“While I figure that I’d have learned of video games in some other way eventually, who knows if I would have been drawn into them the way I was by stumbling across Pac-Man first. “Pac-Man was the first video game I ever played, back in September 1981,” says Patrick Scott Patterson, one of the most recognisable gaming celebrities in the US. One might expect such praise from someone employed by Namco – Bishop is one of the firm’s longest-serving employees – but his comments are perfectly in tune with the people who made the original arcade release such a success: those gamers who dutifully lined up and filled each cabinet with their loose change. And just as significantly, Pac-Man was one of the early video games to successfully break through generational and gender boundaries to appeal to a massive audience, helping to make playing video games socially acceptable instead of just a niche activity.” Pac-Man not only popularised electronic play in the early 1980s, but also put a friendly and understandable face on the similarly new world of personal technology.
Free pac man games for kids to play full#
“Not because Pac-Man had the best graphics, audio or story ever, but because the intense popularity of Pac-Man literally altered the way that we as a culture perceived video games, bringing electronic game play into the full view – and appreciation – of everyone. “From my admittedly biased perspective, I remember the introduction – and subsequent explosion – of Pac-Man as a true watershed moment, perhaps the most important event in the entire history of video games,” states David Bishop of Namco USA. By 1982, 400,000 cabinets had been sold in the US alone, generating an incredible amount of revenue not only for Midway and Namco, but for the burgeoning amusement industry – it remains one of the highest-grossing video games of all time, having taken over $2.5 billion by the 1990s. Originally titled “Puck-Man” in its native country, it wasn’t an instant success it would be the Western launch – with the updated title of Pac-Man (an attempt by North American distributor Midway to avoid unruly teens substituting the “P” in Puck-Man with an “F” to create something a little less agreeable) – that would turn Iwatani’s creation into a household name all over the world. The original game file size was actually just 24kb. The creation of Namco programmer Toru Iwatani, the original arcade game hit Japan on May 22nd, 1980 before arriving in North America five months later. However, it was over three decades ago when Pac-Man first turned a legion of eager youngsters onto video gaming.
Free pac man games for kids to play series#
Despite his advanced years, the yellow pill-popper’s popularity shows no signs of waning – in fact, with a new TV show and series of games on the market, he’s gaining fame with an entirely new generation of players. He predates the likes of Mario, Sonic, Lara Croft and every other interactive entertainment mascot and this year celebrates an amazing 35 years in the business.
Pac-Man is without a shadow of a doubt gaming’s first truly famous face. We take a look at the history and nostalgia around Pac-Man
0 kommentar(er)
