How did Pac-Man change the world?

The iconic video game Pac-Man owes its existence to a salami pizza that Japanese game designer Toru Ivatani ate in the 1970s. The image that appeared before him after his first slice of pizza gave him chills.

"When you take a slice of pizza, the rest of it looks just like a mouth," Ivatani explained in a 2010 interview with Wired magazine.

PAC MAN WAS THE MOST POPULAR GAME OF THE TIME

When he looked down at his greasy plate, he must have come face to face with a formidable gaming character who looked like a fast-eating machine. After a journey that began that day, Pac-Man will turn 45 this year.

Your mission in the game is to control a gluttonous yellow sphere and navigate an ever-changing, dark labyrinth, collecting as many balls as possible while avoiding the ever-pursuing Ghost Gang.

The gang consists of Blinky (red), Pinky (pink), Inky (cyan), and Clyde (orange).

"The Pac-Man character was designed to represent the game's core concept of eating in the simplest way," Michiko Kumagai, Pac-Man's licensing manager at the game's publisher, Bandai Namco, told the BBC.

"It became an internationally recognized symbol, like McDonald's belts. Everyone can instinctively understand the meaning of Pac-Man at a glance. That's why the game reached such a large audience."

When first released in Japan, his name was PuckMan, a reference to the Japanese phrase "paku paku taberu", meaning to eat something by gobbling it up loudly.

The game grossed $3.5 billion in revenue between 1980 and 1999 alone, earning it the number one spot among coin-operated arcade games according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

It is estimated that the iconic character, which has not become obsolete over the years, has reached a sales figure of $14 billion to date in its journey from NES to Xbox 360.

Pac-Man has been seen in big-budget children's animations in recent years, increasing its recognition among new generations.

These included Wreck-It Ralph, released in 2012, and Pixels in 2015. Finally, this year, Shadow Labyrinth, a new game based on Pac-Man, was released.

Why so good?

"Pac-Man is one of the symbols that gave birth to the mainstream video game," said Peter Etchells, a professor of science communication at Bath Spa University in England, speaking to the BBC.

"There's an elegant simplicity to its gameplay and design that has appealed to many players."

Pac-Man's gameplay, which was both extremely simple and difficult to master, allowed even those who had never played a computer game before to quickly learn and have fun.

While some players were wandering through the maze at their own pace, others were preparing for tournaments, of which there were thousands around the world, by reading guides like How to Win at Pac-Man and memorizing maps and ideal moves.

Etchell says that Pac-Man's success is also due to its being less testosterone-driven than other games it competes with:

Pac-Man creator Toru Ivatani has always said he wanted to create a game that everyone, especially women, could enjoy. This is how Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man (Pac-Man Lady), released in 1982, distinguished themselves from the era's shooter-focused, male-oriented games like Asteroids and Space Invaders.

Speaking to the Washington Post in 2020, Pac-Man creator Ivatani explained that the game has more ties to Japanese culture than it seems:

"I designed the ghosts to be simple and cute. This stems from the ancient Japanese concept of wabi-sabi, which is about finding depth and fleeting beauty in simple things. I see the world becoming more and more accepting of this Japanese aesthetic approach. This has helped Pac-Man become more widely embraced."

Impact on science

With its unique design and appeal to players of all genders, Pac-Man has also made a mark in the scientific world. Like Tetris, scientists have used Pac-Man to measure the problem-solving abilities of the human and even chimpanzee brains.

In a 2007 experiment conducted by Dean Mobbs and his team at the California Institute of Technology, people playing Pac-Man were given electric shocks every time they were caught by ghosts.

Dr. Tom Garner from Sheffield Hallam University says that during this process, the players' brains were monitored using magnetic resonance imaging, and it was determined that the players' brain activity changed every time the ghosts approached:

In recent years, monkeys have been playing Pac-Man. In 2024, Z. Lin and his colleagues from Cornell University established a connection between the monkeys' eye movements and the decisions they make in the game. The National Library of Medicine revealed that macaque monkeys have strategy-based hierarchical decision-making abilities. Until this research, this was thought to be possible only in humans. Games like Pac-Man have had a significant impact on scientific research. Pac-Man helps us better understand the ways people think, feel, and behave.

Dr. Garner points to Pac-Man's successful use of incarnation theory as another reason why he remains so beloved:

"Embodiment in games means a connection forms between the player and the character they play, blurring the lines between the real world and the game world. Pac-Man was one of the first video games where players controlled a character rather than a vehicle. Pac-Man is represented as a living being and even makes a sound of pain when ghosts capture him. All of this creates a unique connection between players."

The future of Pac-Man

45 years after its original release, Namco Bandai has released Shadow Labyrinth, a game designed to boost Pac-Man's popularity among young people. This new game features both sci-fi and medieval elements.

The game's producer, Seigo Aizava, explains that he was a Pac-Man fan as a child and that this new game remains faithful to the original's features:

"One of the biggest reasons the world loved Pac-Man so much was that its characters had real personalities. Each ghost had their own unique moves. For example, Blinky was a persistent stalker, while Pinky preferred to attack from the front."

A clever feature of Pac-Man's game is that Pac-Man can fight these ghosts. When Pac-Man eats a "power ball," he transforms from hunter to hunt, eating the ghosts to make his way through them easier.

But it's crucial to eat the power ball at the right time, as the ability activates briefly before the roles revert to their original state. "There's nothing quite as satisfying as eating a power ball while being chased by ghosts and then instantly switching roles," says Aizava.

Aizava says Bandai Namco is already considering a sequel to Shadow Labyrinth, but the Pac-Man universe has limitations compared to other games.

Bandai Namco CEO Nao Udagava says Pac-Man is a silent, non-human character whose gameplay is based on simple moves, making it difficult to update the brand compared to Sega's Sonic or Nintendo's Mario.

"Pac-Man has fewer characters and less story to tell. But that simplicity is why Generation Z and younger generations know Pac-Man, even if they've never played the game."

Following partnerships with dessert chain Krispy Kreme and Little Lion Entertainment (a company that creates Pac-Man-themed escape rooms in several cities, including Manchester and Dubai), Udagava believes Pac-Man will be around for another 45 years.

He declined to answer the question of whether Pac-Man would have a movie like Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario the Plumber. However, he did say they are determined to expand the character beyond gaming.

Despite all these efforts to keep Pac-Man relevant, Etchell believes its current popularity stems from nostalgia—specifically, nostalgia for a now-defunct gaming era, the arcade era:

"It brings back memories of childhood days spent with friends under the bright lights of arcades."

Whatever the reasons behind his enduring appeal, Pac-Man remains a pop culture icon, proving that we can only achieve success when we stop running from the ghosts that haunt us and instead face them fearlessly.