Happy 45th Birthday, Pac-Man! Did You Have Pac-Man Fever in the 1980s?
Realizing that the iconic video game Pac-Man is turning 45 on May 22 this year might be more distressing to some people than finding themselves turning 45. Decades later, the sights and sounds of game designer Toru Iwatani’s legendary Pac-Man creation still represent the height of the golden age of video games in the minds of many who lived through the era and remember it as a symbol of their youthful game-playing days. But Pac-Man fever has been embraced by subsequent generations, too, and it remains one of only a handful of arcade games from that time that you still might run into on occasion in a bar or bowling alley.
How did Pac-Mania begin?
Those later generations will never know just how much Pac-Mania took over America back in the day, however. Although Pac-Man was not an immediate hit when Namco launched it (as Puckman) in Japan on May 22, 1980, once Midway Games began distributing it in North America on Oct. 10, the craze started building momentum. Over its first year of release, the game grossed more than $1 billion in quarters. Throughout 1981-82, millions of people had Pac-Man fever — so much so that they were willing to turn a novelty song by Buckner & Garcia called “Pac-Man Fever” into a gold record that spent three weeks in Billboard’s Top 10 in early ’82.
As one of the first identifiable (and marketable) characters in video game history, the lovably cute Pac-Man found himself in many other pop-culture arenas beyond that hit song. The little guy graced apparel, had his own breakfast cereal, starred in a Saturday morning animated series from 1982-83 and even had a brief cameo in Disney’s original Tron film. By 1982, Pac-Man also had, unsurprisingly, a sequel — Ms. Pac-Man, arguably an even better game than its predecessor.
Beyond its cultural impact, Pac-Man’s influence on the video game industry itself cannot be overstated. It launched the maze chase game genre, of which there have since been countless imitators — some good, others not so much. Pac-Man was the first video game with power-ups, and one of the earliest games to feature cutscenes or interludes. The game’s other beloved characters — Inky, Pinky, Blinky and Clyde, the ghosts who relentlessly pursue, or are pursued by, Pac-Man — were designed with an early use of artificial intelligence that allowed them to have individual behavior and responses to a player’s actions.
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By the time the Atari 2600 home adaptation of Pac-Man was hurriedly released to poor reviews in 1982, Pac-Man fever — as well as the golden age of video games — was near the beginning of its end, and the video game market would crash the following year. But 45 years later, Pac-Man remains not only an indelible symbol of that era, but also one of its few enduring survivors, for whom it will never be “Game Over.”
Fun Facts About Pac-Man
- Pac-Man Release Date: May 22, 1980 (Japan); Oct. 10, 1980 (North America)
- Pac-Man Arcade Spinoffs: Pac-Man (1982); Pac-Man Plus (1982); Super Pac-Man (1982); Baby Pac-Man (1982, video game/pinball hybrid); Professor Pac-Man (1983); Pac & Pal (1983); Jr. Pac-Man (1983); Pac-Land (1984); Pac-Mania (1987)
- Number of Boards in Pac-Man: 256
- Highest Possible Pac-Man Score: 3,333,360, known to have been achieved by eight people.
- Pac-Man’s Gross Earnings: Thought to be the highest-grossing video game of all time, Pac-Man’s inflation-adjusted intake was estimated at about $7.7 billion in 2016.
What other Video Games were popular in 1980?
Besides the megahit Pac-Man, 1980 also saw these notable video game developments on the arcade and home console fronts:
Arcade Releases
- Battlezone (Atari)
- Berzerk (Stern Electronics)
- Crazy Climber (Nichibutsu)
- Missile Command (Atari)
- Phoenix (Centuri/Taito)
- Rally-X (Namco)
- Warlords (Atari)
Home Releases
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- Third-party game developer Activision, which would create still-beloved Atari 2600 classics like Pitfall! throughout the early ’80s, released its first games for Atari: Boxing, Bridge, Checkers, Dragster, Fishing Derby and Skiing.
- Mattel Electronics launched the Intellivision home console, whose game graphics were largely superior to those of the rival Atari 2600.
- The Atari 2600 port of the 1978 arcade hit Space Invaders was released and became a bestselling “killer app” for the console.
- ColecoVision was released in 1982. It was known for its arcade-quality graphics and games like Donkey Kong.
Remind
Oh What A Year: 1980
January 2020
Take a look back at our retrospect of the year 1980 where we celebrate the hottest in movies, music and TV.
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