The Origin Of Pac-Man
Few video game characters or series have been around longer than the likes of Mario, Donkey Kong, and Sonic. Yet Pac-Man, both the series and character, pre-dates them all. The original game was released in arcades all the way back in 1980.
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It broke the mold as the title was very different in gameplay and presentation from a lot of others at that time. And the titular creature was one of the first iconic characters in video game history. Over the years, the people behind Pac-Man have revealed a lot about the origins of the circular protagonist and his game. Here are all the important parts.
In an interview with GameSpot, Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani claimed that when development for Pac-Man started back in the late 1970s, arcades were often filled with men. In fact, they were almost exclusively male environments. So he wanted to make a game that women would also want to play.
To that end, Iwatani didn't want to include violence in Pac-Man because he felt that would appeal more to men, as he explained to Wired. Instead, he decided to make eating the theme of the game, telling Time, "my opinion is that the word ‘eat’ is universally appealing and would attract their [women's] attention as well."
It's a bit of a generalization to say that women prefer eating games to violent ones, but that was Iwatani's thinking. Whether or not his exact theory was correct, initial tests for Pac-Man proved that women enjoyed the game.
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Of course, Pac-Man doesn't just eat. He also moves around a maze and avoids ghosts. Iwatani explained in a 1986 interview with Susan Lammers that the inclusion of the maze was to give players more of an idea of what to do.
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