In-game screenshot. The ghosts are in the center with Pac-Man below them. At bottom left is the player's life count, and at bottom right the level icon (in this case a cherry). At top is the player's score.

Pac-Man is an action[8] maze chase video game; the player controls the eponymous character through an enclosed maze. The objective of the game is to eat all of the dots placed in the maze while avoiding four colored ghosts—Blinky (red), Pinky (pink), Inky (cyan), and Clyde (orange)—who pursue Pac-Man. When Pac-Man eats all of the dots, the player advances to the next level. Levels are indicated by fruit icons at the bottom of the screen. In between levels are short cutscenes featuring Pac-Man and Blinky in humorous, comical situations.

If Pac-Man is caught by a ghost, he loses a life; the game ends when all lives are lost. Each of the four ghosts has its own unique artificial intelligence (A.I.), or "personality": Blinky gives direct chase to Pac-Man; Pinky and Inky try to position themselves in front of Pac-Man, usually by cornering him; and Clyde switches between chasing Pac-Man and fleeing from him.[9]

Placed near the four corners of the maze are large flashing "energizers" or "power pellets". When Pac-Man eats one, the ghosts turn blue with a dizzied expression and reverse direction. Pac-Man can eat blue ghosts for bonus points; when a ghost is eaten, its eyes make their way back to the center box in the maze, where the ghost "regenerates" and resumes its normal activity. Eating multiple blue ghosts in succession increases their point value. After a certain amount of time, blue-colored ghosts flash white before turning back into their normal forms. Eating a certain number of dots in a level causes a bonus item—usually a fruit—to appear underneath the center box; the item can be eaten for bonus points. To the sides of the maze are two "warp tunnels", which allow Pac-Man and the ghosts to travel to the opposite side of the screen. Ghosts become slower when entering and exiting these tunnels.

The game increases in difficulty as the player progresses: the ghosts become faster, and the energizers' effect decreases in duration, eventually disappearing entirely. An integer overflow causes the 256th level to load improperly, rendering it impossible to complete.[10]

Development

After acquiring the struggling Japanese division of Atari in 1974, video game developer Namco began producing its own video games in-house, as opposed to licensing them from other developers and distributing them in Japan.[11][12] Company president Masaya Nakamura created a small video game development group within the company and ordered them to study several NEC-produced microcomputers to potentially create games with.[13][14] One of the first people assigned to this division was a 24-year-old employee named Toru Iwatani.[15] He created Namco's first video game Gee Bee in 1978, which while unsuccessful helped the company gain a stronger foothold in the quickly-growing video game industry.[16][17] He assisted in the production of two sequels, Bomb Bee and Cutie Q, both released in 1979.[18][19]

 
Creator of Pac-Man, Toru Iwatani, at the 2011 Game Developers Conference

The Japanese video game industry had surged in popularity with games such as Space Invaders and Breakout, which led to the market being flooded with similar titles from other manufacturers in an attempt to cash in on the success.[20][21] Iwatani felt that arcade games only appealed to men for their crude graphics and violence,[20] and that arcades in general were seen as seedy environments.[22] For his next project, Iwatani chose to create a non-violent, cheerful video game that appealed mostly to women,[23] as he believed that attracting women and couples into arcades would potentially make them appear to be much more family friendly in tone.[20] Iwatani began thinking of things that women liked to do in their time; he decided to center his game around eating, basing this on women liking to eat desserts and other sweets.[24] His game was initially called Pakkuman, based on the Japanese onomatopoeia term "paku paku taberu",[25] referencing the mouth movement of opening and closing in succession.[23]

The game that later became Pac-Man began development in early 1979 and took a year and five months to complete, the longest for a video game up to that point.[26] Iwatani enlisted the help of nine other Namco employees to assist in production, including composer Toshio Kai, programmer Shigeo Funaki, and hardware engineer Shigeichi Ishimura.[27] Care was taken to make the game appeal to a "non-violent" audience, particularly women, with its usage of simple gameplay and cute, attractive character designs.[26][22] When the game was being developed, Namco was underway with designing Galaxian, which used a then-revolutionary RGB color display, allowing sprites to use several colors at once instead of using colored strips of cellophane that was commonplace at the time;[26] this technological accomplishment allowed Iwatani to greatly enhance his game with bright pastel colors, which he felt would help attract players.[26] The idea for energizers was a concept Iwatani borrowed from Popeye the Sailor, a cartoon character that temporarily acquires superhuman strength after eating a can of spinach;[24] it is believed that Iwatani was partly inspired by a Japanese children's story about a creature that protected children from monsters by devouring them.[26] Frank Fogleman, the co-founder of Gremlin Industries, believes that the maze-chase gameplay of Pac-Man was inspired by Sega's Head On (1979), a similar arcade game that was popular in Japan.[28]

Iwatani has often claimed that the character of Pac-Man was designed after the shape of a pizza with a missing slice while he was at lunch; in a 1986 interview he said that this was only half-truth,[15] and that the Pac-Man character was also based on him rounding out and simplifying the Japanese character "kuchi" (口), meaning "mouth".[29][15] The four ghosts were made to be cute, colorful and appealing, using bright, pastel colors and expressive blue eyes.[26] Iwatani had used this idea before in Cutie Q, which features similar ghost-like characters, and decided to incorporate it into Pac-Man.[20] He was inspired by the television series Casper the Friendly Ghost and the manga Obake no Q-Taro.[24] Ghosts were chosen as the game's main antagonists because they were used as villainous characters in animation.[24] The idea for the fruit bonuses was based on graphics displayed on slot machines, which often use symbols such as cherries and bells.[30] Originally, Namco president Masaya Nakamura had requested that all of the ghosts be red and thus indistinguishable from one another.[31] Iwatani believed that the ghosts should be different colors, and he received unanimous support from his colleagues for this idea.[31] The ghosts were programmed to have their own distinct personalities, so as to keep the game from becoming too boring or impossibly difficult to play.[26][32] Each ghost's name gives a hint to its strategy for tracking down Pac-Man: Shadow ("Blinky") always chases Pac-Man, Speedy ("Pinky") tries to get ahead of him, Bashful ("Inky") uses a more complicated strategy to zero in on him, and Pokey ("Clyde") alternates between chasing him and running away.[26] (The ghosts' Japanese names are おいかけ, chase; まちぶせ, ambush; きまぐれ, fickle; and おとぼけ, playing dumb, respectively.) To break up the tension of constantly being pursued, humorous intermissions between Pac-Man and Blinky were added.[21] The sound effects were among the last things added to the game,[26] created by Toshio Kai.[22] In a design session, Iwatani noisily ate fruit and made gurgling noises to describe to Kai how he wanted the eating effect to sound.[22] Upon completion, the game was titled Puck Man, based on the working title and the titular character's distinct hockey puck-like shape.[12]

Release

Location testing for Puck Man began on May 22, 1980, in Shibuya, Tokyo, to a relatively positive[vague] fanfare from players.[24] A private showing for the game was done in June, followed by a nationwide release in July.[12] Eyeing the game's success in Japan, Namco initialized plans to bring the game to the international market, particularly the United States.[26] Before showing the game to distributors, Namco America made a number of changes, such as altering the names of the ghosts.[26] The biggest of these was the game's title; executives at Namco were worried that vandals would change the "P" in Puck Man to an "F", forming Fuck Man.[12][33] Masaya Nakamura chose to rename it to Pac-Man, as he felt it was closer to the game's original Japanese title of Pakkuman.[12] In Europe, the game was released under both titles, Pac-Man and Puck Man.[34]

When Namco presented Pac-Man and Rally-X to potential distributors at the 1980 AMOA tradeshow in November,[35] executives believed that Rally-X would be the best-selling game of that year.[12][36] According to Play Meter magazine, both Pac-Man and Rally-X received mild attention at the show. Namco had initially approached Atari to distribute Pac-Man, but Atari refused the offer.[37] Midway Manufacturing subsequently agreed to distribute both Pac-Man and Rally-X in North America, announcing their acquisition of the manufacturing rights on November 22[38] and releasing them in December.[39]

Ports

Pac-Man was ported to several home video game systems and personal computers; the most infamous of these is the 1982 Atari 2600 conversion, designed by Tod Frye and published by Atari.[40] This version of the game was widely criticized for its inaccurate portrayal of the arcade version and for its peculiar design choices, most notably the flickering effect of the ghosts.[41][42][43] However, it was a commercial success, selling over seven million copies. Atari released versions for the Intellivision, VIC-20, Commodore 64, Apple II, IBM PC, TI-99/4A, ZX Spectrum, and the Atari 8-bit family of computers. A port for the Atari 5200 was released in 1983, a version that is considered as a significant improvement over the Atari 2600 version.[44]

Namco released a version for the Nintendo Famicom in 1984 as one of the console's first third-party titles,[45] as well as a port for the MSX computer.[46] The Famicom version was later released in North America for the Nintendo Entertainment System by Tengen, a subsidiary of Atari Games. Tengen produced an unlicensed version of the game in a black cartridge shell, released during a time when Tengen and Nintendo were in disagreements over the latter's stance on quality control for its consoles; this version was re-released by Namco as an official title in 1993, featuring a new cartridge label and box. The Famicom version was released for the Famicom Disk System in 1990 as a budget title for the Disk Writer kiosks in retail stores.[45] The same year, Namco released a port of Pac-Man for the Game Boy, which allowed for two-player co-operative play via the Game Link Cable peripheral. A version for the Game Gear was released a year later, which likewise enabled support for multiplayer. In celebration of the game's 20th anniversary in 1999, Namco re-released the Game Boy version for the Game Boy Color, bundled with Pac-Attack and titled Pac-Man: Special Color Edition.[47] The same year, Namco and SNK co-published a port for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, which came with a circular "Cross Ring" that attached to the d-pad to restrict it to four-directional movement.[48]

In 2001, Namco released a port of Pac-Man for various Japanese mobile phones, being one of the company's first mobile game releases.[49] The Famicom version of the game was re-released for the Game Boy Advance in 2004 as part of the Famicom Mini series, released to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Famicom; this version was released in North America and Europe under the Classic NES Series label.[50] Namco Networks released Pac-Man for BREW mobile devices in 2005.[51] The arcade original was released for the Xbox Live Arcade service in 2006, featuring achievements and online leaderboards. In 2009 a version for iOS devices was published; this release was rebranded as Pac-Man + Tournaments in 2013, featuring new mazes and leaderboards. The NES version was released for the Wii Virtual Console in 2007. A Roku version was released in 2011,[52] alongside a port of the Game Boy release for the 3DS Virtual Console. Pac-Man was one of four titles released under the Arcade Game Series brand, which was published for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC in 2016.[53] In 2021, according to Nintendo Direct, it was announced that Hamster Corporation would release Pac-Man, along with Xevious, for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 as part of its Arcade Archives series, marking the first two Namco games to be included as part of the series.

Pac-Man is included in many Namco compilations, including Namco Museum Vol. 1 (1995),[54] Namco Museum 64 (1999),[55] Namco Museum Battle Collection (2005),[56] Namco Museum DS (2007), Namco Museum Essentials (2009),[57] and Namco Museum Megamix (2010).[58] In 1996, it was re-released for arcades as part of Namco Classic Collection Vol. 2, alongside Dig Dug, Rally-X and special "Arrangement" remakes of all three titles.[59][60] Microsoft included Pac-Man in Microsoft Return of Arcade (1995) as a way to help attract video game companies to its Windows 95 operating system.[61] Namco released the game in the third volume of Namco History in Japan in 1998.[62] The 2001 Game Boy Advance compilation Pac-Man Collection compiles Pac-Man, Pac-Mania, Pac-Attack and Pac-Man Arrangement onto one cartridge.[63] Pac-Man is a hidden extra in the arcade game Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga - Class of 1981 (2001).[64][65] A similar cabinet was released in 2005 that featured Pac-Man as the centerpiece.[66] Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures (1993) and Pac-Man World 2 (2002) have Pac-Man as an unlockable extra. Alongside the Xbox 360 remake Pac-Man Championship Edition, it was ported to the Nintendo 3DS in 2012 as part of Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions.[67] The 2010 Wii game Pac-Man Party and its 2011 3DS remake include Pac-Man as a bonus game, alongside the arcade versions of Dig Dug and Galaga.[68][69] In 2014, Pac-Man was included in the compilation title Pac-Man Museum for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, alongside several other Pac-Man games.[70] The NES version is one of 30 games included in the NES Classic Edition.[71]

Reception

Upon its North American debut at AMOA 1980, the game initially received a mild response. Play Meter magazine previewed the game and called it "a cute game which appears to grow on players, something which cute games are not prone to do," saying that there's "more to the game than at first appears" but criticized the sound as a drawback, saying it is "good for awhile, then becomes annoying." Upon release, the game exceeded expectations with wide critical and commercial success.[37]

Commercial performance

When it was first released in Japan, Pac-Man was initially only a modest success; Namco's own Galaxian (1979) had quickly outdone the game in popularity because its predominately male player base was familiar with its shooting gameplay as opposed to Pac-Man's cute characters and maze-chase theme.[26] Pac-Man eventually became very successful in Japan,[85] where it went on to be Japan's highest-grossing arcade game of 1980 according to the annual Game Machine charts,[86] dethroning Space Invaders (1978) which had topped the annual charts for two years in a row and leading to a shift in the Japanese market away from space shooters towards action games featuring comical characters.[87] Pac-Man was Japan's fourth highest-grossing arcade game of 1981.[88]

In North America, Midway had limited expectations prior to release, initially manufacturing 5,000 units for the US, before it caught on upon release there.[89] Some arcades purchased entire rows of Pac-Man cabinets.[12] It became a nationwide success. Upon release in 1980, it was earning about $8.1 million per week in the United States.[90] Within one year, more than 100,000 arcade units had been sold which grossed more than $1 billion in quarters.[91][92] It overtook Atari's Asteroids (1979) as the best-selling arcade game in the country,[93] and surpassed the film Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) with more than $1 billion in revenue.[94][95] Pac-Man was the United States' highest-grossing arcade game of 1981,[96][97] and second highest game of 1982.[98] By 1982, it was estimated to have had 30 million active players across the United States.[99] The game's success was partly driven by its popularity among female audiences, becoming "the first commercial videogame to involve large numbers of women as players" according to Midway's Stan Jarocki, with Pac-Man being the favorite coin-op game among female gamers through 1982.[100] Among the nine arcade games covered by How to Win Video Games (1982), Pac-Man was the only one with females accounting for a majority of players.[101]

 
Portable version (Handheld electronic game) by Japanese company Tomy

The number of arcade units sold had tripled to 400,000 by 1982, receiving an estimated total of between seven billion coins[102] and $6 billion.[103][104][105] In a 1983 interview, Nakamura said that though he did expect Pac-Man to be successful, "I never thought it would be this big."[11] Pac-Man is the best-selling arcade game of all time, with total estimated earnings ranging from 10 billion coins[92][106] and $3.5 billion ($7.7 billion adjusted for inflation)[107] to $6 billion[103][104][105] ($18 billion adjusted for inflation) in arcades. Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man also topped the US RePlay cocktail arcade cabinet charts for 23 months, from February 1982[108] through 1983[109] up until February 1984.[110]

The Atari 2600 version of the game sold over 8 million copies,[b] making it the console's best-selling title.[113] In addition, Coleco's tabletop mini-arcade unit sold over 1.5 million units in 1982,[114][115] the Pac-Man Nelsonic Game Watch sold more than 500,000 units the same year,[116] the Family Computer (Famicom) version and its 2004 Game Boy Advance re-release sold a combined 598,000 copies in Japan,[117][118] the Atari 5200 version sold 35,011 cartridges between 1986 and 1988,[112] the Atari XE computer version sold 42,359 copies in 1986 and 1990,[112] Thunder Mountain's 1986 budget release for home computers received a Diamond certification from the Software Publishers Association in 1989 for selling over 500,000 copies,[119] and mobile phone ports have sold over 30 million paid downloads as of 2010.[120] II Computing also listed the Atarisoft port tenth on the magazine's list of top Apple II games as of late 1985, based on sales and market-share data.[121] As of 2016, all versions of Pac-Man are estimated to have grossed a total of more than $12 billion in revenue.[122]

Accolades

Pac-Man was awarded "Best Commercial Arcade Game" at the 1982 Arcade Awards.[81] Pac-Man also won the Video Software Dealers Association's VSDA Award for Best Videogame.[82] In 2001, Pac-Man was voted the greatest video game of all time by a Dixons poll in the UK.[83] The Killer List of Videogames listed Pac-Man as the most popular game of all time.[84] The list aggregator site Playthatgame currently ranks Pac-Man as the #53rd top game of all-time & game of the year.[123]

Impact

 
Pac-Man characters as street decorations in Barcelona, Spain

Pac-Man is considered by many to be one of the most influential video games of all time.[124][125][126] The game established the maze chase game genre,[124] was the first video game to make use of power-ups,[127] and the individual ghosts have deterministic artificial intelligence (AI) that reacts to player actions.[128] Pac-Man is considered one of the first video games to have demonstrated the potential of characters in the medium;[124][129] its title character was the first original gaming mascot, it increased the appeal of video games with female audiences, and it was gaming's first broad licensing success.[124] It is often cited as the first game with cutscenes (in the form of brief comical interludes about Pac-Man and Blinky chasing each other),[130]: 2  though actually Space Invaders Part II employed a similar style of between-level intermissions in 1979.[131]

Pac-Man was a turning point for the arcade video game industry, which had previously been dominated by space shoot 'em ups since Space Invaders (1978). Pac-Man popularized a genre of "character-led" action games, leading to a wave of character action games involving player characters in 1981, such as Nintendo's prototypical platform game Donkey Kong, Konami's Frogger and Universal Entertainment's Lady Bug.[132] Pac-Man was one of the first popular non-shooting action games, defining key elements of the genre such as "parallel visual processing" which requires simultaneously keeping track of multiple entities, including the player's location, the enemies, and the energizers.[8]

Maze games became popular on home computers after the release of Pac-Man. Some of them appeared before official ports and garnered more attention from consumers, and sometimes lawyers, as a result. These include Taxman (1981) and Snack Attack (1982) for the Apple II, Jawbreaker (1981) for the Atari 8-bit family, Scarfman (1981) for the TRS-80, and K.C. Munchkin! (1981) for the Odyssey². Namco produced several other maze games, including Rally-X (1980), Dig Dug (1982), Exvania (1992), and Tinkle Pit (1994).[citation needed] Atari sued Philips for creating K.C. Munchkin in the case Atari, Inc. v. North American Philips Consumer Electronics Corp., leading to Munchkin being pulled from store shelves under court order.[133] No major competitors emerged to challenge Pac-Man in the maze subgenre.[134]

Pac-Man inspired 3D variants of the concept, such as Monster Maze (1982),[135] Spectre (1982), and early first-person shooters such as MIDI Maze (1987; which had similar character designs).[130]: 5 [136] John Romero credited Pac-Man as the game that had the biggest influence on his career;[137] Wolfenstein 3D includes a Pac-Man level from a first-person perspective.[138][139] Many post-Pac-Man titles include power-ups that briefly turn the tables on the enemy.[clarification needed] The game's artificial intelligence inspired programmers who later worked for companies like Bethesda.[128]

Reviews

Reviewing home console versions in 1982, Games magazine called the Atari 5200 implementation a "splendidly reproduced" version of the arcade game, noting a difference in maze layouts for the television screen. It considered the Atari 2600 version to have "much weaker graphics", but to still be one of the best games for that console. In both cases the reviewer felt that the joystick controls were harder to use than those of the arcade machine, and that "attempts to make quick turns are often frustrated".[140]

Legacy

 
Pac-Man interactive exposition at The Art of Video Games

Guinness World Records has awarded the Pac-Man series eight records in Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008, including "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 worldwide: 293,822. The record was set and recognized in 2005 and mentioned in the Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008, awarded in 2010.[141] In 2009, Guinness World Records listed Pac-Man as the most recognizable video game character in the United States, recognized by 94% of the population, above Mario who was recognized by 93% of the population.[142] In 2015, The Strong National Museum of Play inducted Pac-Man to its World Video Game Hall of Fame.[143] The Pac-Man character and game series became an icon of video game culture during the 1980s.

The game has inspired various real-life recreations, involving real people or robots. One event called Pac-Manhattan set a Guinness World Record for "Largest Pac-Man Game" in 2004.[144][145][146]

The business term "Pac-Man defense" in mergers and acquisitions refers to a hostile takeover target that attempts to reverse the situation and instead acquire its attempted acquirer, a reference to Pac-Man's energizers.[147] The "Pac-Man renormalization" is named for a cosmetic resemblance to the character, in the mathematical study of the Mandelbrot set.[148][149] The game's popularity has led to "Pac-Man" being adopted as a nickname, such as by boxer Manny Pacquiao[150] and the American football player Adam Jones.

In 2012, the Pac-Man was inducted into the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. This addition was part of an initial selection (Wave 1) of fourteen video games.[citation needed]

On August 21, 2016, in the 2016 Summer Olympics closing ceremony, during a video which showcases Tokyo as the host of the 2020 Summer Olympics, a small segment shows Pac-Man and the ghosts racing and eating dots on a running track.[151]

Merchandise

A wide variety of Pac-Man merchandise have been marketed with the character's image. By 1982, Midway had about 95-105 licensees selling Pac-Man merchandise, including major companies, such as AT&T selling a Pac-Man telephone. There were more than 500 Pac-Man related products.[89]

7-Eleven sold Pac-Man themed merchandise at its stores since the game's initial popularity in the 1980s. This has included collectible Slurpee and Big Gulp cups. In 2023, 7-Eleven included Pac-Man in its Spring 2023 marketing material including at Speedway and Stripes banner locations, and sold more merchandise around the game as well as rebranding some of its products after the ghosts. This included its house blend coffee (Clyde's Coffee Blend), two Slurpee flavors (Blinky's Cherry & Inky's Blueberry Raz), and a special limited time only cappuccino flavor (Pinky's Strawberry White Chocolate Cappuccino), the latter of which came out pink to match the ghost.[152]

Pac-Man themed merchandise sales had exceeded $1 billion in the US by 1982.[102][153] Pac-Man related merchandise products included bumper stickers, jewellery, accessories (such as a $20,000 Ms. Pac-Man choker with 14 karat gold), bicycles, breakfast cereals, popsicles,[89] t-shirts, toys and pasta.

Television

The Pac-Man animated television series produced by Hanna–Barbera aired on ABC from 1982 to 1983.[154] It was the highest-rated Saturday morning cartoon show in the US during late 1982.[89]

A computer-generated animated series titled Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures aired on Disney XD in June 2013,[155][156] and on Discovery Family in November 2019.

Literature

The original Pac-Man game plays a key role in the plot of Ernest Cline's video game-themed science fiction novel Ready Player One.[citation needed]

Music

The Buckner & Garcia song "Pac-Man Fever" (1981) went to No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts,[157] and received a Gold certification for more than 1 million records sold by 1982,[158] and a total of 2.5 million copies sold as of 2008.[159] More than one million copies of the group's Pac-Man Fever album (1982) were sold.[160]

In 1982, "Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a parody of "Taxman" by the Beatles as "Pac-Man". It was eventually released in 2017 as part of Squeeze Box: The Complete Works of "Weird Al" Yankovic.[161][162] In 1992, Aphex Twin (with the name Power-Pill) released Pac-Man, a techno album which consists mostly of samples from the game.

The character appears in the music video for Bloodhound Gang's "Mope", released in 2000. Here, the character is portrayed as a cocaine addict.

On July 20, 2020, Gorillaz and Schoolboy Q, released a track entitled "Pac-Man" as a part of Gorillaz' Song Machine series to commemorate the game's 40th anniversary, with the music video depicting the band's frontman, 2-D, playing a Gorillaz-themed Pac-Man arcade game.[163]

Film

The Pac-Man character appears in the film Pixels (2015), with Denis Akiyama playing series creator Toru Iwatani. Iwatani makes a cameo at the beginning of the film as an arcade technician.[164][165] Pac-Man is referenced and makes an appearance in the 2017 film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and the video game, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy.[166] The game, the character, and the ghosts all appear in the film Wreck-It Ralph,[167][168] as well as the sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet.

In Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale, Kirito and his friends beat a virtual reality game called PAC-Man 2026, which is loosely based on Pac-Man 256.[169] In the Japanese tokusatsu film Kamen Rider Heisei Generations: Dr. Pac-Man vs. Ex-Aid & Ghost with Legend Riders, a Pac-Man-like character is the main villain.[170]

In the 2010 film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, the titular character makes reference to the original Japanese name.

The 2018 film Relaxer uses Pac-Man as a strong plot element in the story of a 1999 couch-bound man who attempts to beat the game (and encounters the famous Level 256 glitch) before the year 2000 problem occurs.[171]

Various attempts for a feature film based on Pac-Man have been planned since the peak of the original game's popularity. Following the release of Ms. Pac-Man, a feature film was being developed, but never reached an agreement.[172] In 2008, a live-action film based on the series was in development at Crystal Sky.[173][174] In 2022, plans for a live-action Pac-Man film were revived at Wayfarer Studios, based on an idea by Chuck Williams.[175][176][177]

Other gaming media

In 1982, Milton Bradley Company released a board game based on Pac-Man.[178] Players move up to four Pac-Man characters (traditional yellow plus red, green, and blue) plus two ghosts as per the throws of a pair of dice. The two ghost pieces were randomly packed with one of four colors.[179]

Sticker manufacturer Fleer included rub-off game cards with its Pac-Man stickers. The card packages contain a Pac-Man style maze with all points along the path hidden with opaque coverings. From the starting position, the player moves around the maze while scratching off the coverings to score points.[180]

A Pac-Man-themed downloadable content package for Minecraft was released in 2020 in commemoration of the game's 40th anniversary. This pack introduced a ghost called 'Creepy', based on the Creeper.[181]

Perfect scores and other records

A perfect score on the original Pac-Man arcade game is 3,333,360 points, achieved when the player obtains the maximum score on the first 255 levels by eating every dot, energizer, fruit and blue ghost without losing a life, then uses all six lives to obtain the maximum possible number of points on level 256.[182][183]

The first person to achieve a publicly witnessed and verified perfect score without manipulating the game's hardware to freeze play was Billy Mitchell, who performed the feat on July 3, 1999.[183][184] Some record keeping organizations removed Mitchell's score after a 2018 investigation by Twin Galaxies concluded that two unrelated Donkey Kong score performances submitted by Mitchell had not used an unmodified original circuit board.[185] As of July 2020, seven other gamers had achieved perfect Pac-Man scores on original arcade hardware.[186] The world record for the fastest completion of a perfect score, according to Twin Galaxies, is held by David Race with a time of 3 hours, 28 minutes, 49 seconds.[187][188]

In December 1982, eight-year-old boy Jeffrey R. Yee received a letter from United States president Ronald Reagan congratulating him on a world record score of 6,131,940 points, possible only if he had passed level 256.[183] In September 1983, Walter Day, chief scorekeeper at Twin Galaxies at the time, took the U.S. National Video Game Team on a tour of the East Coast to visit gamers who claimed the ability to pass that level. None demonstrated such an ability. In 1999, Billy Mitchell offered $100,000 to anyone who could pass level 256 before January 1, 2000. The offer expired with the prize unclaimed.[183]

After announcing in 2018 that it would no longer recognize the first perfect score on Pac-Man, Guinness World Records reversed that decision and reinstated Billy Mitchell's 1999 performance on June 18, 2020.[189]

Remakes and sequels

Release timeline
1980Pac-Man
1981
1982Ms. Pac-Man
Pac-Man Plus
Super Pac-Man
1983Pac & Pal
Professor Pac-Man
Jr. Pac-Man
1984Pac-Land
1985
1986
1987Pac-Mania
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993Pac-Attack
1994Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures
1995Pac-In-Time
1996Pac-Man Arrangement
Pac-Man VR
1997
1998
1999Pac-Man World
2000Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness
Pac-Man: Adventures in Time
2001Ms. Pac-Man: Quest for the Golden Maze
2002Pac-Man All-Stars
Pac-Man Fever
Pac-Man World 2
2003Pac-Man Vs.
2004
2005Pac-Pix
Pac-Man Pinball Advance
Pac 'n Roll
Pac-Man World 3
2006Pac-Man World Rally
2007Pac-Man Championship Edition
2008
2009
2010Pac-Man Championship Edition DX
Pac-Man Party
2011Pac-Man Battle Royale
2012
2013Pac-Man Chomp Mania
Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures
2014Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures 2
2015World's Largest Pac-Man
2016Pac-Man 256
Pac-Man Championship Edition 2
2017
2018
2019
2020Pac-Man Mega Tunnel Battle
2021Pac-Man 99
2022Pac-Man World Re-Pac
Further information: List of Pac-Man video games
See also: List of Pac-Man clones

Pac-Man was followed by a series of sequels, remakes, and re-imaginings, and is one of the longest-running video game franchises in history. The first of these was Ms. Pac-Man, developed by the American-based General Computer Corporation and published by Midway in 1982. The character's gender was changed to female in response to Pac-Man's popularity with women, with new mazes, moving bonus items, and faster gameplay being implemented to increase its appeal. Ms. Pac-Man is one of the best-selling arcade games in North America, where Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man had become the most successful machines in the history of the amusement arcade industry.[190] Legal concerns raised over who owned the game caused Ms. Pac-Man to become owned by Namco, who assisted in production of the game. Ms. Pac-Man inspired its own line of remakes, including Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness (2000), and Ms. Pac-Man: Quest for the Golden Maze, and is included in many Namco and Pac-Man collections for consoles.

Namco's own follow-up to the original was Super Pac-Man, released in 1982. This was followed by the Japan-exclusive Pac & Pal in 1983.[191] Midway produced many other Pac-Man sequels during the early 1980s, including Pac-Man Plus (1982), Jr. Pac-Man (1983), Baby Pac-Man (1983), and Professor Pac-Man (1984). Other games include the isometric Pac-Mania (1987), the side-scrollers Pac-Land (1984), Hello! Pac-Man (1994), and Pac-In-Time (1995),[192] the 3D platformer Pac-Man World (1999), and the puzzle games Pac-Attack (1991) and Pac-Pix (2005). Iwatani designed Pac-Land and Pac-Mania, both of which remain his favorite games in the series. Pac-Man Championship Edition, published for the Xbox 360 in 2007, was Iwatani's final game before leaving the company. Its neon visuals and fast-paced gameplay was met with acclaim,[193] leading to the creation of Pac-Man Championship Edition DX (2010) and Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 (2016).[194]

Coleco's tabletop Mini-Arcade versions of the game yielded 1.5 million units sold in 1982.[195][196] Nelsonic Industries produced a Pac-Man LCD wristwatch game with a simplified maze also in 1982.[197]

Namco Networks sold a downloadable Windows PC version of Pac-Man in 2009 which also includes an enhanced mode which replaces all of the original sprites with the sprites from Pac-Man Championship Edition. Namco Networks made a downloadable bundle which includes its PC version of Pac-Man and its port of Dig Dug called Namco All-Stars: Pac-Man and Dig Dug. In 2010, Namco Bandai announced the release of the game on Windows Phone 7 as an Xbox Live game.[198]

For the weekend of May 21–23, 2010, Google changed the logo on its homepage to a playable version of the game[199] in recognition of the 30th anniversary of the game's release. The Google Doodle version of Pac-Man was estimated to have been played by more than 1 billion people worldwide in 2010,[200] so Google later gave the game its own page.[201]

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.[202]

For April Fools' Day in 2017, Google created a playable of the game on Google Maps where users were able to play the game using the map onscreen.[203]

Technology

The original arcade system board had one Z80A processor, running at 3.072 Mhz, 16 kbyte of ROM and 3 kbyte of static RAM. Of those 1 kbyte each was for video RAM, color RAM and generic program RAM. There were two custom chips on the board: the 285 sync bus controller and the 284 video RAM addresser, but daughterboards made only from standard parts were also widely used instead. Video output was (analog) component video with composite sync. A further 8 kbyte of character ROM was used for characters, background tiles and sprites and an additional 1 kbit of static RAM was used to hold 4bpp sprite data for one scanline and was written to during the horizontal blanking period preceding each line. Sprite size was always 16x16 pixels, one of the four colors per pixel was for transparency (of the background).

The monitor was installed 90 degree rotated clockwise, the first visible scanline started in the top right corner and ends in the bottom right corner. The horizontal blanking period, which starts after the level indicator at the bottom is drawn, had a duration of 96 pixel clock ticks, enough time to fetch 4 bytes of sprite data per 16 clock ticks for 6 sprites. Although attribute memory exists for them, sprites 0 and 7 are unusable: Their pixel fetch timing windows are occupied by the bottom level indicator (which just precedes the hblank) for sprite 0 and two rows of characters at the top of the screen, which just follow the hblank, for sprite 7.[204]

Notes

  1. ^ Japanese: パックマン, Hepburn: Pakkuman
  2. ^ 7,271,844 in 1982. 684,569 in 1983.[111] 37,063 in 1986. 61,685 in 1987. 3,885 in 1988. 34,374 in 1989. 2,166 in 1990.[112]

References

  1. ^ "Pac-Man Official Website – History". Pac-Man Official Website. Retrieved April 26, 2022.
  2. ^ "Video Game Flyers: Pac-Man, Midway Manufacturing Co. (France)". The Arcade Flyer Archive. Retrieved April 8, 2021.
  3. ^ "Video Game Flyers: Puck Man, Namco (Germany)". The Arcade Flyer Archive. Retrieved April 8, 2021.
  4. ^ Kiya, Andrew (October 17, 2021). "Former Namco Pixel Artist Hiroshi 'Mr. Dotman' Ono Has Died". Siliconera. Retrieved October 17, 2021.
  5. ^ Lammers 1986, p. 265.
  6. ^ Prisco, Jacopo (May 21, 2020). "Pac-Man at 40: The eating icon that changed gaming history". cnn.com. CNN. Retrieved January 23, 2023.
  7. ^ . October 16, 2007. Archived from the original on October 16, 2007. Retrieved February 19, 2023.
  8. ^ a b Maynard, Ashley E.; Subrahmanyam, Kaveri; Greenfield, Patricia M. (May 13, 2005). "Technology and the Development of Intelligence: From the Loom to the Computer". In Sternberg, Robert J.; Preiss, David D. (eds.). Intelligence and Technology: The Impact of Tools on the Nature and Development of Human Abilities. Routledge. pp. 29–54 (32). ISBN 978-1-136-77805-6.
  9. ^ Chris Morris (March 3, 2011). . www.cnbc.com. Archived from the original on October 15, 2012. Retrieved November 8, 2022.
  10. ^ Dwyer, James; Dwyer, Brendan (2014). Cult Fiction. Paused Books. p. 14. ISBN 9780992988401.
  11. ^ a b Sobel, Jonathan (January 30, 2017). "Masaya Nakamura, Whose Company Created Pac-Man, Dies at 91". New York Times. Retrieved January 30, 2017.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g Kent, Steven L. (2002). The Ultimate History of Video Games: The Story Behind the Craze that Touched our Lives and Changed the World. New York: Random House International. ISBN 978-0-7615-3643-7. OCLC 59416169. from the original on June 24, 2016.
  13. ^ Microcomputer BASIC Editorial Department (December 1986). All About Namco (in Japanese). Dempa Shimbun. ISBN 978-4885541070.
  14. ^ Burnham, Van (2001). Supercade. Cambridge: MIT Press. p. 181. ISBN 0-262-02492-6.
  15. ^ a b c Lammers, Susan M. (1986). Programmers at Work: Interviews. New York: Microsoft Press. p. 266. ISBN 0-914845-71-3.
  16. ^ Kurokawa, Fumio (March 17, 2018). . 4Gamer (in Japanese). Aetas. Archived from the original on August 1, 2019. Retrieved August 2, 2019.
  17. ^ Masumi, Akagi (2005). It Started With Pong. Amusement News Agency. pp. 183–184.
  18. ^ . Killer List of Videogames. The International Arcade Museum. Archived from the original on August 2, 2017. Retrieved February 1, 2020.
  19. ^ . Killer List of Videogames. The International Arcade Museum. Archived from the original on October 16, 2017. Retrieved February 1, 2020.
  20. ^ a b c d Purchese, Robert (May 20, 2010). . Eurogamer. Archived from the original on March 4, 2019. Retrieved August 19, 2019.
  21. ^ a b Iwatani, Toru (2005). Introduction to Pac-Man's Game Science. Enterbrain. p. 33.
  22. ^ a b c d Peckham, Matt (May 22, 2015). . Time. Time Warner. Archived from the original on June 7, 2019. Retrieved February 1, 2020.
  23. ^ a b Kohler, Chris (2005). Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life. BradyGames. pp. 51–52. ISBN 0-7440-0424-1. Retrieved July 16, 2019.
  24. ^ a b c d e Kohler, Chris (May 21, 2010). . Wired. Archived from the original on July 12, 2019. Retrieved February 1, 2020.
  25. ^ . Gamespy.com. Archived from the original on February 18, 2009. Retrieved July 26, 2010.
  26. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Pittman, Jamey (February 23, 2009). . Gamasutra. Archived from the original on January 9, 2020. Retrieved February 1, 2020.
  27. ^ Szczepaniak, John (August 11, 2014). The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers (First ed.). SMG Szczepaniak. p. 201. ISBN 978-0992926007. Retrieved August 12, 2019.
  28. ^ Horowitz, Ken (2018). The Sega Arcade Revolution, A History in 62 Games. McFarland & Company. pp. 24–26. ISBN 978-1-4766-3196-7.
  29. ^ Green, Chris (June 17, 2002). "Pac-Man". Salon.com. from the original on December 25, 2005. Retrieved February 12, 2006.
  30. ^ Iwatani, Toru (2003). . Game Staff List Association Japan. Archived from the original on February 13, 2019.
  31. ^ a b England, Lucy (June 11, 2015). . Business Insider. Archived from the original on August 7, 2017. Retrieved August 19, 2019.
  32. ^ Mateas, Michael (2003). (PDF). Proceedings of Level up: Digital Games Research Conference, Utrecht, Netherlands. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 14, 2012. Retrieved September 21, 2007.
  33. ^ Brian Ashcraft (October 27, 2011). "This Guy Has a Rare Arcade Cabinet. Is It Real?". Kotaku. from the original on May 20, 2013.
  34. ^ "Arcade Action: Beat the Machine". Computer and Video Games. No. 1. United Kingdom: EMAP. November 1981. p. 28.
  35. ^ "Coin Machines" (PDF). Cashbox. November 15, 1980. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  36. ^ "Atari Spectacularly Fails to Do the Math". Next Generation. No. 26. Imagine Media. February 1997. p. 47.
  37. ^ a b "Pac-Man gobbles his way into the industry". Play Meter. Vol. 20, no. 13. December 1994. pp. 22, 24, 26.
  38. ^ "Midway Bows New 'Pac-Man' Video" (PDF). Cashbox. November 22, 1980. p. 42. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  39. ^ "Game Board Schematic" (PDF). Midway Pac-Man Parts and Operating Manual. Chicago, Illinois: Midway Games. December 1980. (PDF) from the original on September 23, 2015. Retrieved July 20, 2009.
  40. ^ Lapetino, Tim (2018). "The Story of PAC-MAN on Atari 2600". Retro Gamer Magazine. 179: 18–23.
  41. ^ "Creating a World of Clones". The Philadelphia Inquirer. October 9, 1983. p. 16.
  42. ^ Thompson, Adam (Fall 1983). "The King of Video Games is a Woman". Creative Computing Video and Arcade Games. 1 (2): 65. from the original on July 6, 2009.
  43. ^ Ratcliff, Matthew (August 1988). "Classic Cartridges II". Antic. 7 (4): 24. from the original on May 24, 2010.
  44. ^ Montfort, Nick; Bogost, Ian (2009). "Pac-Man". Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System. MIT Press. pp. 66–79. ISBN 978-0-262-01257-7.
  45. ^ a b Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (2003). Family Computer 1983 - 1994. Japan: Otashuppan. ISBN 4872338030.
  46. ^ "Dempa Micomsoft Super Soft Catalogue". Dempa. May 1984. p. 4. Retrieved July 14, 2019.
  47. ^ Harris, Craig (September 3, 1999). . IGN. Archived from the original on October 19, 2018. Retrieved July 31, 2019.
  48. ^ Hannley, Steve (July 6, 2013). . Hardcore Gamer. Archived from the original on December 7, 2017. Retrieved February 2, 2020.
  49. ^ Softbank (January 18, 2001). . Soft Bank News. Archived from the original on May 27, 2019. Retrieved September 22, 2019.
  50. ^ Harris, Craig (June 4, 2004). . IGN. Archived from the original on April 30, 2019. Retrieved February 2, 2020.
  51. ^ "Namco Networks' Pac-Man Franchise Surpasses 30 Million Paid Transactions in the United States on Brew". AllBusiness.com. 2010. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  52. ^ Pierce, David (October 31, 2011). . The Verge. Archived from the original on November 13, 2016. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  53. ^ Romano, Sal (December 21, 2015). . Gematsu. Archived from the original on October 20, 2017. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  54. ^ "Review Crew: Namco Arcade Classics". Electronic Gaming Monthly. No. 82. Sendai Publishing. May 1996. p. 34.
  55. ^ Fielder, Joe (April 28, 2000). . GameSpot. Archived from the original on May 12, 2019. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  56. ^ Parish, Jeremy (August 30, 2005). . 1UP.com. IGN. Archived from the original on June 3, 2016. Retrieved August 12, 2020.
  57. ^ Roper, Chris (July 21, 2009). . IGN. Archived from the original on April 29, 2019. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  58. ^ Buchanan, Levi (November 22, 2010). . IGN. Archived from the original on February 16, 2019. Retrieved July 14, 2019.
  59. ^ "Retroview - Namco Classic Collection 2". No. 33. Edge. May 1996. p. 79. Retrieved March 3, 2020.
  60. ^ Bobinator (August 18, 2019). . Hardcore Gaming 101. Archived from the original on August 19, 2019. Retrieved October 11, 2019.
  61. ^ "Windows 95 Gets Into The Game". No. 20. IDG Communications. Electronic Entertainment. August 1995. p. 48. Retrieved August 12, 2020.
  62. ^ . PC Watch (in Japanese). Impress Group. March 27, 1998. Archived from the original on March 26, 2016. Retrieved August 12, 2020.
  63. ^ Latshaw, Tim (June 17, 2014). . Nintendo Life. Archived from the original on April 30, 2019. Retrieved August 1, 2019.
  64. ^ Harris, John (March 28, 2017). . Gamasutra. Archived from the original on April 12, 2019. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  65. ^ . Killer List of Videogames. Archived from the original on June 13, 2019. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  66. ^ . Killer List of Videogames. Archived from the original on March 25, 2019. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  67. ^ Wahlgren, Jon (July 27, 2011). . Nintendo Life. Archived from the original on June 16, 2019. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  68. ^ IGN Staff (October 25, 2010). . IGN. Archived from the original on July 13, 2019. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  69. ^ Miller, Zachary (December 2, 2011). . Nintendo World Report. Archived from the original on February 14, 2019. Retrieved July 14, 2019.
  70. ^ Cavalli, Earnest (January 30, 2014). . Engadget. Archived from the original on July 31, 2019. Retrieved July 31, 2019.
  71. ^ Webster, Andrew (June 14, 2016). . The Verge. Archived from the original on June 7, 2019. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  72. ^ Alan Weiss, Brett (1998). . Allgame. Allmedia. Archived from the original on November 14, 2014. Retrieved February 2, 2020.
  73. ^ Alan Weiss, Brett (1998). . Allgame. Allmedia. Archived from the original on November 14, 2014. Retrieved February 1, 2020.
  74. ^ "Atari - Pac-Man". No. 17. Computer & Video Games. March 1983. p. 7. Retrieved February 1, 2020.
  75. ^ Pickering, Chris (October 31, 2007). . Eurogamer. Archived from the original on October 8, 2019. Retrieved February 1, 2020.
  76. ^ Harris, Craig (September 3, 1999). . IGN. Archived from the original on February 1, 2020. Retrieved February 1, 2020.
  77. ^ "1985 Software Buyer's Guide". Computer Games. Vol. 3, no. 5. United States: Carnegie Publications. February 1985. pp. 11–8, 51–8.
  78. ^ "Conversion Capsules: Hit Games in New Formats". Computer Games. Vol. 3, no. 4. United States: Carnegie Publications. December 1984. pp. 62–3.
  79. ^ Matt; Julian (January 1991). . No. 4. Mean Machines. Archived from the original on July 24, 2019. Retrieved February 1, 2020.
  80. ^ Miller, David (July 5, 1984). "Power Pills". Popular Computing Weekly. p. 29. Retrieved February 1, 2020.
  81. ^ a b "1981 Arcade Awards" – Electronic Games March 1982, pages 46–49.
  82. ^ a b "Pac-Man Scores!". Electronic Games. Vol. 1, no. 11. January 1983. p. 12.
  83. ^ a b "Pac Man 'greatest video game'". BBC News. November 13, 2001. from the original on December 18, 2006. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  84. ^ a b "The Top Coin-Operated Videogames of All Time". Killer List of Videogames. The International Arcade Museum. Retrieved October 10, 2021.
  85. ^ Lammers, Susan M. (1986). Programmers at Work: Interviews. Microsoft Press. pp. 262–3. ISBN 978-0-914845-71-3.
  86. ^ "ベストスリー 本紙調査 (調査対象1980年) 〜 アーケードゲーム機" [Best Three Book Survey (Survey Target 1980) ~ Arcade Game Machines] (PDF). Game Machine (in Japanese). No. 159. Amusement Press, Inc. February 15, 1981. p. 2. (PDF) from the original on February 1, 2020.
  87. ^ ""Pole Position" No. 1 Video Game: Game Machine's "The Year's Best Three AM Machines" Survey Results" (PDF). Game Machine. No. 207. Amusement Press, Inc. March 1, 1983. p. 30. (PDF) from the original on January 31, 2020.
  88. ^ ""Donkey Kong" No.1 Of '81 — Game Machine's Survey Of "The Year's Best Three AM Machines" —" (PDF). Game Machine. No. 182. Amusement Press, Inc. February 15, 1982. p. 30. (PDF) from the original on January 31, 2020.
  89. ^ a b c d Ressner, Jeffrey (November 20, 1982). "Stan Jarocki: Expanded Player Base Is The Key To The Future". Cash Box. Cash Box Pub. Co. pp. 52–56 (56).
  90. ^ "Arcade games a bigger draw than the movies". The Montreal Gazette. July 27, 1981. Retrieved March 6, 2022.
  91. ^ Bill Loguidice & Matt Barton (2009). Vintage games: an insider look at the history of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the most influential games of all time. Focal Press. p. 181. ISBN 978-0-240-81146-8. from the original on May 14, 2013. Retrieved April 23, 2011. The machines were well worth the investment; in total, they raked in over a billion dollars worth of quarters in the first year alone.
  92. ^ a b Mark J. P. Wolf (2008). The video game explosion: a history from PONG to PlayStation and beyond. ABC-CLIO. p. 73. ISBN 978-0-313-33868-7. from the original on April 18, 2016. Retrieved April 10, 2011. It would go on to become arguably the most famous video game of all time, with the arcade game alone taking in more than a billion dollars. One study estimated that it had been played more than 10 billion times during the twentieth century.
  93. ^ Mark J. P. Wolf (2001). The medium of the video game. University of Texas Press. p. 44. ISBN 0-292-79150-X. from the original on April 18, 2016. Retrieved April 9, 2011.
  94. ^ Haddon, L. (1988). "Electronic and Computer Games: The History of an Interactive Medium". Screen. 29 (2): 52–73 [53]. doi:10.1093/screen/29.2.52. Revenue from the game Pac-Man alone was estimated to exceed that from the cinema box-office success Star Wars.
  95. ^ Kevin "Fragmaster" Bowen (2001). "Game of the Week: Pac-Man". GameSpy. from the original on October 1, 2011. Retrieved April 9, 2011.
  96. ^ "1981 Jukebox/Games Route Survey". Cash Box. Cash Box Pub. Co. October 31, 1981. p. C-18.
  97. ^ "Authoritative Industry Sources Acclaim: Pac-Man Top Video Game of the Year". Cash Box. Cash Box Pub. Co. December 26, 1981. p. 91.
  98. ^ "1982 Jukebox / Games Route Survey". Cash Box. Cash Box Pub. Co. November 20, 1982. p. 53.
  99. ^ "Men's wear, Volume 185". Men's Wear. Fairchild Publications. 185. 1982. Retrieved February 28, 2012.
  100. ^ Worley, Joyce (May 1982). "Move Over Guys, Here Come the Gals... Women Join the Arcade Revolution". Electronic Games. Vol. 1, no. 3. pp. 30–2.
  101. ^ How to Win Video Games. Pocket Books. 1982. pp. 82–90. ISBN 978-0-671-45841-6.
  102. ^ a b John, Kao (1989). The Industry. Englewood Cliffs. p. 45. Retrieved April 1, 2023.
  103. ^ a b Uncle John's Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader. Portable Press. September 1999. p. 373. ISBN 978-1-879682-74-0. In 1982 alone, Americans pumped $6 billion in quarters into Pac-Man's mouth—more than they spent in Las Vegas casinos and movie theatres combined.
  104. ^ a b Uncle John's Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader. Simon and Schuster. November 2012. p. 348. ISBN 978-1-60710-670-8. In 1982 alone, Americans pumped $6 billion in quarters into Pac-Man's mouth—more than they spent in Las Vegas casinos and movie theatres combined.
  105. ^ a b Stern, Jane; Stern, Michael (1992). Jane & Michael Stern's Encyclopedia of Pop Culture: An A to Z Guide of Who's who and What's What, from Aerobics and Bubble Gum to Valley of the Dolls and Moon Unit Zappa. Harper Perennial. p. 373. ISBN 978-0-06-055343-2. "I think we have the Mickey Mouse of the 1980s," said one Pac-Man executive when it was noted that Americans were spending about $6 billion per year on the game and its spinoffs
  106. ^ Chris Morris (May 10, 2005). "Pac Man turns 25: A pizza dinner yields a cultural phenomenon – and millions of dollars in quarters. He also loved to eat a lot of pellets". CNN. from the original on May 15, 2011. Retrieved April 23, 2011. In the late 1990s, Twin Galaxies, which tracks video game world record scores, visited used game auctions and counted how many times the average Pac Man machine had been played. Based on those findings and the total number of machines that were manufactured, the organization said it believed the game had been played more than 10 billion times in the 20th century.
  107. ^ "Top 10 Highest-Grossing Arcade Games of All Time". USgamer. January 1, 2016. from the original on January 11, 2016. Retrieved January 3, 2016.
  108. ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. February–December 1982.
  109. ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. January–December 1983.
  110. ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. January–February 1984.
  111. ^ Cartridge Sales Since 1980. Atari Corp. Via "The Agony & The Ecstasy". Once Upon Atari. Episode 4. Scott West Productions. August 10, 2003. 23 minutes in.
  112. ^ a b c Vendel, Curt (May 28, 2009). . Atari Museum. Archived from the original on December 6, 2010. Retrieved November 27, 2021.
  113. ^ Buchanan, Levi (August 26, 2008). . IGN. Archived from the original on October 28, 2008. Retrieved July 15, 2009.
  114. ^ "Coleco Mini-Arcades Go Gold" (PDF). Arcade Express. 1 (1): 4. August 15, 1982. (PDF) from the original on September 14, 2012. Retrieved February 3, 2012.
  115. ^ "More Mini-Arcades Coming From Coleco" (PDF). Arcade Express. Vol. 1, no. 13. January 30, 1983. p. 2. (PDF) from the original on November 14, 2012.
  116. ^ Shea, Tom (December 20, 1982). "Shrinking Pac-Man leads game-wristwatch market". InfoWorld. Vol. 4, no. 50. InfoWorld Media Group, Inc. pp. 44–5. ISSN 0199-6649.
  117. ^ . Game Data Library. March 1, 2020. Archived from the original on April 24, 2019. Retrieved March 16, 2020.
  118. ^ "Namco (Japan sales, 2000-2006)". Garaph (based on Famitsu data). July 28, 2005. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
  119. ^ Worley, Joyce (December 1989). "Mega Hits: The Best of the Best". Video Games & Computer Entertainment (11): 130–132, 137, 138.
  120. ^ . Business Wire. Berkshire Hathaway. June 30, 2010. Archived from the original on June 29, 2017. Retrieved August 8, 2020.
  121. ^ Ciraolo, Michael (October–November 1985). . II Computing: 51. Archived from the original on March 13, 2016. Retrieved January 28, 2015.
  122. ^ Leack, Jonathan (January 26, 2017). "World of Warcraft Leads Industry With Nearly $10 Billion In Revenue". GameRevolution. Retrieved February 27, 2021.
  123. ^ Jeroen te Strake, Peter Searle. "Thebiglist". Playthatgame.co.uk. Retrieved January 5, 2020.
  124. ^ a b c d . 1Up.com. Archived from the original on October 3, 2015. Retrieved November 4, 2015.
  125. ^ Wilson, Jeffrey L. (June 11, 2010). "The 10 Most Influential Video Games of All Time". PC Magazine. 1. Pac-Man (1980). from the original on April 11, 2012. Retrieved April 19, 2012.
  126. ^ , The Times, September 20, 2007
  127. ^ . 1Up.com. Archived from the original on November 12, 2016. Retrieved November 4, 2015.
  128. ^ a b Consalvo, Mia (2016). Atari to Zelda: Japan's Videogames in Global Contexts. MIT Press. pp. 193–4. ISBN 978-0262034395.
  129. ^ DeMaria, Rusel; Wilson, Johnny L. (2003). High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games (2 ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill/Osborne. p. 62. ISBN 0-07-223172-6.
  130. ^ a b "Gaming's most important evolutions". GamesRadar+. October 8, 2010. from the original on November 7, 2013. Retrieved November 4, 2015.
  131. ^ "Space Invaders Part II". Arcade History.
  132. ^ "Donkey Kong". Retro Gamer. Future Publishing Limited. September 13, 2008. Retrieved May 4, 2021.
  133. ^ "CourtVille: Why Unclear Laws Put EA v. Zynga Up for Grabs". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved May 30, 2021.
  134. ^ Vaidhyanathan, Siva (August 1, 2001). Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How it Threatens Creativity. NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-8834-9.
  135. ^ "Monster Maze".
  136. ^ "25 years of Pac-Man". MeriStation. July 4, 2005. from the original on September 29, 2011. Retrieved May 6, 2011. (Translation)
  137. ^ Bailey, Kat (March 9, 2012). . Joystiq. Archived from the original on February 2, 2017. Retrieved April 2, 2012.
  138. ^ Book of Games: The Ultimate Reference on PC & Video Games. Book of Games. 2006. p. 24. ISBN 82-997378-0-X. from the original on November 22, 2016. Retrieved May 6, 2011.
  139. ^ "Game developer". 2 & 5. Miller Freeman. 1995: 62. from the original on November 22, 2016. Retrieved June 6, 2011. If you made it to the secret Pac-Man level in Castle Wolfenstein, you know what I mean (Pac-Man never would have made it as a three-dimensional game). Though it may be less of a visual feast, two dimensions have a well-established place as an electronic gaming format. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  140. ^ "GAMES Magazine #34". December 1982.
  141. ^ Martijn Müller (June 3, 2010). (in Dutch). NG-Gamer. Archived from the original on February 27, 2012. Retrieved November 3, 2015.
  142. ^ Turi, Tim (December 21, 2009). "Gain Knowledge From Guinness 2010 Gamer's Edition". Game Informer. Retrieved December 13, 2021.
  143. ^ "Pac-Man". The Strong National Museum of Play. The Strong. Retrieved May 6, 2022.
  144. ^ "About Pac-Manhattan". Pac-Manhattan. 2004. from the original on May 8, 2009. Retrieved July 3, 2009.
  145. ^ . Archived from the original on November 9, 2009. Retrieved October 10, 2009.
  146. ^ Lau, Dominic. . SFU Computing Science. Archived from the original on May 30, 2009. Retrieved July 3, 2009.
  147. ^ "Origins of the 'Pac-Man' Defense". The New York Times. January 23, 1988. from the original on February 14, 2012. Retrieved November 20, 2010.
  148. ^ Selinger, Nikita; Lyubich, Mikhail; Dudko, Dzmitry (March 3, 2017). "Pacman renormalization and self-similarity of the Mandelbrot set near Siegel parameters". arXiv:1703.01206. Bibcode:2017arXiv170301206D. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  149. ^ Lyubich, Mikhail; Dudko, Dzmitry (August 30, 2018). "Local connectivity of the Mandelbrot set at some satellite parameters of bounded type". arXiv:1808.10425. Bibcode:2018arXiv180810425D. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  150. ^ Brunell, Evan (May 22, 2010). "Popular Video Game Pac-Man Celebrates 30th Anniversary". New England Sports Network. from the original on July 22, 2010. Retrieved April 11, 2012.
  151. ^ "Mario & Pac-Man Showed Up in the Rio 2016 Olympics Closing Ceremony". August 22, 2016. from the original on February 5, 2017. Retrieved December 30, 2016.
  152. ^ . Archived from the original on May 1, 2023. Retrieved May 1, 2023.
  153. ^ Wollman, Jane (December 1982). "Pac-Mania". Popular Computing. p. 81. Retrieved April 1, 2023.
  154. ^ . GameSpy. Archived from the original on April 16, 2009. Retrieved May 7, 2011.
  155. ^ White, Cindy. (June 17, 2010) "E3 2010: Pac-Man Back on TV?" June 21, 2010, at the Wayback Machine. IGN.com. Retrieved July 7, 2010.
  156. ^ Morris, Chris. (June 17, 2010) "Pac-Man chomps at 3D TV June 25, 2010, at the Wayback Machine. Variety.com. Retrieved July 7, 2010.
  157. ^ . Time Magazine. April 5, 1982. Archived from the original on January 22, 2011. Retrieved October 15, 2009. Columbia Records' Pac-Man Fever ... was No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 last week.
  158. ^ . McGraw-Hill. 1982. Archived from the original on January 22, 2011. Retrieved August 14, 2010. Pac-Man Fever went gold almost instantly with 1 million records sold.
  159. ^ Turow, Joseph (2008). Media Today: An Introduction to Mass Communication (3rd ed.). Taylor & Francis. p. 554. ISBN 978-0-415-96058-8. from the original on November 22, 2016. Retrieved January 29, 2012.
  160. ^ . RIAA.com. Retrieved November 1, 2009.
  161. ^ Grosinger, Matt (February 16, 2017). . Nerdist Industries. Archived from the original on February 21, 2017. Retrieved February 20, 2017.
  162. ^ Liptak, Andrew (February 18, 2017). "Listen to a previously unreleased Weird Al Beatles parody, Pac-Man". The Verge. Vox Media. from the original on February 19, 2017. Retrieved February 20, 2017.
  163. ^ "GORILLAZ: SONG MACHINE SEASON 1 EPISODE 5 'PAC-MAN' FT SCHOOLBOY Q". Nasty Little Man. July 20, 2020.
  164. ^ . Philstar. July 23, 2014. Archived from the original on July 23, 2014. Retrieved July 23, 2014.
  165. ^ Tarek Bazley: Pac-man at 35: the video game that changed the world
  166. ^ "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 redeems a gaming icon on screen". Polygon. May 8, 2017.
  167. ^ "Wreck-It Ralph Trailer #2". Walt Disney Animation Studios via YouTube. September 12, 2012. Archived from the original on October 30, 2021. Retrieved September 12, 2012.
  168. ^ Cooper, Hollander; Gilbert, Henry (October 19, 2012). "Wreck-it Ralph – 9 amazing things you couldn't possibly know about the movie". Games Radar. Retrieved October 23, 2012.
  169. ^ . Archived from the original on May 26, 2015. Retrieved May 26, 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link). Al Jazeera English, May 25, 2015
  170. ^ "Shiro Sano Cast as Dr. Pacman in Kamen Rider Heisei Generations". Tokusatsu Network. November 5, 2016.
  171. ^ "Relaxer Review: Help! He's Sitting and He Can't Get Up". Jeannette Catsoulis. March 28, 2019.
  172. ^ Cash Box. William and Mary Libraries Special Collections Research Center. Cash Box Pub. Co. November 20, 1982.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  173. ^ . Crystalsky.com. Retrieved August 11, 2008.
  174. ^ Jaafar, Ali (May 19, 2008) . Variety.com. Retrieved September 4, 2008.
  175. ^ Galuppo, Mia (August 8, 2022). "Live-Action Pac-Man Movie in the Works from Wayfarer, Bandai Namco (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved August 8, 2022.
  176. ^ Radulovic, Petrana (August 8, 2022). "New Pac-Man movie will be live action, somehow". Polygon. Retrieved August 8, 2022.
  177. ^ Rubin, Rebecca (August 8, 2022). "Pac-Man Live-Action Movie in the Works From 'Jane the Virgin' Actor Justin Baldoni". Variety. Retrieved August 8, 2022.
  178. ^ Coopee, Todd (May 20, 2015). "Pac-Man Turns 35!". ToyTales.ca. from the original on September 4, 2015.
  179. ^ "The MB Official Pac-Man Board Game". from the original on November 10, 2015. Retrieved November 4, 2015.
  180. ^ "The Pac-Star: Pac-Man Rub-Offs Section Index". from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved November 4, 2015.
  181. ^ "Pac-Man Celebrates 40th Anniversary With Minecraft DLC, a Game You Play on Twitch, and Weird AI Programs". IGN. May 22, 2020. Retrieved June 1, 2020.
  182. ^ "Pac-Man review at OAFE". Oafe.net. from the original on October 21, 2012. Retrieved November 15, 2012.
  183. ^ a b c d Ramsey, David. . Oxford American. Archived from the original on February 29, 2008. Retrieved November 13, 2012.
  184. ^ . Twin Galaxies. Archived from the original on July 26, 2008. Retrieved December 28, 2015.
  185. ^ "Dispute Decision: Billy Mitchell's Donkey Kong & All Other Records Removed".
  186. ^ "Twin Galaxies – Pac-Man (Arcade) – Points [Factory Speed]". Retrieved January 2, 2019.
  187. ^ "Pac-Man [Fastest Completion [Perfect Game ARCADE – 03:28:49.00 – David W Race". August 4, 2015. Retrieved January 5, 2016.
  188. ^ Race, David (May 30, 2013). Perfect Pac-Man: May 22, 2013 – 3hrs 28min 49sec (2 of 2). David Race. from the original on January 2, 2016. Retrieved January 5, 2016 – via YouTube.
  189. ^ "Retro gaming pariah Billy Mitchell has Guinness records reinstated". ESPN.com. June 18, 2020. Retrieved June 18, 2020.
  190. ^ "Past Presidents See Dip In Video Collections". Cash Box. Cash Box Pub. Co. November 20, 1982. p. 56.
  191. ^ Parish, Jeremy (July 23, 2013). . USgamer. Archived from the original on January 23, 2018. Retrieved February 23, 2020.
  192. ^ "Pac-In-Time". Next Generation. Imagine Media (6): 113–4. June 1995.
  193. ^ "Pac-Man Championship Edition for Xbox 360 Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  194. ^ Hatfield, Daemon (November 16, 2010). . IGN. Archived from the original on November 19, 2010. Retrieved March 25, 2020.
  195. ^ "Mini-Arcades 'Go Gold'". Electronic Games. 1 (9): 13. November 1982. from the original on August 13, 2012. Retrieved February 5, 2012.
  196. ^ "Coleco Mini-Arcades Go Gold" (PDF). Arcade Express. 1 (1): 4. August 15, 1982. (PDF) from the original on November 8, 2012. Retrieved February 3, 2012.
  197. ^ "The Official Midway's Pac-Man Game Watch Instruction Manual" (PDF) (booklet). Nelsonic Industries. (PDF) from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved November 3, 2015.
  198. ^ . BestWP7Games. November 9, 2010. Archived from the original on November 12, 2010.
  199. ^ "Google gets Pac-Man fever". cnet. May 21, 2010. from the original on October 27, 2010.
  200. ^ Fricker, Martin (May 24, 2010). "Google gives Pac-Man boost with over 1 billion playing Goggle Doodle game in three days". Mirror. Retrieved August 25, 2021.
  201. ^ "Pac-Man". from the original on August 29, 2012. Retrieved November 3, 2015.
  202. ^ Ki Mae Huessner. "World's Biggest Pac-Man Is Web Sensation". ABC News Internet Ventures. from the original on April 15, 2014. Retrieved April 13, 2013.
  203. ^ Garun, Natt (March 31, 2017). "Google Maps morphs into Ms. Pac-Man for April Fools' Day". The Verge. Retrieved December 27, 2021.
  204. ^ Midway's Pac-Man Parts and Operating Manual (PDF). December 1980.

Further reading

  • Trueman, Doug (November 10, 1999). "The History of Pac-Man". GameSpot. Archived from the original on June 26, 2009. Comprehensive coverage on the history of the entire series up through 1999.
  • 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 Post.
  • Hirschfeld, Tom. How to Master the Video Games, Bantam Books, 1981. ISBN 0-553-20164-6 Strategy guide for a variety of arcade games including Pac-Man. Includes drawings of some of the common patterns.

External links

February 15, 2024
this, article, about, video, game, character, character, series, games, series, other, uses, disambiguation, originally, called, puck, japan, 1980, maze, action, video, game, developed, released, namco, arcades, north, america, game, released, midway, manufact. This article is about the video game For the character see Pac Man character For the series of games see Pac Man series For other uses see Pac Man disambiguation Pac Man a originally called Puck Man in Japan is a 1980 maze action video game developed and released by Namco for arcades In North America the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America The player controls Pac Man who must eat all the dots inside an enclosed maze while avoiding four colored ghosts Eating large flashing dots called Power Pellets causes the ghosts to temporarily turn blue allowing Pac Man to eat them for bonus points Pac ManNorth American sales flyerDeveloper s NamcoPublisher s JP DE Namco 3 NA FRA Midway 2 Designer s Toru IwataniProgrammer s Shigeo FunakiShigeichi IshimuraArtist s Hiroshi Ono 4 Composer s Shigeichi IshimuraToshio KaiSeriesPac ManPlatform s Arcade Atari 2600 Atari 5200 Apple II Atari 8 bit MSX Nintendo Entertainment System Commodore 64 VIC 20 Intellivision ZX Spectrum TI 99 4A IBM PC Game Boy Game Gear Game Boy Color Neo Geo Pocket Color Mobile phone Game Boy Advance iPod Touch Xbox 360 PlayStation 4 Xbox One iOS AndroidReleaseJP July 1980 1 WW December 1980Genre s MazeMode s Single player multiplayer alternating turns Game development began in early 1979 directed by Toru Iwatani with a nine man team Iwatani wanted to create a game that could appeal to women as well as men because most video games of the time had themes of war or sports 5 6 Although the inspiration for the Pac Man character was the image of a pizza with a slice removed Iwatani has said he rounded out the Japanese character for mouth kuchi Japanese 口 The in game characters were made to be cute and colorful to appeal to younger players The original Japanese title of Puck Man was derived from the Japanese phrase paku paku taberu which refers to gobbling something up the title was changed to Pac Man for the North American release Pac Man was a widespread critical and commercial success leading to several sequels merchandise and two television series as well as a hit single Pac Man Fever by Buckner amp Garcia The character of Pac Man has become the official mascot of Bandai Namco Entertainment 7 The game remains one of the highest grossing and best selling games generating more than 14 billion in revenue as of 2016 update and 43 million units in sales combined and has an enduring commercial and cultural legacy commonly listed as one of the greatest video games of all time Contents 1 Gameplay 2 Development 3 Release 4 Ports 5 Reception 5 1 Commercial performance 5 2 Accolades 5 3 Impact 6 Reviews 7 Legacy 7 1 Merchandise 7 2 Television 7 3 Literature 7 4 Music 7 5 Film 7 6 Other gaming media 7 7 Perfect scores and other records 8 Remakes and sequels 9 Technology 10 Notes 11 References 12 Further reading 13 External linksGameplay nbsp In game screenshot The ghosts are in the center with Pac Man below them At bottom left is the player s life count and at bottom right the level icon in this case a cherry At top is the player s score Pac Man is an action 8 maze chase video game the player controls the eponymous character through an enclosed maze The objective of the game is to eat all of the dots placed in the maze while avoiding four colored ghosts Blinky red Pinky pink Inky cyan and Clyde orange who pursue Pac Man When Pac Man eats all of the dots the player advances to the next level Levels are indicated by fruit icons at the bottom of the screen In between levels are short cutscenes featuring Pac Man and Blinky in humorous comical situations If Pac Man is caught by a ghost he loses a life the game ends when all lives are lost Each of the four ghosts has its own unique artificial intelligence A I or personality Blinky gives direct chase to Pac Man Pinky and Inky try to position themselves in front of Pac Man usually by cornering him and Clyde switches between chasing Pac Man and fleeing from him 9 Placed near the four corners of the maze are large flashing energizers or power pellets When Pac Man eats one the ghosts turn blue with a dizzied expression and reverse direction Pac Man can eat blue ghosts for bonus points when a ghost is eaten its eyes make their way back to the center box in the maze where the ghost regenerates and resumes its normal activity Eating multiple blue ghosts in succession increases their point value After a certain amount of time blue colored ghosts flash white before turning back into their normal forms Eating a certain number of dots in a level causes a bonus item usually a fruit to appear underneath the center box the item can be eaten for bonus points To the sides of the maze are two warp tunnels which allow Pac Man and the ghosts to travel to the opposite side of the screen Ghosts become slower when entering and exiting these tunnels The game increases in difficulty as the player progresses the ghosts become faster and the energizers effect decreases in duration eventually disappearing entirely An integer overflow causes the 256th level to load improperly rendering it impossible to complete 10 DevelopmentAfter acquiring the struggling Japanese division of Atari in 1974 video game developer Namco began producing its own video games in house as opposed to licensing them from other developers and distributing them in Japan 11 12 Company president Masaya Nakamura created a small video game development group within the company and ordered them to study several NEC produced microcomputers to potentially create games with 13 14 One of the first people assigned to this division was a 24 year old employee named Toru Iwatani 15 He created Namco s first video game Gee Bee in 1978 which while unsuccessful helped the company gain a stronger foothold in the quickly growing video game industry 16 17 He assisted in the production of two sequels Bomb Bee and Cutie Q both released in 1979 18 19 nbsp Creator of Pac Man Toru Iwatani at the 2011 Game Developers ConferenceThe Japanese video game industry had surged in popularity with games such as Space Invaders and Breakout which led to the market being flooded with similar titles from other manufacturers in an attempt to cash in on the success 20 21 Iwatani felt that arcade games only appealed to men for their crude graphics and violence 20 and that arcades in general were seen as seedy environments 22 For his next project Iwatani chose to create a non violent cheerful video game that appealed mostly to women 23 as he believed that attracting women and couples into arcades would potentially make them appear to be much more family friendly in tone 20 Iwatani began thinking of things that women liked to do in their time he decided to center his game around eating basing this on women liking to eat desserts and other sweets 24 His game was initially called Pakkuman based on the Japanese onomatopoeia term paku paku taberu 25 referencing the mouth movement of opening and closing in succession 23 The game that later became Pac Man began development in early 1979 and took a year and five months to complete the longest for a video game up to that point 26 Iwatani enlisted the help of nine other Namco employees to assist in production including composer Toshio Kai programmer Shigeo Funaki and hardware engineer Shigeichi Ishimura 27 Care was taken to make the game appeal to a non violent audience particularly women with its usage of simple gameplay and cute attractive character designs 26 22 When the game was being developed Namco was underway with designing Galaxian which used a then revolutionary RGB color display allowing sprites to use several colors at once instead of using colored strips of cellophane that was commonplace at the time 26 this technological accomplishment allowed Iwatani to greatly enhance his game with bright pastel colors which he felt would help attract players 26 The idea for energizers was a concept Iwatani borrowed from Popeye the Sailor a cartoon character that temporarily acquires superhuman strength after eating a can of spinach 24 it is believed that Iwatani was partly inspired by a Japanese children s story about a creature that protected children from monsters by devouring them 26 Frank Fogleman the co founder of Gremlin Industries believes that the maze chase gameplay of Pac Man was inspired by Sega s Head On 1979 a similar arcade game that was popular in Japan 28 Iwatani has often claimed that the character of Pac Man was designed after the shape of a pizza with a missing slice while he was at lunch in a 1986 interview he said that this was only half truth 15 and that the Pac Man character was also based on him rounding out and simplifying the Japanese character kuchi 口 meaning mouth 29 15 The four ghosts were made to be cute colorful and appealing using bright pastel colors and expressive blue eyes 26 Iwatani had used this idea before in Cutie Q which features similar ghost like characters and decided to incorporate it into Pac Man 20 He was inspired by the television series Casper the Friendly Ghost and the manga Obake no Q Taro 24 Ghosts were chosen as the game s main antagonists because they were used as villainous characters in animation 24 The idea for the fruit bonuses was based on graphics displayed on slot machines which often use symbols such as cherries and bells 30 Originally Namco president Masaya Nakamura had requested that all of the ghosts be red and thus indistinguishable from one another 31 Iwatani believed that the ghosts should be different colors and he received unanimous support from his colleagues for this idea 31 The ghosts were programmed to have their own distinct personalities so as to keep the game from becoming too boring or impossibly difficult to play 26 32 Each ghost s name gives a hint to its strategy for tracking down Pac Man Shadow Blinky always chases Pac Man Speedy Pinky tries to get ahead of him Bashful Inky uses a more complicated strategy to zero in on him and Pokey Clyde alternates between chasing him and running away 26 The ghosts Japanese names are おいかけ chase まちぶせ ambush きまぐれ fickle and おとぼけ playing dumb respectively To break up the tension of constantly being pursued humorous intermissions between Pac Man and Blinky were added 21 The sound effects were among the last things added to the game 26 created by Toshio Kai 22 In a design session Iwatani noisily ate fruit and made gurgling noises to describe to Kai how he wanted the eating effect to sound 22 Upon completion the game was titled Puck Man based on the working title and the titular character s distinct hockey puck like shape 12 ReleaseLocation testing for Puck Man began on May 22 1980 in Shibuya Tokyo to a relatively positive vague fanfare from players 24 A private showing for the game was done in June followed by a nationwide release in July 12 Eyeing the game s success in Japan Namco initialized plans to bring the game to the international market particularly the United States 26 Before showing the game to distributors Namco America made a number of changes such as altering the names of the ghosts 26 The biggest of these was the game s title executives at Namco were worried that vandals would change the P in Puck Man to an F forming Fuck Man 12 33 Masaya Nakamura chose to rename it to Pac Man as he felt it was closer to the game s original Japanese title of Pakkuman 12 In Europe the game was released under both titles Pac Man and Puck Man 34 When Namco presented Pac Man and Rally X to potential distributors at the 1980 AMOA tradeshow in November 35 executives believed that Rally X would be the best selling game of that year 12 36 According to Play Meter magazine both Pac Man and Rally X received mild attention at the show Namco had initially approached Atari to distribute Pac Man but Atari refused the offer 37 Midway Manufacturing subsequently agreed to distribute both Pac Man and Rally X in North America announcing their acquisition of the manufacturing rights on November 22 38 and releasing them in December 39 PortsPac Man was ported to several home video game systems and personal computers the most infamous of these is the 1982 Atari 2600 conversion designed by Tod Frye and published by Atari 40 This version of the game was widely criticized for its inaccurate portrayal of the arcade version and for its peculiar design choices most notably the flickering effect of the ghosts 41 42 43 However it was a commercial success selling over seven million copies Atari released versions for the Intellivision VIC 20 Commodore 64 Apple II IBM PC TI 99 4A ZX Spectrum and the Atari 8 bit family of computers A port for the Atari 5200 was released in 1983 a version that is considered as a significant improvement over the Atari 2600 version 44 Namco released a version for the Nintendo Famicom in 1984 as one of the console s first third party titles 45 as well as a port for the MSX computer 46 The Famicom version was later released in North America for the Nintendo Entertainment System by Tengen a subsidiary of Atari Games Tengen produced an unlicensed version of the game in a black cartridge shell released during a time when Tengen and Nintendo were in disagreements over the latter s stance on quality control for its consoles this version was re released by Namco as an official title in 1993 featuring a new cartridge label and box The Famicom version was released for the Famicom Disk System in 1990 as a budget title for the Disk Writer kiosks in retail stores 45 The same year Namco released a port of Pac Man for the Game Boy which allowed for two player co operative play via the Game Link Cable peripheral A version for the Game Gear was released a year later which likewise enabled support for multiplayer In celebration of the game s 20th anniversary in 1999 Namco re released the Game Boy version for the Game Boy Color bundled with Pac Attack and titled Pac Man Special Color Edition 47 The same year Namco and SNK co published a port for the Neo Geo Pocket Color which came with a circular Cross Ring that attached to the d pad to restrict it to four directional movement 48 In 2001 Namco released a port of Pac Man for various Japanese mobile phones being one of the company s first mobile game releases 49 The Famicom version of the game was re released for the Game Boy Advance in 2004 as part of the Famicom Mini series released to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Famicom this version was released in North America and Europe under the Classic NES Series label 50 Namco Networks released Pac Man for BREW mobile devices in 2005 51 The arcade original was released for the Xbox Live Arcade service in 2006 featuring achievements and online leaderboards In 2009 a version for iOS devices was published this release was rebranded as Pac Man Tournaments in 2013 featuring new mazes and leaderboards The NES version was released for the Wii Virtual Console in 2007 A Roku version was released in 2011 52 alongside a port of the Game Boy release for the 3DS Virtual Console Pac Man was one of four titles released under the Arcade Game Series brand which was published for the Xbox One PlayStation 4 and PC in 2016 53 In 2021 according to Nintendo Direct it was announced that Hamster Corporation would release Pac Man along with Xevious for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 as part of its Arcade Archives series marking the first two Namco games to be included as part of the series Pac Man is included in many Namco compilations including Namco Museum Vol 1 1995 54 Namco Museum 64 1999 55 Namco Museum Battle Collection 2005 56 Namco Museum DS 2007 Namco Museum Essentials 2009 57 and Namco Museum Megamix 2010 58 In 1996 it was re released for arcades as part of Namco Classic Collection Vol 2 alongside Dig Dug Rally X and special Arrangement remakes of all three titles 59 60 Microsoft included Pac Man in Microsoft Return of Arcade 1995 as a way to help attract video game companies to its Windows 95 operating system 61 Namco released the game in the third volume of Namco History in Japan in 1998 62 The 2001 Game Boy Advance compilation Pac Man Collection compiles Pac Man Pac Mania Pac Attack and Pac Man Arrangement onto one cartridge 63 Pac Man is a hidden extra in the arcade game Ms Pac Man Galaga Class of 1981 2001 64 65 A similar cabinet was released in 2005 that featured Pac Man as the centerpiece 66 Pac Man 2 The New Adventures 1993 and Pac Man World 2 2002 have Pac Man as an unlockable extra Alongside the Xbox 360 remake Pac Man Championship Edition it was ported to the Nintendo 3DS in 2012 as part of Pac Man amp Galaga Dimensions 67 The 2010 Wii game Pac Man Party and its 2011 3DS remake include Pac Man as a bonus game alongside the arcade versions of Dig Dug and Galaga 68 69 In 2014 Pac Man was included in the compilation title Pac Man Museum for the Xbox 360 PlayStation 3 and PC alongside several other Pac Man games 70 The NES version is one of 30 games included in the NES Classic Edition 71 ReceptionReceptionReview scoresPublicationScoreAllGame nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp Arcade 72 nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp NES 73 Computer and Video Games9 10 Atari 400 800 74 Eurogamer10 10 Virtual Console 75 IGN7 10 Neo Geo Pocket 76 Computer GamesClassic computers 77 Positive IBM PC 78 Mean Machines80 Game Boy 79 Popular Computing Weekly nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp VIC 20 80 AwardsPublicationAwardArcade Awards 1981 Best Commercial Arcade Game 81 Video Software Dealers Association VSDA Best Videogame 82 Dixons 2001 Greatest Video Game 83 Killer List of VideogamesMost Popular Game 84 Upon its North American debut at AMOA 1980 the game initially received a mild response Play Meter magazine previewed the game and called it a cute game which appears to grow on players something which cute games are not prone to do saying that there s more to the game than at first appears but criticized the sound as a drawback saying it is good for awhile then becomes annoying Upon release the game exceeded expectations with wide critical and commercial success 37 Commercial performance When it was first released in Japan Pac Man was initially only a modest success Namco s own Galaxian 1979 had quickly outdone the game in popularity because its predominately male player base was familiar with its shooting gameplay as opposed to Pac Man s cute characters and maze chase theme 26 Pac Man eventually became very successful in Japan 85 where it went on to be Japan s highest grossing arcade game of 1980 according to the annual Game Machine charts 86 dethroning Space Invaders 1978 which had topped the annual charts for two years in a row and leading to a shift in the Japanese market away from space shooters towards action games featuring comical characters 87 Pac Man was Japan s fourth highest grossing arcade game of 1981 88 In North America Midway had limited expectations prior to release initially manufacturing 5 000 units for the US before it caught on upon release there 89 Some arcades purchased entire rows of Pac Man cabinets 12 It became a nationwide success Upon release in 1980 it was earning about 8 1 million per week in the United States 90 Within one year more than 100 000 arcade units had been sold which grossed more than 1 billion in quarters 91 92 It overtook Atari s Asteroids 1979 as the best selling arcade game in the country 93 and surpassed the film Star Wars A New Hope 1977 with more than 1 billion in revenue 94 95 Pac Man was the United States highest grossing arcade game of 1981 96 97 and second highest game of 1982 98 By 1982 it was estimated to have had 30 million active players across the United States 99 The game s success was partly driven by its popularity among female audiences becoming the first commercial videogame to involve large numbers of women as players according to Midway s Stan Jarocki with Pac Man being the favorite coin op game among female gamers through 1982 100 Among the nine arcade games covered by How to Win Video Games 1982 Pac Man was the only one with females accounting for a majority of players 101 nbsp Portable version Handheld electronic game by Japanese company TomyThe number of arcade units sold had tripled to 400 000 by 1982 receiving an estimated total of between seven billion coins 102 and 6 billion 103 104 105 In a 1983 interview Nakamura said that though he did expect Pac Man to be successful I never thought it would be this big 11 Pac Man is the best selling arcade game of all time with total estimated earnings ranging from 10 billion coins 92 106 and 3 5 billion 7 7 billion adjusted for inflation 107 to 6 billion 103 104 105 18 billion adjusted for inflation in arcades Pac Man and Ms Pac Man also topped the US RePlay cocktail arcade cabinet charts for 23 months from February 1982 108 through 1983 109 up until February 1984 110 The Atari 2600 version of the game sold over 8 million copies b making it the console s best selling title 113 In addition Coleco s tabletop mini arcade unit sold over 1 5 million units in 1982 114 115 the Pac Man Nelsonic Game Watch sold more than 500 000 units the same year 116 the Family Computer Famicom version and its 2004 Game Boy Advance re release sold a combined 598 000 copies in Japan 117 118 the Atari 5200 version sold 35 011 cartridges between 1986 and 1988 112 the Atari XE computer version sold 42 359 copies in 1986 and 1990 112 Thunder Mountain s 1986 budget release for home computers received a Diamond certification from the Software Publishers Association in 1989 for selling over 500 000 copies 119 and mobile phone ports have sold over 30 million paid downloads as of 2010 update 120 II Computing also listed the Atarisoft port tenth on the magazine s list of top Apple II games as of late 1985 based on sales and market share data 121 As of 2016 update all versions of Pac Man are estimated to have grossed a total of more than 12 billion in revenue 122 Accolades Pac Man was awarded Best Commercial Arcade Game at the 1982 Arcade Awards 81 Pac Man also won the Video Software Dealers Association s VSDA Award for Best Videogame 82 In 2001 Pac Man was voted the greatest video game of all time by a Dixons poll in the UK 83 The Killer List of Videogames listed Pac Man as the most popular game of all time 84 The list aggregator site Playthatgame currently ranks Pac Man as the 53rd top game of all time amp game of the year 123 Impact nbsp Pac Man characters as street decorations in Barcelona SpainPac Man is considered by many to be one of the most influential video games of all time 124 125 126 The game established the maze chase game genre 124 was the first video game to make use of power ups 127 and the individual ghosts have deterministic artificial intelligence AI that reacts to player actions 128 Pac Man is considered one of the first video games to have demonstrated the potential of characters in the medium 124 129 its title character was the first original gaming mascot it increased the appeal of video games with female audiences and it was gaming s first broad licensing success 124 It is often cited as the first game with cutscenes in the form of brief comical interludes about Pac Man and Blinky chasing each other 130 2 though actually Space Invaders Part II employed a similar style of between level intermissions in 1979 131 Pac Man was a turning point for the arcade video game industry which had previously been dominated by space shoot em ups since Space Invaders 1978 Pac Man popularized a genre of character led action games leading to a wave of character action games involving player characters in 1981 such as Nintendo s prototypical platform game Donkey Kong Konami s Frogger and Universal Entertainment s Lady Bug 132 Pac Man was one of the first popular non shooting action games defining key elements of the genre such as parallel visual processing which requires simultaneously keeping track of multiple entities including the player s location the enemies and the energizers 8 Maze games became popular on home computers after the release of Pac Man Some of them appeared before official ports and garnered more attention from consumers and sometimes lawyers as a result These include Taxman 1981 and Snack Attack 1982 for the Apple II Jawbreaker 1981 for the Atari 8 bit family Scarfman 1981 for the TRS 80 and K C Munchkin 1981 for the Odyssey Namco produced several other maze games including Rally X 1980 Dig Dug 1982 Exvania 1992 and Tinkle Pit 1994 citation needed Atari sued Philips for creating K C Munchkin in the case Atari Inc v North American Philips Consumer Electronics Corp leading to Munchkin being pulled from store shelves under court order 133 No major competitors emerged to challenge Pac Man in the maze subgenre 134 Pac Man inspired 3D variants of the concept such as Monster Maze 1982 135 Spectre 1982 and early first person shooters such as MIDI Maze 1987 which had similar character designs 130 5 136 John Romero credited Pac Man as the game that had the biggest influence on his career 137 Wolfenstein 3D includes a Pac Man level from a first person perspective 138 139 Many post Pac Man titles include power ups that briefly turn the tables on the enemy clarification needed The game s artificial intelligence inspired programmers who later worked for companies like Bethesda 128 ReviewsReviewing home console versions in 1982 Games magazine called the Atari 5200 implementation a splendidly reproduced version of the arcade game noting a difference in maze layouts for the television screen It considered the Atari 2600 version to have much weaker graphics but to still be one of the best games for that console In both cases the reviewer felt that the joystick controls were harder to use than those of the arcade machine and that attempts to make quick turns are often frustrated 140 Legacy nbsp Pac Man interactive exposition at The Art of Video GamesGuinness World Records has awarded the Pac Man series eight records in Guinness World Records Gamer s Edition 2008 including 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 worldwide 293 822 The record was set and recognized in 2005 and mentioned in the Guinness World Records Gamer s Edition 2008 awarded in 2010 141 In 2009 Guinness World Records listed Pac Man as the most recognizable video game character in the United States recognized by 94 of the population above Mario who was recognized by 93 of the population 142 In 2015 The Strong National Museum of Play inducted Pac Man to its World Video Game Hall of Fame 143 The Pac Man character and game series became an icon of video game culture during the 1980s The game has inspired various real life recreations involving real people or robots One event called Pac Manhattan set a Guinness World Record for Largest Pac Man Game in 2004 144 145 146 The business term Pac Man defense in mergers and acquisitions refers to a hostile takeover target that attempts to reverse the situation and instead acquire its attempted acquirer a reference to Pac Man s energizers 147 The Pac Man renormalization is named for a cosmetic resemblance to the character in the mathematical study of the Mandelbrot set 148 149 The game s popularity has led to Pac Man being adopted as a nickname such as by boxer Manny Pacquiao 150 and the American football player Adam Jones In 2012 the Pac Man was inducted into the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art MoMA in New York City This addition was part of an initial selection Wave 1 of fourteen video games citation needed On August 21 2016 in the 2016 Summer Olympics closing ceremony during a video which showcases Tokyo as the host of the 2020 Summer Olympics a small segment shows Pac Man and the ghosts racing and eating dots on a running track 151 Merchandise A wide variety of Pac Man merchandise have been marketed with the character s image By 1982 Midway had about 95 105 licensees selling Pac Man merchandise including major companies such as AT amp T selling a Pac Man telephone There were more than 500 Pac Man related products 89 7 Eleven sold Pac Man themed merchandise at its stores since the game s initial popularity in the 1980s This has included collectible Slurpee and Big Gulp cups In 2023 7 Eleven included Pac Man in its Spring 2023 marketing material including at Speedway and Stripes banner locations and sold more merchandise around the game as well as rebranding some of its products after the ghosts This included its house blend coffee Clyde s Coffee Blend two Slurpee flavors Blinky s Cherry amp Inky s Blueberry Raz and a special limited time only cappuccino flavor Pinky s Strawberry White Chocolate Cappuccino the latter of which came out pink to match the ghost 152 Pac Man themed merchandise sales had exceeded 1 billion in the US by 1982 102 153 Pac Man related merchandise products included bumper stickers jewellery accessories such as a 20 000 Ms Pac Man choker with 14 karat gold bicycles breakfast cereals popsicles 89 t shirts toys and pasta Television The Pac Man animated television series produced by Hanna Barbera aired on ABC from 1982 to 1983 154 It was the highest rated Saturday morning cartoon show in the US during late 1982 89 A computer generated animated series titled Pac Man and the Ghostly Adventures aired on Disney XD in June 2013 155 156 and on Discovery Family in November 2019 Literature The original Pac Man game plays a key role in the plot of Ernest Cline s video game themed science fiction novel Ready Player One citation needed Music The Buckner amp Garcia song Pac Man Fever 1981 went to No 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts 157 and received a Gold certification for more than 1 million records sold by 1982 158 and a total of 2 5 million copies sold as of 2008 159 More than one million copies of the group s Pac Man Fever album 1982 were sold 160 In 1982 Weird Al Yankovic recorded a parody of Taxman by the Beatles as Pac Man It was eventually released in 2017 as part of Squeeze Box The Complete Works of Weird Al Yankovic 161 162 In 1992 Aphex Twin with the name Power Pill released Pac Man a techno album which consists mostly of samples from the game The character appears in the music video for Bloodhound Gang s Mope released in 2000 Here the character is portrayed as a cocaine addict On July 20 2020 Gorillaz and Schoolboy Q released a track entitled Pac Man as a part of Gorillaz Song Machine series to commemorate the game s 40th anniversary with the music video depicting the band s frontman 2 D playing a Gorillaz themed Pac Man arcade game 163 Film The Pac Man character appears in the film Pixels 2015 with Denis Akiyama playing series creator Toru Iwatani Iwatani makes a cameo at the beginning of the film as an arcade technician 164 165 Pac Man is referenced and makes an appearance in the 2017 film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 and the video game Marvel s Guardians of the Galaxy 166 The game the character and the ghosts all appear in the film Wreck It Ralph 167 168 as well as the sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet In Sword Art Online The Movie Ordinal Scale Kirito and his friends beat a virtual reality game called PAC Man 2026 which is loosely based on Pac Man 256 169 In the Japanese tokusatsu film Kamen Rider Heisei Generations Dr Pac Man vs Ex Aid amp Ghost with Legend Riders a Pac Man like character is the main villain 170 In the 2010 film Scott Pilgrim vs the World the titular character makes reference to the original Japanese name The 2018 film Relaxer uses Pac Man as a strong plot element in the story of a 1999 couch bound man who attempts to beat the game and encounters the famous Level 256 glitch before the year 2000 problem occurs 171 Various attempts for a feature film based on Pac Man have been planned since the peak of the original game s popularity Following the release of Ms Pac Man a feature film was being developed but never reached an agreement 172 In 2008 a live action film based on the series was in development at Crystal Sky 173 174 In 2022 plans for a live action Pac Man film were revived at Wayfarer Studios based on an idea by Chuck Williams 175 176 177 Other gaming media In 1982 Milton Bradley Company released a board game based on Pac Man 178 Players move up to four Pac Man characters traditional yellow plus red green and blue plus two ghosts as per the throws of a pair of dice The two ghost pieces were randomly packed with one of four colors 179 Sticker manufacturer Fleer included rub off game cards with its Pac Man stickers The card packages contain a Pac Man style maze with all points along the path hidden with opaque coverings From the starting position the player moves around the maze while scratching off the coverings to score points 180 A Pac Man themed downloadable content package for Minecraft was released in 2020 in commemoration of the game s 40th anniversary This pack introduced a ghost called Creepy based on the Creeper 181 Perfect scores and other records A perfect score on the original Pac Man arcade game is 3 333 360 points achieved when the player obtains the maximum score on the first 255 levels by eating every dot energizer fruit and blue ghost without losing a life then uses all six lives to obtain the maximum possible number of points on level 256 182 183 The first person to achieve a publicly witnessed and verified perfect score without manipulating the game s hardware to freeze play was Billy Mitchell who performed the feat on July 3 1999 183 184 Some record keeping organizations removed Mitchell s score after a 2018 investigation by Twin Galaxies concluded that two unrelated Donkey Kong score performances submitted by Mitchell had not used an unmodified original circuit board 185 As of July 2020 seven other gamers had achieved perfect Pac Man scores on original arcade hardware 186 The world record for the fastest completion of a perfect score according to Twin Galaxies is held by David Race with a time of 3 hours 28 minutes 49 seconds 187 188 In December 1982 eight year old boy Jeffrey R Yee received a letter from United States president Ronald Reagan congratulating him on a world record score of 6 131 940 points possible only if he had passed level 256 183 In September 1983 Walter Day chief scorekeeper at Twin Galaxies at the time took the U S National Video Game Team on a tour of the East Coast to visit gamers who claimed the ability to pass that level None demonstrated such an ability In 1999 Billy Mitchell offered 100 000 to anyone who could pass level 256 before January 1 2000 The offer expired with the prize unclaimed 183 After announcing in 2018 that it would no longer recognize the first perfect score on Pac Man Guinness World Records reversed that decision and reinstated Billy Mitchell s 1999 performance on June 18 2020 189 Remakes and sequelsRelease timeline1980Pac Man19811982Ms Pac ManPac Man PlusSuper Pac Man1983Pac amp PalProfessor Pac ManJr Pac Man1984Pac Land198519861987Pac Mania198819891990199119921993Pac Attack1994Pac Man 2 The New Adventures1995Pac In Time1996Pac Man ArrangementPac Man VR199719981999Pac Man World2000Ms Pac Man Maze MadnessPac Man Adventures in Time2001Ms Pac Man Quest for the Golden Maze2002Pac Man All StarsPac Man FeverPac Man World 22003Pac Man Vs 20042005Pac PixPac Man Pinball AdvancePac n RollPac Man World 32006Pac Man World Rally2007Pac Man Championship Edition200820092010Pac Man Championship Edition DXPac Man Party2011Pac Man Battle Royale20122013Pac Man Chomp ManiaPac Man and the Ghostly Adventures2014Pac Man and the Ghostly Adventures 22015World s Largest Pac Man2016Pac Man 256Pac Man Championship Edition 22017201820192020Pac Man Mega Tunnel Battle2021Pac Man 992022Pac Man World Re PacFurther information List of Pac Man video games See also List of Pac Man clones Pac Man was followed by a series of sequels remakes and re imaginings and is one of the longest running video game franchises in history The first of these was Ms Pac Man developed by the American based General Computer Corporation and published by Midway in 1982 The character s gender was changed to female in response to Pac Man s popularity with women with new mazes moving bonus items and faster gameplay being implemented to increase its appeal Ms Pac Man is one of the best selling arcade games in North America where Pac Man and Ms Pac Man had become the most successful machines in the history of the amusement arcade industry 190 Legal concerns raised over who owned the game caused Ms Pac Man to become owned by Namco who assisted in production of the game Ms Pac Man inspired its own line of remakes including Ms Pac Man Maze Madness 2000 and Ms Pac Man Quest for the Golden Maze and is included in many Namco and Pac Man collections for consoles Namco s own follow up to the original was Super Pac Man released in 1982 This was followed by the Japan exclusive Pac amp Pal in 1983 191 Midway produced many other Pac Man sequels during the early 1980s including Pac Man Plus 1982 Jr Pac Man 1983 Baby Pac Man 1983 and Professor Pac Man 1984 Other games include the isometric Pac Mania 1987 the side scrollers Pac Land 1984 Hello Pac Man 1994 and Pac In Time 1995 192 the 3D platformer Pac Man World 1999 and the puzzle games Pac Attack 1991 and Pac Pix 2005 Iwatani designed Pac Land and Pac Mania both of which remain his favorite games in the series Pac Man Championship Edition published for the Xbox 360 in 2007 was Iwatani s final game before leaving the company Its neon visuals and fast paced gameplay was met with acclaim 193 leading to the creation of Pac Man Championship Edition DX 2010 and Pac Man Championship Edition 2 2016 194 Coleco s tabletop Mini Arcade versions of the game yielded 1 5 million units sold in 1982 195 196 Nelsonic Industries produced a Pac Man LCD wristwatch game with a simplified maze also in 1982 197 Namco Networks sold a downloadable Windows PC version of Pac Man in 2009 which also includes an enhanced mode which replaces all of the original sprites with the sprites from Pac Man Championship Edition Namco Networks made a downloadable bundle which includes its PC version of Pac Man and its port of Dig Dug called Namco All Stars Pac Man and Dig Dug In 2010 Namco Bandai announced the release of the game on Windows Phone 7 as an Xbox Live game 198 For the weekend of May 21 23 2010 Google changed the logo on its homepage to a playable version of the game 199 in recognition of the 30th anniversary of the game s release The Google Doodle version of Pac Man was estimated to have been played by more than 1 billion people worldwide in 2010 200 so Google later gave the game its own page 201 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 202 For April Fools Day in 2017 Google created a playable of the game on Google Maps where users were able to play the game using the map onscreen 203 TechnologyThe original arcade system board had one Z80A processor running at 3 072 Mhz 16 kbyte of ROM and 3 kbyte of static RAM Of those 1 kbyte each was for video RAM color RAM and generic program RAM There were two custom chips on the board the 285 sync bus controller and the 284 video RAM addresser but daughterboards made only from standard parts were also widely used instead Video output was analog component video with composite sync A further 8 kbyte of character ROM was used for characters background tiles and sprites and an additional 1 kbit of static RAM was used to hold 4bpp sprite data for one scanline and was written to during the horizontal blanking period preceding each line Sprite size was always 16x16 pixels one of the four colors per pixel was for transparency of the background The monitor was installed 90 degree rotated clockwise the first visible scanline started in the top right corner and ends in the bottom right corner The horizontal blanking period which starts after the level indicator at the bottom is drawn had a duration of 96 pixel clock ticks enough time to fetch 4 bytes of sprite data per 16 clock ticks for 6 sprites Although attribute memory exists for them sprites 0 and 7 are unusable Their pixel fetch timing windows are occupied by the bottom level indicator which just precedes the hblank for sprite 0 and two rows of characters at the top of the screen which just follow the hblank for sprite 7 204 Notes Japanese パックマン Hepburn Pakkuman 7 271 844 in 1982 684 569 in 1983 111 37 063 in 1986 61 685 in 1987 3 885 in 1988 34 374 in 1989 2 166 in 1990 112 References Pac Man Official Website History Pac Man Official Website Retrieved April 26 2022 Video Game Flyers Pac Man Midway Manufacturing Co France The Arcade Flyer Archive Retrieved April 8 2021 Video Game Flyers Puck Man Namco Germany The Arcade Flyer Archive Retrieved April 8 2021 Kiya Andrew October 17 2021 Former Namco Pixel Artist Hiroshi Mr Dotman Ono Has Died Siliconera Retrieved October 17 2021 Lammers 1986 p 265 Prisco Jacopo May 21 2020 Pac Man at 40 The eating icon that changed gaming history cnn com CNN Retrieved January 23 2023 Pacman The Phenomenon Part 1 Classic Gaming October 16 2007 Archived from the original on October 16 2007 Retrieved February 19 2023 a b Maynard Ashley E Subrahmanyam Kaveri Greenfield Patricia M May 13 2005 Technology and the Development of Intelligence From the Loom to the Computer In Sternberg Robert J Preiss David D eds Intelligence and Technology The Impact of Tools on the Nature and Development of Human Abilities Routledge pp 29 54 32 ISBN 978 1 136 77805 6 Chris Morris March 3 2011 Five Things You Never Knew About Pac Man www cnbc com Archived from the original on October 15 2012 Retrieved November 8 2022 Dwyer James Dwyer Brendan 2014 Cult Fiction Paused Books p 14 ISBN 9780992988401 a b Sobel Jonathan January 30 2017 Masaya Nakamura Whose Company Created Pac Man Dies at 91 New York Times Retrieved January 30 2017 a b c d e f g Kent Steven L 2002 The Ultimate History of Video Games The Story Behind the Craze that Touched our Lives and Changed the World New York Random House International ISBN 978 0 7615 3643 7 OCLC 59416169 Archived from the original on June 24 2016 Microcomputer BASIC Editorial Department December 1986 All About Namco in Japanese Dempa Shimbun ISBN 978 4885541070 Burnham Van 2001 Supercade Cambridge MIT Press p 181 ISBN 0 262 02492 6 a b c Lammers Susan M 1986 Programmers at Work Interviews New York Microsoft Press p 266 ISBN 0 914845 71 3 Kurokawa Fumio March 17 2018 ビデオゲームの語り部たち 第4部 石村繁一氏が語るナムコの歴史と創業者 中村雅哉氏の魅力 4Gamer in Japanese Aetas Archived from the original on August 1 2019 Retrieved August 2 2019 Masumi Akagi 2005 It Started With Pong Amusement News Agency pp 183 184 Bomb Bee Videogame by Namco Killer List of Videogames The International Arcade Museum Archived from the original on August 2 2017 Retrieved February 1 2020 Cutie Q Videogame by Namco Killer List of Videogames The International Arcade Museum Archived from the original on October 16 2017 Retrieved February 1 2020 a b c d Purchese Robert May 20 2010 Iwatani Pac Man was made for women Eurogamer Archived from the original on March 4 2019 Retrieved August 19 2019 a b Iwatani Toru 2005 Introduction to Pac Man s Game Science Enterbrain p 33 a b c d Peckham Matt May 22 2015 Pac Man Creator Toru Iwatani on the Character s Past and Future Time Time Warner Archived from the original on June 7 2019 Retrieved February 1 2020 a b Kohler Chris 2005 Power Up How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life BradyGames pp 51 52 ISBN 0 7440 0424 1 Retrieved July 16 2019 a b c d e Kohler Chris May 21 2010 Q amp A Pac Man Creator Reflects on 30 Years of Dot Eating Wired Archived from the original on July 12 2019 Retrieved February 1 2020 Top 25 Smartest Moves in Gaming Gamespy com Archived from the original on February 18 2009 Retrieved July 26 2010 a b c d e f g h i j k l Pittman Jamey February 23 2009 The Pac Man Dossier Gamasutra Archived from the original on January 9 2020 Retrieved February 1 2020 Szczepaniak John August 11 2014 The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers First ed SMG Szczepaniak p 201 ISBN 978 0992926007 Retrieved August 12 2019 Horowitz Ken 2018 The Sega Arcade Revolution A History in 62 Games McFarland amp Company pp 24 26 ISBN 978 1 4766 3196 7 Green Chris June 17 2002 Pac Man Salon com Archived from the original on December 25 2005 Retrieved February 12 2006 Iwatani Toru 2003 The Development of Pac Man Game Staff List Association Japan Archived from the original on February 13 2019 a b England Lucy June 11 2015 When Pac Man was invented there was a huge internal fight with the CEO over what colour the ghosts should be Business Insider Archived from the original on August 7 2017 Retrieved August 19 2019 Mateas Michael 2003 Expressive AI Games and Artificial Intelligence PDF Proceedings of Level up Digital Games Research Conference Utrecht Netherlands Archived from the original PDF on May 14 2012 Retrieved September 21 2007 Brian Ashcraft October 27 2011 This Guy Has a Rare Arcade Cabinet Is It Real Kotaku Archived from the original on May 20 2013 Arcade Action Beat the Machine Computer and Video Games No 1 United Kingdom EMAP November 1981 p 28 Coin Machines PDF Cashbox November 15 1980 Retrieved March 20 2020 Atari Spectacularly Fails to Do the Math Next Generation No 26 Imagine Media February 1997 p 47 a b Pac Man gobbles his way into the industry Play Meter Vol 20 no 13 December 1994 pp 22 24 26 Midway Bows New Pac Man Video PDF Cashbox November 22 1980 p 42 Retrieved March 20 2020 Game Board Schematic PDF Midway Pac Man Parts and Operating Manual Chicago Illinois Midway Games December 1980 Archived PDF from the original on September 23 2015 Retrieved July 20 2009 Lapetino Tim 2018 The Story of PAC MAN on Atari 2600 Retro Gamer Magazine 179 18 23 Creating a World of Clones The Philadelphia Inquirer October 9 1983 p 16 Thompson Adam Fall 1983 The King of Video Games is a Woman Creative Computing Video and Arcade Games 1 2 65 Archived from the original on July 6 2009 Ratcliff Matthew August 1988 Classic Cartridges II Antic 7 4 24 Archived from the original on May 24 2010 Montfort Nick Bogost Ian 2009 Pac Man Racing the Beam The Atari Video Computer System MIT Press pp 66 79 ISBN 978 0 262 01257 7 a b Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography 2003 Family Computer 1983 1994 Japan Otashuppan ISBN 4872338030 Dempa Micomsoft Super Soft Catalogue Dempa May 1984 p 4 Retrieved July 14 2019 Harris Craig September 3 1999 Pac Man Special Color Edition IGN Archived from the original on October 19 2018 Retrieved July 31 2019 Hannley Steve July 6 2013 Pocket Power Pac Man Hardcore Gamer Archived from the original on December 7 2017 Retrieved February 2 2020 Softbank January 18 2001 パックマン ギャラクシアン が携帯電話に登場 Soft Bank News Archived from the original on May 27 2019 Retrieved September 22 2019 Harris Craig June 4 2004 Classic NES Series Pac Man IGN Archived from the original on April 30 2019 Retrieved February 2 2020 Namco Networks Pac Man Franchise Surpasses 30 Million Paid Transactions in the United States on Brew AllBusiness com 2010 Retrieved February 22 2012 Pierce David October 31 2011 Roku 2 gets new firmware games Pac Man Galaga and more The Verge Archived from the original on November 13 2016 Retrieved July 13 2019 Romano Sal December 21 2015 Bandai Namco bringing classic Arcade Game Series to PS4 Xbox One and PC Gematsu Archived from the original on October 20 2017 Retrieved July 13 2019 Review Crew Namco Arcade Classics Electronic Gaming Monthly No 82 Sendai Publishing May 1996 p 34 Fielder Joe April 28 2000 Namco Museum 64 Review GameSpot Archived from the original on May 12 2019 Retrieved July 13 2019 Parish Jeremy August 30 2005 Namco Museum Battle Collection 1UP com IGN Archived from the original on June 3 2016 Retrieved August 12 2020 Roper Chris July 21 2009 Namco Museum Essentials Review IGN Archived from the original on April 29 2019 Retrieved July 13 2019 Buchanan Levi November 22 2010 Namco Museum Megamix Review IGN Archived from the original on February 16 2019 Retrieved July 14 2019 Retroview Namco Classic Collection 2 No 33 Edge May 1996 p 79 Retrieved March 3 2020 Bobinator August 18 2019 Pac Man Arrangement Hardcore Gaming 101 Archived from the original on August 19 2019 Retrieved October 11 2019 Windows 95 Gets Into The Game No 20 IDG Communications Electronic Entertainment August 1995 p 48 Retrieved August 12 2020 キャラクターモノ大特集の NAMCO HISTORY VOL 3 6月発売 PC Watch in Japanese Impress Group March 27 1998 Archived from the original on March 26 2016 Retrieved August 12 2020 Latshaw Tim June 17 2014 Pac Man Collection Nintendo Life Archived from the original on April 30 2019 Retrieved August 1 2019 Harris John March 28 2017 Passing Through Ghosts in Pac Man Gamasutra Archived from the original on April 12 2019 Retrieved July 13 2019 Ms Pac Man Galaga Class of 1981 Videogame by Namco Killer List of Videogames Archived from the original on June 13 2019 Retrieved July 13 2019 Pac Man 25th Anniversary Videogame by Namco Killer List of Videogames Archived from the original on March 25 2019 Retrieved July 13 2019 Wahlgren Jon July 27 2011 Pac Man amp Galaga Dimensions Review 3DS Nintendo Life Archived from the original on June 16 2019 Retrieved July 13 2019 IGN Staff October 25 2010 Pac Man Party has Gone Gold for Wii IGN Archived from the original on July 13 2019 Retrieved July 13 2019 Miller Zachary December 2 2011 Pac Man Party 3D Review Nintendo World Report Archived from the original on February 14 2019 Retrieved July 14 2019 Cavalli Earnest January 30 2014 Pac Man Museum arrives February 25 free Ms Pac Man DLC in tow Engadget Archived from the original on July 31 2019 Retrieved July 31 2019 Webster Andrew June 14 2016 Nintendo is releasing a miniature NES with 30 built in games The Verge Archived from the original on June 7 2019 Retrieved July 13 2019 Alan Weiss Brett 1998 Pac Man Namco Arcade Allgame Allmedia Archived from the original on November 14 2014 Retrieved February 2 2020 Alan Weiss Brett 1998 Pac Man Tengen Unlicensed Allgame Allmedia Archived from the original on November 14 2014 Retrieved February 1 2020 Atari Pac Man No 17 Computer amp Video Games March 1983 p 7 Retrieved February 1 2020 Pickering Chris October 31 2007 Pac Man Eurogamer Archived from the original on October 8 2019 Retrieved February 1 2020 Harris Craig September 3 1999 Pac Man Neo Geo Pocket Color IGN Archived from the original on February 1 2020 Retrieved February 1 2020 1985 Software Buyer s Guide Computer Games Vol 3 no 5 United States Carnegie Publications February 1985 pp 11 8 51 8 Conversion Capsules Hit Games in New Formats Computer Games Vol 3 no 4 United States Carnegie Publications December 1984 pp 62 3 Matt Julian January 1991 Pac Man review Nintendo Gameboy No 4 Mean Machines Archived from the original on July 24 2019 Retrieved February 1 2020 Miller David July 5 1984 Power Pills Popular Computing Weekly p 29 Retrieved February 1 2020 a b 1981 Arcade Awards Electronic Games March 1982 pages 46 49 a b Pac Man Scores Electronic Games Vol 1 no 11 January 1983 p 12 a b Pac Man greatest video game BBC News November 13 2001 Archived from the original on December 18 2006 Retrieved March 13 2012 a b The Top Coin Operated Videogames of All Time Killer List of Videogames The International Arcade Museum Retrieved October 10 2021 Lammers Susan M 1986 Programmers at Work Interviews Microsoft Press pp 262 3 ISBN 978 0 914845 71 3 ベストスリー 本紙調査 調査対象1980年 アーケードゲーム機 Best Three Book Survey Survey Target 1980 Arcade Game Machines PDF Game Machine in Japanese No 159 Amusement Press Inc February 15 1981 p 2 Archived PDF from the original on February 1 2020 Pole Position No 1 Video Game Game Machine s The Year s Best Three AM Machines Survey Results PDF Game Machine No 207 Amusement Press Inc March 1 1983 p 30 Archived PDF from the original on January 31 2020 Donkey Kong No 1 Of 81 Game Machine s Survey Of The Year s Best Three AM Machines PDF Game Machine No 182 Amusement Press Inc February 15 1982 p 30 Archived PDF from the original on January 31 2020 a b c d Ressner Jeffrey November 20 1982 Stan Jarocki Expanded Player Base Is The Key To The Future Cash Box Cash Box Pub Co pp 52 56 56 Arcade games a bigger draw than the movies The Montreal Gazette July 27 1981 Retrieved March 6 2022 Bill Loguidice amp Matt Barton 2009 Vintage games an insider look at the history of Grand Theft Auto Super Mario and the most influential games of all time Focal Press p 181 ISBN 978 0 240 81146 8 Archived from the original on May 14 2013 Retrieved April 23 2011 The machines were well worth the investment in total they raked in over a billion dollars worth of quarters in the first year alone a b Mark J P Wolf 2008 The video game explosion a history from PONG to PlayStation and beyond ABC CLIO p 73 ISBN 978 0 313 33868 7 Archived from the original on April 18 2016 Retrieved April 10 2011 It would go on to become arguably the most famous video game of all time with the arcade game alone taking in more than a billion dollars One study estimated that it had been played more than 10 billion times during the twentieth century Mark J P Wolf 2001 The medium of the video game University of Texas Press p 44 ISBN 0 292 79150 X Archived from the original on April 18 2016 Retrieved April 9 2011 Haddon L 1988 Electronic and Computer Games The History of an Interactive Medium Screen 29 2 52 73 53 doi 10 1093 screen 29 2 52 Revenue from the game Pac Man alone was estimated to exceed that from the cinema box office success Star Wars Kevin Fragmaster Bowen 2001 Game of the Week Pac Man GameSpy Archived from the original on October 1 2011 Retrieved April 9 2011 1981 Jukebox Games Route Survey Cash Box Cash Box Pub Co October 31 1981 p C 18 Authoritative Industry Sources Acclaim Pac Man Top Video Game of the Year Cash Box Cash Box Pub Co December 26 1981 p 91 1982 Jukebox Games Route Survey Cash Box Cash Box Pub Co November 20 1982 p 53 Men s wear Volume 185 Men s Wear Fairchild Publications 185 1982 Retrieved February 28 2012 Worley Joyce May 1982 Move Over Guys Here Come the Gals Women Join the Arcade Revolution Electronic Games Vol 1 no 3 pp 30 2 How to Win Video Games Pocket Books 1982 pp 82 90 ISBN 978 0 671 45841 6 a b John Kao 1989 The Industry Englewood Cliffs p 45 Retrieved April 1 2023 a b Uncle John s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader Portable Press September 1999 p 373 ISBN 978 1 879682 74 0 In 1982 alone Americans pumped 6 billion in quarters into Pac Man s mouth more than they spent in Las Vegas casinos and movie theatres combined a b Uncle John s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader Simon and Schuster November 2012 p 348 ISBN 978 1 60710 670 8 In 1982 alone Americans pumped 6 billion in quarters into Pac Man s mouth more than they spent in Las Vegas casinos and movie theatres combined a b Stern Jane Stern Michael 1992 Jane amp Michael Stern s Encyclopedia of Pop Culture An A to Z Guide of Who s who and What s What from Aerobics and Bubble Gum to Valley of the Dolls and Moon Unit Zappa Harper Perennial p 373 ISBN 978 0 06 055343 2 I think we have the Mickey Mouse of the 1980s said one Pac Man executive when it was noted that Americans were spending about 6 billion per year on the game and its spinoffs Chris Morris May 10 2005 Pac Man turns 25 A pizza dinner yields a cultural phenomenon and millions of dollars in quarters He also loved to eat a lot of pellets CNN Archived from the original on May 15 2011 Retrieved April 23 2011 In the late 1990s Twin Galaxies which tracks video game world record scores visited used game auctions and counted how many times the average Pac Man machine had been played Based on those findings and the total number of machines that were manufactured the organization said it believed the game had been played more than 10 billion times in the 20th century Top 10 Highest Grossing Arcade Games of All Time USgamer January 1 2016 Archived from the original on January 11 2016 Retrieved January 3 2016 RePlay The Players Choice RePlay February December 1982 RePlay The Players Choice RePlay January December 1983 RePlay The Players Choice RePlay January February 1984 Cartridge Sales Since 1980 Atari Corp Via The Agony amp The Ecstasy Once Upon Atari Episode 4 Scott West Productions August 10 2003 23 minutes in a b c Vendel Curt May 28 2009 Site News Atari Museum Archived from the original on December 6 2010 Retrieved November 27 2021 Buchanan Levi August 26 2008 Top 10 Best Selling Atari 2600 Games IGN Archived from the original on October 28 2008 Retrieved July 15 2009 Coleco Mini Arcades Go Gold PDF Arcade Express 1 1 4 August 15 1982 Archived PDF from the original on September 14 2012 Retrieved February 3 2012 More Mini Arcades Coming From Coleco PDF Arcade Express Vol 1 no 13 January 30 1983 p 2 Archived PDF from the original on November 14 2012 Shea Tom December 20 1982 Shrinking Pac Man leads game wristwatch market InfoWorld Vol 4 no 50 InfoWorld Media Group Inc pp 44 5 ISSN 0199 6649 Game Search based on Famitsu data Game Data Library March 1 2020 Archived from the original on April 24 2019 Retrieved March 16 2020 Namco Japan sales 2000 2006 Garaph based on Famitsu data July 28 2005 Retrieved March 17 2012 Worley Joyce December 1989 Mega Hits The Best of the Best Video Games amp Computer Entertainment 11 130 132 137 138 Namco Networks PAC MAN Franchise Surpasses 30 Million Paid Transactions in the United States on Brew Business Wire Berkshire Hathaway June 30 2010 Archived from the original on June 29 2017 Retrieved August 8 2020 Ciraolo Michael October November 1985 Top Software A List of Favorites II Computing 51 Archived from the original on March 13 2016 Retrieved January 28 2015 Leack Jonathan January 26 2017 World of Warcraft Leads Industry With Nearly 10 Billion In Revenue GameRevolution Retrieved February 27 2021 Jeroen te Strake Peter Searle Thebiglist Playthatgame co uk Retrieved January 5 2020 a b c d The Essential 50 Part 10 Pac Man from 1UP com 1Up com Archived from the original on October 3 2015 Retrieved November 4 2015 Wilson Jeffrey L June 11 2010 The 10 Most Influential Video Games of All Time PC Magazine 1 Pac Man 1980 Archived from the original on April 11 2012 Retrieved April 19 2012 The ten most influential video games ever The Times September 20 2007 Playing With Power Great Ideas That Have Changed Gaming have from 1UP com 1Up com Archived from the original on November 12 2016 Retrieved November 4 2015 a b Consalvo Mia 2016 Atari to Zelda Japan s Videogames in Global Contexts MIT Press pp 193 4 ISBN 978 0262034395 DeMaria Rusel Wilson Johnny L 2003 High Score The Illustrated History of Electronic Games 2 ed New York McGraw Hill Osborne p 62 ISBN 0 07 223172 6 a b Gaming s most important evolutions GamesRadar October 8 2010 Archived from the original on November 7 2013 Retrieved November 4 2015 Space Invaders Part II Arcade History Donkey Kong Retro Gamer Future Publishing Limited September 13 2008 Retrieved May 4 2021 CourtVille Why Unclear Laws Put EA v Zynga Up for Grabs Wired ISSN 1059 1028 Retrieved May 30 2021 Vaidhyanathan Siva August 1 2001 Copyrights and Copywrongs The Rise of Intellectual Property and How it Threatens Creativity NYU Press ISBN 978 0 8147 8834 9 Monster Maze 25 years of Pac Man MeriStation July 4 2005 Archived from the original on September 29 2011 Retrieved May 6 2011 Translation Bailey Kat March 9 2012 These games inspired Cliff Bleszinski John Romero Will Wright and Sid Meier Joystiq Archived from the original on February 2 2017 Retrieved April 2 2012 Book of Games The Ultimate Reference on PC amp Video Games Book of Games 2006 p 24 ISBN 82 997378 0 X Archived from the original on November 22 2016 Retrieved May 6 2011 Game developer 2 amp 5 Miller Freeman 1995 62 Archived from the original on November 22 2016 Retrieved June 6 2011 If you made it to the secret Pac Man level in Castle Wolfenstein you know what I mean Pac Man never would have made it as a three dimensional game Though it may be less of a visual feast two dimensions have a well established place as an electronic gaming format a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a Cite journal requires journal help GAMES Magazine 34 December 1982 Martijn Muller June 3 2010 Pac Man wereldrecord beklonken en het hele verhaal in Dutch NG Gamer Archived from the original on February 27 2012 Retrieved November 3 2015 Turi Tim December 21 2009 Gain Knowledge From Guinness 2010 Gamer s Edition Game Informer Retrieved December 13 2021 Pac Man The Strong National Museum of Play The Strong Retrieved May 6 2022 About Pac Manhattan Pac Manhattan 2004 Archived from the original on May 8 2009 Retrieved July 3 2009 Roomba Pac Man Web Site Archived from the original on November 9 2009 Retrieved October 10 2009 Lau Dominic Pacman in Vancouver SFU Computing Science Archived from the original on May 30 2009 Retrieved July 3 2009 Origins of the Pac Man Defense The New York Times January 23 1988 Archived from the original on February 14 2012 Retrieved November 20 2010 Selinger Nikita Lyubich Mikhail Dudko Dzmitry March 3 2017 Pacman renormalization and self similarity of the Mandelbrot set near Siegel parameters arXiv 1703 01206 Bibcode 2017arXiv170301206D a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a Cite journal requires journal help Lyubich Mikhail Dudko Dzmitry August 30 2018 Local connectivity of the Mandelbrot set at some satellite parameters of bounded type arXiv 1808 10425 Bibcode 2018arXiv180810425D a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a Cite journal requires journal help Brunell Evan May 22 2010 Popular Video Game Pac Man Celebrates 30th Anniversary New England Sports Network Archived from the original on July 22 2010 Retrieved April 11 2012 Mario amp Pac Man Showed Up in the Rio 2016 Olympics Closing Ceremony August 22 2016 Archived from the original on February 5 2017 Retrieved December 30 2016 Wednesday February 22 2023 PR 7 Eleven Inc And PAC MAN Give Fans the Chance to Take their Game Play to the Next Level Archived from the original on May 1 2023 Retrieved May 1 2023 Wollman Jane December 1982 Pac Mania Popular Computing p 81 Retrieved April 1 2023 The Pac Page including database of Pac Man merchandise and TV show reference GameSpy Archived from the original on April 16 2009 Retrieved May 7 2011 White Cindy June 17 2010 E3 2010 Pac Man Back on TV Archived June 21 2010 at the Wayback Machine IGN com Retrieved July 7 2010 Morris Chris June 17 2010 Pac Man chomps at 3D TV Archived June 25 2010 at the Wayback Machine Variety com Retrieved July 7 2010 Pac Man Fever Time Magazine April 5 1982 Archived from the original on January 22 2011 Retrieved October 15 2009 Columbia Records Pac Man Fever was No 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 last week Popular Computing McGraw Hill 1982 Archived from the original on January 22 2011 Retrieved August 14 2010 Pac Man Fever went gold almost instantly with 1 million records sold Turow Joseph 2008 Media Today An Introduction to Mass Communication 3rd ed Taylor amp Francis p 554 ISBN 978 0 415 96058 8 Archived from the original on November 22 2016 Retrieved January 29 2012 RIAA Gold amp Platinum Searchable Database Pac Man Fever RIAA com Retrieved November 1 2009 Grosinger Matt February 16 2017 Weird Al Talks His Previously Unreleased Song Pac Man Which You Can Finally Hear Nerdist Industries Archived from the original on February 21 2017 Retrieved February 20 2017 Liptak Andrew February 18 2017 Listen to a previously unreleased Weird Al Beatles parody Pac Man The Verge Vox Media Archived from the original on February 19 2017 Retrieved February 20 2017 GORILLAZ SONG MACHINE SEASON 1 EPISODE 5 PAC MAN FT SCHOOLBOY Q Nasty Little Man July 20 2020 Classic video game characters unite via film Pixels Philstar July 23 2014 Archived from the original on July 23 2014 Retrieved July 23 2014 Tarek Bazley Pac man at 35 the video game that changed the world Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 redeems a gaming icon on screen Polygon May 8 2017 Wreck It Ralph Trailer 2 Walt Disney Animation Studios via YouTube September 12 2012 Archived from the original on October 30 2021 Retrieved September 12 2012 Cooper Hollander Gilbert Henry October 19 2012 Wreck it Ralph 9 amazing things you couldn t possibly know about the movie Games Radar Retrieved October 23 2012 Pac man at 35 The video game that changed the world Archived from the original on May 26 2015 Retrieved May 26 2015 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint bot original URL status unknown link Al Jazeera English May 25 2015 Shiro Sano Cast as Dr Pacman in Kamen Rider Heisei Generations Tokusatsu Network November 5 2016 Relaxer Review Help He s Sitting and He Can t Get Up Jeannette Catsoulis March 28 2019 Cash Box William and Mary Libraries Special Collections Research Center Cash Box Pub Co November 20 1982 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint others link Crystal Sky Namco amp Gaga are game again Crystalsky com Retrieved August 11 2008 Jaafar Ali May 19 2008 Crystal Sky signs 200 million deal Variety com Retrieved September 4 2008 Galuppo Mia August 8 2022 Live Action Pac Man Movie in the Works from Wayfarer Bandai Namco Exclusive The Hollywood Reporter Retrieved August 8 2022 Radulovic Petrana August 8 2022 New Pac Man movie will be live action somehow Polygon Retrieved August 8 2022 Rubin Rebecca August 8 2022 Pac Man Live Action Movie in the Works From Jane the Virgin Actor Justin Baldoni Variety Retrieved August 8 2022 Coopee Todd May 20 2015 Pac Man Turns 35 ToyTales ca Archived from the original on September 4 2015 The MB Official Pac Man Board Game Archived from the original on November 10 2015 Retrieved November 4 2015 The Pac Star Pac Man Rub Offs Section Index Archived from the original on December 22 2015 Retrieved November 4 2015 Pac Man Celebrates 40th Anniversary With Minecraft DLC a Game You Play on Twitch and Weird AI Programs IGN May 22 2020 Retrieved June 1 2020 Pac Man review at OAFE Oafe net Archived from the original on October 21 2012 Retrieved November 15 2012 a b c d Ramsey David The Perfect Man Oxford American Archived from the original on February 29 2008 Retrieved November 13 2012 Pac Man at the Twin Galaxies Official Scoreboard Twin Galaxies Archived from the original on July 26 2008 Retrieved December 28 2015 Dispute Decision Billy Mitchell s Donkey Kong amp All Other Records Removed Twin Galaxies Pac Man Arcade Points Factory Speed Retrieved January 2 2019 Pac Man Fastest Completion Perfect Game ARCADE 03 28 49 00 David W Race August 4 2015 Retrieved January 5 2016 Race David May 30 2013 Perfect Pac Man May 22 2013 3hrs 28min 49sec 2 of 2 David Race Archived from the original on January 2 2016 Retrieved January 5 2016 via YouTube Retro gaming pariah Billy Mitchell has Guinness records reinstated ESPN com June 18 2020 Retrieved June 18 2020 Past Presidents See Dip In Video Collections Cash Box Cash Box Pub Co November 20 1982 p 56 Parish Jeremy July 23 2013 Remembering Pac amp Pal Pac Man s Strangest Arcade Adventure USgamer Archived from the original on January 23 2018 Retrieved February 23 2020 Pac In Time Next Generation Imagine Media 6 113 4 June 1995 Pac Man Championship Edition for Xbox 360 Reviews Metacritic CBS Interactive Retrieved April 25 2020 Hatfield Daemon November 16 2010 Pac Man Championship Edition DX Review IGN Archived from the original on November 19 2010 Retrieved March 25 2020 Mini Arcades Go Gold Electronic Games 1 9 13 November 1982 Archived from the original on August 13 2012 Retrieved February 5 2012 Coleco Mini Arcades Go Gold PDF Arcade Express 1 1 4 August 15 1982 Archived PDF from the original on November 8 2012 Retrieved February 3 2012 The Official Midway s Pac Man Game Watch Instruction Manual PDF booklet Nelsonic Industries Archived PDF from the original on September 24 2015 Retrieved November 3 2015 A quick look at some of the new WP7 games from Namco BestWP7Games November 9 2010 Archived from the original on November 12 2010 Google gets Pac Man fever cnet May 21 2010 Archived from the original on October 27 2010 Fricker Martin May 24 2010 Google gives Pac Man boost with over 1 billion playing Goggle Doodle game in three days Mirror Retrieved August 25 2021 Pac Man Archived from the original on August 29 2012 Retrieved November 3 2015 Ki Mae Huessner World s Biggest Pac Man Is Web Sensation ABC News Internet Ventures Archived from the original on April 15 2014 Retrieved April 13 2013 Garun Natt March 31 2017 Google Maps morphs into Ms Pac Man for April Fools Day The Verge Retrieved December 27 2021 Midway s Pac Man Parts and Operating Manual PDF December 1980 Further readingTrueman Doug November 10 1999 The History of Pac Man GameSpot Archived from the original on June 26 2009 Comprehensive coverage on the history of the entire series up through 1999 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 Post Hirschfeld Tom How to Master the Video Games Bantam Books 1981 ISBN 0 553 20164 6 Strategy guide for a variety of arcade games including Pac Man Includes drawings of some of the common patterns External linksOfficial website Pac Man highscores on Twin Galaxies Pac Man on Arcade History Pac Man at the Killer List of Videogames Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Pac Man amp oldid 1203153107, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.