Pac-Man Released: Arcade Gaming Goes Mainstream
Namco released Pac-Man in Japanese arcades on May 22, 1980. Designer Toru Iwatani created the character after looking at a pizza with a slice removed and thinking it resembled a mouth. The game was deliberately designed to attract women and couples to arcades, which were dominated by male-oriented space shooters. Each of the four ghosts has a distinct AI personality: Blinky chases directly, Pinky ambushes, Inky is unpredictable, and Clyde alternates between chasing and retreating. Pac-Man became the best-selling arcade game in history, generating over $2.5 billion in quarters by the mid-1980s. The game has a maximum possible score of 3,333,360 points, first achieved by Billy Mitchell in 1999 (though this record was later disputed). Pac-Man has sold over 43 million copies across all platforms.
May 22, 1980
46 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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