Pac-Man Has A New Wife In Arcade Archive: Pac-Land
Due to licensing issues, Pac-Man has a new wife in the recent re-release of 1984’s Pac-Land. In 1982, gamers were introduced to Ms. Pac-Man, an externally developed spin-off of the hit arcade classic Pac-Man that featured a female version of the pellet-munching mascot — in addition to refined gameplay that many hailed as superior to the original Pac-Man. Developer General Computer Corporation was initially planning to create the game as a stand-alone Pac-Man modification kit named Crazy Otto, but Pac-Man publisher Midway purchased the rights to its work and enlisted GGC to finish it following a legal dispute with Atari. This resulted in the project being rebranded as Ms. Pac-Man, and thus one of gaming’s first female icons was born.
Ms. Pac-Man would go on to be regarded as one of the greatest arcade games of all time, and the character herself would become an integral part of the Pac-Man franchise — appearing alongside her husband in various sequels and spin-offs in the decades since her initial debut. However, Ms. Pac-Man has been the subject of a bitter legal battle between General Computer Corporation and Bandai Namco, the latter of which published the original Pac-Man but never authorized Midway’s follow-up. Namco argues that Midway never owned the copyright to Pac-Man or any derivative works, resulting in several lawsuits over which company deserves royalty payments for the Ms. Pac-Man character. In 2019, AtGames claimed that it purchased the rights to Ms. Pac-Man when it released a Ms. Pac-Man mini-cabinet without Namco Bandai’s authorization, resulting in Namco avoiding the use of Ms. Pac-Man in any of their recent Pac-Man-related rereleases.
Related: Advanced Tips For Winning Pac-Man 99
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