5 Facts About Pac-Man

The original Pac-Man arcade game was released in 1980 and saw immediate success. Even today, it remains one of the highest-grossing video games and gaming franchises ever. As of 2016, Pac-Man had generated more than $14 billion in revenue and had sold more than 43 million units combined, and is considered to be one of the greatest video games ever made. Here are five interesting facts about one of the oldest franchises in all of gaming: Pac-Man.

5 Pac-Man Facts

1. 1. Within one year of Pac-Man’s launch in 1980, more than 100,000 arcade units had been sold. (source) Pac-Man rose to popular immediately following its release in 1980. Within just one year, more than 250 million games of Pac-Man were being played on a weekly basis across more than 100,000 arcade units. Not only was the game itself popular, but the Pac-Man character also became extremely marketable, as licensed merchandise like t-shirts, board games, lunchboxes and more were flying off the shelves.

2. 2. On the original Pac-Man game, a perfect score is 3,333,360 points. (source) It’s tough to achieve a perfect score in the original Pac-Man arcade game, but it can be done by grabbing every energizer, dot, fruit, and blue ghost across all 255 levels – all without losing a single life! Not only that, but the player then needs to use all six lives to get the maximum number of possible points on level 256, the final level.

3. 3. In the early 1980s, Pac-Man became so popular that a cartoon was created. (source) Pac-Man, the television series, aired on ABC from September 25, 1982 through November 5, 1983. During it’s run, the show had two seasons with 44 total episodes. The show followed the adventures of Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man, and had re-runs airing as recently as 2014 on Boomerang.

4. 4. Pac-Man was originally named Puck-Man. (source) Because the character resembled a hockey puck, the character and game was originally called Puck-Man. However, due to “Puck” rhyming with a curse word in the United States, Namco and the development team decided to change the name. That, along with the Japanese phrase “paku-paku” meaning to “eat energetically,” they eventually decided on the Pac-Man name officially.

5. 5. The designer of Pac-Man didn’t have any training as a programmer or designer. (source) The eventual designer of Pac-Man, Toru Iwatani, first started working at Namco back in 1977. He originally was set to work on pinball machines, but would eventually transition into design and would become responsible for games like Pac-Man (1980), Cutie Q (1979), Bomb Bee (1979) and Gee Bee (1978). In fact, the idea for the Pac-Man character came to Iwatani when he pulled a slice of pizza from the pie.

Pac-Man is one of the most popular and well-recognized video game characters ever. Do you have any fun facts or great memories to share about playing Pac-Man?