In those days, there was a proliferation of table top games, including a considerable number of game machines installed in cafés and other businesses. I thought up a variety of verbs, such as “grab” and “surround”. When it came time to figure out what sort of game I could do, I suggested basing it around a particular verb. My aim was to come up with a game that had an endearing charm, was easy to play, involved lots of light-hearted fun, and that women and couples could enjoy. The only videogames on offer were brutal affairs involving the killing of aliens. In the late Seventies, videogame arcades, which in Japan we call ‘game centres’, were just playgrounds for boys and young men. Rather than focus on shooting things, Iwatani explored themes that might appeal to families and females, who up to this point, hadn’t embraced video games in the same way that men of the world had: He was inspired by the “happy” nature of the games he saw coming from Atari, and sought to imitate this model. Iwatani-san was seeing the market domination of these “me-too” early shoot-em-ups of the time, and took inspiration from Atari across the pond, who were receiving massive adulation (and income) for its games, which were bright, colourful, and followed many different themes and concepts. Galaxian was a huge hit, taking the basic concept of Space Invaders, but adding kamikaze enemies into the mix, that dive-bombed the player. Buoyed by it’s success, Namco followed this up by 1979’s Galaxian, the first ever video game to use colour RGB graphics, something of a revolution at the time. And so it came to pass that Namco had some early success with it’s first arcade video game, Gee Bee, developed by Iwatani. Repairing hardware wasn’t where Toru wanted to be at the time – he was a big fan of pinball, and suggested to his bosses that he worked on a video version of pinball. His first role within the business was to repair failed game boards from licensed black and white Atari video games that were distributed throughout Japan. Pac-Man’s creator, Toru Iwatani joined Namco in 1977 aged 22, when it was still known as Nakamura Manufacturing. They just placed more machines on the floor to get more coins into the cash boxes quicker – this was good news for them and good news for Namco. This was seen as a sensible strategy in the face of losing potential income from customers having to queue to get a game. Indeed, merchandise and endorsements earned Namco more in revenues than actual hardware sales of the game.Īcross the globe, instead of ordering a single unit of the new games as was usual, operators placed orders for multiple cabinets, such was the demand. Everybody has at least heard of the game, because it was one of the first to enter the realms of popular culture. This was a huge game for Namco back in the early eighties that would grow into a true 20th century icon. Pac-Man had a great run but, sadly, this really does look like Game Over.Much has been written about Pac-Man. Pac-Man is a Namco thing, it remains one of gaming's most recognisable icons, and will presumably be bankable for many decades to come: having profits continually siphoned off an entire franchise because of a licensing deal from the 1980s may have become more trouble than it's worth. To play devil's advocate, Bandai Namco is in a difficult situation too. The game and by extension the character are such a huge part of Pac-Man history, and it's extremely sad both are just going to disappear from the, excuse me, Pac-Man extended universe. Pac-Man was not just a commercial smash in the arcades, it was a genuinely fantastic spin on the original and remains well worth a few minutes of anyone's time. You rarely get such a stark case of videogame history being rewritten, still less one where the character is so high-profile. Pac-Man is being removed from the series permanently, and will update with any response. I've asked Bandai Namco for comment on the situation and whether Ms. The reasons behind this change are unknown, though everything points to the rights dispute over the character being the proximate cause.
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