Pac-Man at 45: the video game character who consumed the culture

How do you begin to discuss a video game as seminal as Pac-Man on its 45^th anniversary? Pac-Man is a rare gaming beast that has managed to transcend its trappings to become something of a cultural shorthand for the medium of video games as a whole. Titles are rarely as impactful as Namco’s 1980 masterpiece, and the little circular hero shows no signs of retiring any time soon.

A key aspect of good character design is thought to be how recognisable they are in silhouette, and Pac-Man is surely the poster child for this rule. The game was designed by Toru Iwatani for Namco in 1979, and he explains in a 1986 interview how food was a key inspiration for the character. 

“One lunch time I was quite hungry and I ordered a whole pizza. I helped myself to a wedge and what was left was the idea for the Pac Man shape.” This distinct circular shape combined with the Japanese slang for eating, ‘pakupaku’, gave birth to the original incarnation of Puck Man. Worried by the opportunity for vandalism that this name offered, Namco pivoted to Pac-Man for the full release. In addition to the character’s now iconic discoid shape, cutting-edge arcade display technology at the time meant that individual characters could be displayed in bold colours, allowing for Pac-Man’s distinctive canary yellow tone and the pastel colours of his ghostly nemeses.

Evolving the maze chase genre of arcade game introduced by Sega’s Head On in 1979, Iwatani’s creation was a revolutionary project that introduced a number of innovations to the fledging Japanese arcade industry. 

At one year and five months it had the longest development period of a game up to that point – a time frame that now sounds ludicrously short given today’s bloated development periods. The game was also the first to introduce power ups, with Pac-Man gobbling up Power Pills in order to turn the tables on the ghosts. Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde are early examples of artificial intelligence in character behaviour, with each of the spooks displaying unique personality traits and personalised methods of hunting down Pac-Man. It was also one of the earliest games to feature cut-scenes between levels, with short, scripted skits expanding on the personalities of the characters. 

Perhaps most fundamentally, Pac-Man was one of the very first video game company mascots. Space Invaders had proved the merchandising and cross-media appeal that games could have, but Pac-Man took this potential to stratospheric levels. From the moment the game was showcased on the giant ALTA screen in Shinjuku in Tokyo, Pac-Man immediately became as globally recognisable as Mickey Mouse. In the early 80s Pac-Man was everywhere – on the television every week in a hit Saturday morning cartoon, in children’s lunch boxes as a tinned pasta dish, and at number 9 on the Billboard charts in the novelty pop hit Pac-Man fever. There was a board game, pyjamas, an alarm clock, vitamins, cereal, puppets and, inexplicably, even a Pac-Man themed spread in Hustler.

As the game soared in popularity, the copycats inevitably followed – especially in the home computer and console market where the game had yet to have an official port of the arcade hit. Some took the maze chase gameplay and gave it an interesting twist (Oh Mummy, 3D Monster Maze), while others are copyright-baiting straight remakes (Taxman, Dot Man, Spookyman). The long-awaited 1982 official Atari 2600 port of Pac-Man sold over 8 million copies and became the best-selling product on the system, despite the game itself being a subpar effort that was rushed out in six months. Those expecting the beautiful primary colours and hypnotic atmospheric sound effects of the arcade game were instead greeted with flickering, pale sprites and migraine-inducing sound effects. Interestingly, the first official follow up to Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, began life as an unlicensed modification of the original arcade game before the developers were brought in to officially complete the sequel. Ever ahead of the curve, Pac-Man was at the vanguard of the contemporary mod culture that we now see thriving in PC gaming communities.

Over 45 years, Namco have refused to keep Pac-Man bound to the maze he popularised – the yellow megastar has continued to transcend genre and push boundaries. He has grown legs and explored platforming in the exceptional Pac-Land and Pac-Man World. He has taken on Tetris at its own puzzle game in Pac-Attack. He’s donned a mortar board in the educational quiz game Professor Pac-Man. He’s even competed with Mario for the karting game crown with Pac-Man World Rally, before appearing directly next to Nintendo’s famous plumber on the racetrack in Mario Kart Arcade GP. 

One of the most interesting Pac-Man games, and the only game in the series directly titled as a sequel to the original, has to be Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures (1994) for the Super Nintendo and Sega Mega Drive. It combines the point and click mechanics of puzzle adventure games such as Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion with more traditional platforming elements to create a game that’s absolutely stuffed full of charm and hilarious moments thanks to a beautifully animated, and increasingly grumpy, Pac-Man. It’s not every day that you get to see Pac-Man milk a cow and then create an unholy din on a piano. Another standout in the series is 2015’s Pac-Man 256, an addictive endless arcade game inspired by the notorious level 256 ‘kill screen’ glitch in the arcade original that causes the game to completely crash. The vast range of genres and individual game variety spanned in Pac-Man’s back catalogue is unrivalled in video game history, a testament to the versatility of Toru Iwatani’s character design.

In 2025 the series continues its evolution, experimenting with a change in tone in the dark and gritty Shadow Labyrinth. The upcoming action platformer serves as a follow up to the ‘Circle’ episode of Secret Level – an animated anthology series based on various iconic game franchises. The heyday of sometimes baffling Pac-Man merchandising has also returned, with collaborations with Krispy Kreme, Club América, and even an official Pac-Man themed cookbook launching this year. While other video game mascots have come and gone over the past 45 years, Namco’s ghost-gobbling yellow icon seems set to munch on forever.