In 1980, the little yellow fellow helped put the “Golden”
in the “Golden Age of Video Games.”
By Jeff Pfeiffer, ReMIND Magazine
Decades after Pac-Man’s debut, the sights and sounds of game designer Toru Iwatani’s legendary creation still represent the height of the golden age of video games in the minds of many who lived through the era. But Pac-Man has been embraced by subsequent generations, too, and it remains one of only a handful of arcade games from that time that you still might run into on occasion in a bar or bowling alley.
Although Pac-Man was not an immediate hit when Namco launched it (as Puckman) in Japan on May 22, 1980, once Midway Games began distributing it in North America on Oct. 10, the craze started building momentum. Over its first year of release, the game grossed more than $1 billion in quarters. Throughout 1981-82, millions of people had Pac-Man fever — so much so that they were willing to turn a novelty song by Buckner & Garcia called “Pac-Man Fever” into a gold record that spent three weeks in Billboard’s Top 10 in early ’82.
As one of the first identifiable (and marketable) characters in video game history, the lovably cute Pac-Man found himself in many other pop-culture arenas beyond that hit song. The little guy graced apparel, had his own breakfast cereal, starred in a Saturday morning animated series from 1982-83 and even had a brief cameo in Disney’s original Tron film. By 1982, Pac-Man also had, unsurprisingly, a sequel — Ms. Pac-Man, arguably an even better game than its predecessor.
Beyond its cultural impact, Pac-Man’s influence on the video game industry itself cannot be overstated. It launched the maze chase game genre, was the first video game with power-ups and was one of the earliest games to feature cutscenes. The game’s other beloved characters — Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde, the ghosts who relentlessly pursue, or are pursued by, Pac-Man — were designed with an early use of artificial intelligence.
By the time the Atari 2600 home adaptation of Pac-Man was hurriedly released to poor reviews in 1982, Pac-Man fever — as well as the golden age of video games — was near the beginning of its end, and the video game market would crash the following year. But 40 years later, Pac-Man remains not only an indelible symbol of that era, but also one of its few enduring survivors, for whom it will never be “Game Over.”
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