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Monday, May 25, 2015

Pac-man at 35: the video game that changed the world

Thirty-five years ago a Japanese company released a video game quite unlike any other and it took the world by storm. 

Tarek Bazley

Al-Jazeera | 25 May 2015

In 1980 the video games world was dominated by games like Space Invaders and Asteroids. These were aimed at boys, who mainly played them in video games arcades.
That was until Japanese game developer Toru Iwatani set out to design a game to appeal to women. The inspiration reportedly came from a pizza he was eating.
Two slices in, the idea of a rounded character with a large mouth occurred to him. He initially called the game “Pakkuman”, based on the sound your mouth makes when it opens and closes rapidly.
Later, when the game was launched in the US, this was changed to Pac-man and it became an over-night hit.
“This was the first game to have real competitive artificial intelligence that hunted you down,” says Jake Baldino, from video game website Gameranx.com.
"There was just a lot of personality. There was a lot of great music, beautiful colors, there were colorful fruits, a yellow main character, blinking lights, flashy music and it was just a lot of fun and the excitement drew people in.”
350,000 Pac-Man arcade machines were sold in the first 18 months.

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