He may be creeping into middle age, but there’s still plenty of chomp left in Pac-Man.
Video games’ original breakout star has had a busy year. An inspired Google Maps prank that turned ordinary city streets into Power Pellet-filled mazes became a viral hit on April Fools’ Day. In May, the puck-shaped guy partied hard at Level 257—the new Pac-Man-themed restaurant in the northwest suburbs—to celebrate his 35th birthday. “Pac-Man” also was one of four games inducted into the first World Video Game Hall of Fame class at the National Museum of Play in Rochester, N.Y., last month.
Now, with “Pixels,” Pac-Man is ready to become one of this summer’s biggest movie stars. In the action-comedy opening Friday and starring Adam Sandler and Peter Dinklage, intergalactic aliens discover video feeds of classic arcade games, misinterpret them as a declaration of war and invade Earth in the form of Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and Centipede, among others.
Not bad for a bizarre Japanese import that was expected to be little more than a blip when it hit American arcades during the summer of 1980. Gamers were used to shooting things in space—what was the deal with this cartoony yellow thing collecting dots and eating ghosts?
Eugene Jarvis, who created classic hits “Defender” and “Robotron: 2084” while working at Chicago-based game developer Williams, found “Pac-Man” tedious and too easy when he got his hands on it during a trade show 35 years ago.
“I was like, ‘This is the most boring game in the history of video games and it’s never going to make money. I’m glad I didn’t do this piece of [bleep],’ ” said Jarvis, now president of Skokie-based arcade game company Raw Thrills. “But history has certainly proved me wrong there.”
Even the game’s creator, professor Toru Iwatani, was skeptical of its success. He had women in mind when designing it at a time when video games were largely a male-dominated pastime.
” ‘Pac-Man’ was created as a comical, gentle, soft game,” Iwatani said while addressing the media at the “Pac-Man” 35th birthday party. “In America, Americans want thrilling action, exciting games, so the fear was that ‘Pac-Man’ would not be accepted in America.”
But the colorful design and unique chase-or-be-chased gameplay managed to strike a chord with gamers of all stripes, and “Pac-Man” machines ate quarters as vigorously as its hero swallowed glowing pixels. Namco, the game’s developer, sold more than 350,000 machines, and the game generated more than $2.5 billion in quarters. Jarvis remembers walking through some of Chicago’s neighborhood arcades in the ’80s and seeing multiple “Pac-Man” machines right next to each other.
“Some arcades would have to buy a ton of them because it got so crowded,” Jarvis said. “I remember the old [Fun Zone] in the Century mall at Diversey and Broadway had 10 of them alone.”
Beyond the confines of malls and bowling alleys, “Pac-Man” became the first video game to become a crossover pop-culture sensation. Everywhere you looked, you’d find the puck-shaped figure—Saturday morning cartoons, breakfast cereal and even on the radio in the form of a Top 10 hit in one-hit wonder Buckner & Garcia’s “Pac-Man Fever.”
“‘Pac-Man’ was the first game that transcended games and brought them into mainstream culture,” said Jon-Paul Dyson, director of the National Museum of Play. “You didn’t have to be a gamer to know Pac-Man. He was everywhere. He was the Babe Ruth of video games.”
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That recognition waned as the ’80s stretched on and Nintendo’s mustachioed mascot Mario became the new face of gaming. Then, over the next couple of decades, arcades died—replaced by powerful home consoles and increasingly complex and violent fare like “Call of Duty” and “Grand Theft Auto.”
But now, in 2015, “Pac-Man” has come full circle. It’s regained popularity and spawned a new cartoon and a series of spinoff games as GenXers soak up the nostalgia of their youth.
“Retro is cool again,” Dyson said. “Plus ‘Pac-Man’s’ game play still holds up after all these years. It doesn’t have to have high-resolution to be appealing.”
Still, count Jarvis as surprised that ‘Pac-Man’ is still relevant three and a half decades later.
“I thought maybe ‘Pac-Man’ would go the way of the pet rock and disco,” he said. “It’s amazing the immortality of these characters.”
Ryan Smith is a RedEye special contributor. @RyanSmithWriter