
However, other critics at that time suggested that the wildly popular game’s central premise-eating-accounted for its universal draw. Pac-Man is imagining she is being pursued by the wild males until she turns around and captures them. Pac-Man was a spin-off, but we also wanted to say thank-you to women who had started playing Pac-Man."Ĭontemporary critics suggested that the perceived female appeal of games like Pac-Man and Kangaroo-ones that arcade owners saw women and girls playing-had to do with their relative non-violence, among other things: "From a pop psychological point of view, I have heard it said that Pac-Man imitates courtship and mating," Joyce Worley, senior editor for Electronic Games, said in 1982.

"Until Pac-Man came around, we couldn't get women to play the games," James Jarocki, advertising promotion manager for Ball Midway, said in 1982. She was part of a push to get women into gaming. Instead of risking similar litigation from Namco, the Japanese company behind Pac-Man, GCC sold Crazy Otto to Midway Manufacturing Co., Pac-Man’s North-American distributor, which was eager for a sequel to capitalize on the original game’s popularity. While the pair was working on developing Crazy Otto, Atari hit them with a lawsuit over Super Missile Attack, an earlier game modification that upgraded existing Atari Missile Command arcade units for faster, more difficult gameplay. First there was Crazy Otto, who had legs and chased monsters-not ghosts-around Pac-Man’s levels. Pac-Man as an enhancement kit for Pac-Man arcade games. MIT students Kevin Curran and Doug Macrae of the General Computer Corporation (GCC) first developed Ms. In the early days of arcade games, programmers created new games by modifying existing cabinets.

PAC MAN MRS PAC MAN TV
Pac-Man herself sang out during 1982 TV commercials, she was “more than Pac-Man with a bow.” 1. In 1982, another circle rolled onto the scene and upped the ghost-chasing ante-and, as Ms. In 1980, a hungry yellow disc swallowed the hearts of gamers worldwide and set off years’ worth of Pac-mania.
