He was inspired by the “happy” nature of the games he saw coming from Atari, and sought to imitate this model. Iwatani-san was seeing the market domination of these “me-too” early shoot-em-ups of the time, and took inspiration from Atari across the pond, who were receiving massive adulation (and income) for its games, which were bright, colourful, and followed many different themes and concepts. Galaxian was a huge hit, taking the basic concept of Space Invaders, but adding kamikaze enemies into the mix, that dive-bombed the player. Buoyed by it’s success, Namco followed this up by 1979’s Galaxian, the first ever video game to use colour RGB graphics, something of a revolution at the time. And so it came to pass that Namco had some early success with it’s first arcade video game, Gee Bee, developed by Iwatani. Repairing hardware wasn’t where Toru wanted to be at the time – he was a big fan of pinball, and suggested to his bosses that he worked on a video version of pinball. His first role within the business was to repair failed game boards from licensed black and white Atari video games that were distributed throughout Japan. Pac-Man’s creator, Toru Iwatani joined Namco in 1977 aged 22, when it was still known as Nakamura Manufacturing. They just placed more machines on the floor to get more coins into the cash boxes quicker – this was good news for them and good news for Namco. This was seen as a sensible strategy in the face of losing potential income from customers having to queue to get a game. Indeed, merchandise and endorsements earned Namco more in revenues than actual hardware sales of the game.Īcross the globe, instead of ordering a single unit of the new games as was usual, operators placed orders for multiple cabinets, such was the demand. Everybody has at least heard of the game, because it was one of the first to enter the realms of popular culture. This was a huge game for Namco back in the early eighties that would grow into a true 20th century icon. Our exhibition therefore included the first pencil sketches of PAC-MAN and the first Japanese PAC-MAN posters and adverts.Īrjan Terpstra, curator of the exhibition and co-author of the PAC-MAN anniversary book, has also sourced unique PAC-MAN collector’s items from the 80s and 90s from all over the world for the Groningen display.Much has been written about Pac-Man. Storyworld was the only European museum to have gained the approval and cooperation of Japanese video game company BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Inc. Pencil sketches, PAC-MAN posters and collector's items Designer Toru Iwatani and his team deliberately looked at things women and other non-gaming demographics could want from a game (a lighthearted food theme, use of bright colours, easy difficulty settings at the start of the game), thus breaking every rule in the book such as use space themes, hard colours and make difficult games for 'true' gamers to sink their teeth in. The exhibition explained the crucial role of the game design. This revolutionary role extends into areas like video game marketing, and the expansion of the gaming audience to women and other demographics. Did you know that it was the very first game to utilize an iconic and recognizable character as a lead character? And that PAC-MAN tells a story through its gameplay and video interludes? PAC-MAN truly was a game-changer in the world of arcade video games. Storyworld celebrated the anniversary of this arcade legend with a temporary exhibition in Otober, November and December 2020. The famous yellow muncher was a game changer for gaming and is as popular as ever. One of the most iconic video game characters turned 40 in 2020 - PAC-MAN! PAC-MAN™&©BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Inc.
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