Namcos, who acquired Atari in 1974, started to think after the success of Space Invaders and Breakout that the gaming world is flooded with video games that are based on violence and graphics. He decided to make a cheerful game for fun-loving individuals, especially females.
Namco launched Pac-Man in the light of the above-mentioned thought process in 1980. It is a maze action game for arcades. The original Japanese of the game was Puck-Man. The name was changed to avoid any other unfortunate event that resulted in the defacement of machine games. Some unnatural elements of the society wrote an F instead of a P on Puck-Man machines.
Namco America licensed Midway Manufacturing to release the game in North America. The gameplay was unique for a game of that time in which a player-controlled Pac Man has to eat all the dots that are hidden in a maze. He has to avoid four coloured ghosts in doing this. Sometimes, a flashing dot would appear on the screen. This was called a power pellet. Eating a power pellet turned ghosts into blue colour and Pac Man could eat them to obtain a bonus and pass through the maze.
The ghosts were made with pastel colours with wide expressive eyes to appear attractive non-violent and cute. The idea and design of ghosts were already being tested in the successful game Cutie Q. Iwatani was inspired by Casper, the friendly ghost which was blue in colour and bubbly in shape.
The development of the game was spearheaded by Toru Iwatani along with a team of nine other members who were working in the company before it was acquired from Atari. Iwatani wanted to include females in the market of video games.
Most of the games of that time were based on the aggressive and violent themes of wars and sports. The story behind the conceptualization of Pac-Man is quite unique and funny. Iwatani was eating pizza one day and realized that a pizza looked like a rounded face when a slice from it is removed.
It was initially named Pakkuman based on the Japanese phrase ‘paku paku taberu’ which signifies the movement of the mouth while eating. It took 1 year and 5 months for a ten-member team to complete the game.
He was looking for something different yet cute to attract younger players. The original title was taken from the mascot and marketing icon of Bandai Namco Entertainment whose shape resembles a hockey puck.
Pac-Man was a huge success and had received several awards and recognitions. Owing to its huge commercial success, marketers cashed in the popularity by making several sequels, goodies, two television series and a music video in which the music was given by Buckner and Garcia.
The Pac Man franchise is considered one of the highest-grossing and best-selling games. The game generated $ 14 billion in revenue till 2016 by selling 43 million units of the game. The game has historical and cultural significance.