From Pizza to Pixels: The Story of Pac-Man’s Global Impact

It all started with a slice of pizza. In the late 1970s, legendary video game designer Toru Iwatani was enjoying a pepperoni pie when an idea sparked. After pulling out the first slice, he was instantly struck by how the remaining shape of the pizza looked like a creature staring back at him. Iwatani confirmed the truth of this now-famous origin story in a 2010 interview with Wired magazine, stating, “When you take a pizza and remove a single slice, it looks just like a mouth.”

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Staring at his greasy plate, Iwatani must have realized he had just stumbled upon the perfect game character, a fast-moving, voracious eating machine. Pac-Man was born, and this year, the iconic game celebrates its 45th anniversary since its original arcade release.

The Anatomy of an Arcade Icon

In the game, players control a greedy, yellow blob tasked with navigating ever-changing, pitch-black mazes, munching on as many pellets as possible. The challenge comes from four ghosts—Blinky (red), Pinky (pink), Inky (blue), and Clyde (orange)—who relentlessly chase Pac-Man.

Michiko Kumagai, the licensing manager for the character at the game’s publisher, Bandai Namco, explained to the BBC that the character was designed to “represent the core concept of the game, ‘eating,’ in the simplest way possible.” She adds that like the golden arches of McDonald’s, Pac-Man has become an internationally recognized symbol. “Everyone can instinctively understand what Pac-Man means at a single glance, which is why Pac-Man has reached such a wide audience.”

And a wide audience it has reached. Originally named PuckMan in Japan, a nod to the Japanese phrase “paku paku taberu,” which means to gobble something up while making a greedy, jaw-snapping sound, Pac-Man holds the Guinness World Record for the most successful coin-operated arcade game of all time. Today, the character remains an enduring symbol, with the series, spanning dozens of re-releases on both arcade machines and home consoles, generating an estimated $14 billion in revenue. Pac-Man has appeared on everything from the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) to the Xbox 360.

In recent years, Pac-Man has also made cameo appearances in big-budget animated films like Wreck-It Ralph (2012) and Pixels (2015), further increasing its public awareness. Just last month, Bandai Namco released a new take on the beloved game called Shadow Labyrinth.

Why Did the Game Work So Well?

“Pac-Man is one of the pioneers of the birth of mainstream video games,” says Peter Etchells, a professor of science communication at Bath Spa University, in an interview with the BBC. “There was an elegant simplicity to its gameplay and design that captured the imagination of many players.”

You don’t need to be a hardcore gamer to appreciate the character’s core objective of strategic snacking. Pac-Man’s gameplay is both deceptively simple and notoriously difficult to master. In the original version, players could either run around frantically without much thought or, as many did in the 1980s, read a guide on “How to Win at Pac-Man,” which taught players how to memorize hundreds of complex maze patterns and optimal routes. This kind of tactical preparation would ready you to compete in one of the thousands of Pac-Man tournaments held worldwide.

Etchells argues that this format was far less testosterone-fueled than many of Pac-Man’s competitors, which is a major reason the game resonated so deeply. “Pac-Man’s creator, Toru Iwatani, explicitly stated that he aimed to create a game that everyone could enjoy, especially including women,” he adds. “Pac-Man and its colorful sequels like 1982’s Ms. Pac-Man were different from the era’s predominantly male-oriented, shoot-’em-up games like Asteroids and Space Invaders because they focused on a much wider demographic.”

Iwatani revealed in a 2020 interview with the Washington Post that the game has deeper ties to Japanese culture than it might first appear. “I designed the ghosts to be simple and cute. This comes from Japan’s centuries-old ‘wabi-sabi’ sensibility, where people find fleeting beauty and depth in simplicity. I believe that as the world has increasingly embraced this Japanese aesthetic, more people have also embraced Pac-Man.”

Pac-Man’s Legacy Beyond the Arcade

Beyond its unique design and appeal to both male and female players globally, Pac-Man has also left an indelible mark on the world of science. The game, much like Tetris, has become a useful tool for researchers to study the problem-solving limits of human and even chimpanzee brains.

In a 2007 study by Dean Mobbs and his colleagues at the California Institute of Technology, Pac-Man players were subjected to electric shocks when they were caught by a ghost. “In this study, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) was used to see if brain activity changed when ghosts got too close. It did,” laughs Dr. Tom Garner, a senior lecturer in interactive technologies at Sheffield Hallam University.

He continues: “Monkeys have also been playing Pac-Man in recent years. Z Lin and colleagues from Cornell University (2024) discovered a link between certain patterns in monkey eye movements and their in-game decisions. The National Library of Medicine found that using Pac-Man, macaque monkeys could employ strategy-based hierarchical decision-making, a skill previously thought to be beyond the cognitive abilities of non-human animals.”

According to Garner, the reason Pac-Man was and still is loved by so many is its use of embodiment theory. “The idea of embodiment in video games describes a sense of connection between the player and the game character, blurring the lines between the game world and the real world,” he explains.

“Pac-Man was one of the first video games to place the player in the role of a character rather than a vehicle. Pac-Man was portrayed as a living entity who could convey an audible pain whenever Blinky, Pinky, Inky, or Clyde got too close. All this created a unique bond with the player.”

The Future of Pac-Man

With more than 45 years passed since its debut, Bandai Namco hopes to boost Pac-Man’s awareness among younger generations with the recently released Shadow Labyrinth. The new game takes place in a colossal sci-fi-medieval labyrinth. A mysterious character named Swordman No. 8 is guided by a sphere named Puck, a gothic and cyborg interpretation of Pac-Man’s original design. The two can also transform into a Transformer-style robotic warrior named GAIA, allowing players to overcome challenging puzzles.

Seigo Aizawa, the producer of Shadow Labyrinth, was a Pac-Man fan as a kid and believes the new game can carry on some of the original’s quirks. “I think one of the biggest reasons the world fell in love with Pac-Man was that it was one of the first games to give its characters real personalities,” he says. “Each Ghost had its own unique behavior. For example, Blinky, the relentless red Ghost who chases Pac-Man directly, and Pinky, who prefers to lay ambushes from the front. These traits were not just defined in the arcade cabinet, but also embedded in the gameplay through each Ghost’s unique AI and movement patterns.”

Thanks to an ingenious gameplay change, Pac-Man can also fight back against these eerie hunters. After consuming a “power pellet,” the hunter becomes the hunted, and Pac-Man can finally consume the ghosts on his tail, creating an easier path. You must make the most of this limited time, during which the ghosts turn blue and can be defeated for a short period. “Nothing is more satisfying than being chased by ghosts, grabbing a Power Pellet, and turning the tables on them,” Aizawa adds.

Aizawa has revealed that Bandai Namco is considering a sequel to Shadow Labyrinth. However, Nao Udagawa, the president and CEO of Bandai Namco, acknowledges that keeping the brand fresh is more challenging than with personality-driven competitors like Sega’s Sonic or Nintendo’s Mario, because Pac-Man is a silent, non-human character whose gameplay is based on such simple actions. “It is true that Pac-Man as an intellectual property has fewer characters and stories to tell compared to other video game characters like Sonic,” he says.

“However, for us, it is this simplicity that makes Pac-Man a widely recognized character among Gen Z and younger generations, even if they have never played a Pac-Man game.” Thanks to recent brand partnerships with companies like Krispy Kreme donuts and Little Lion Entertainment (an experiential company that created an immersive Pac-Man escape-room-like experience in cities like Manchester and Dubai), Udagawa is confident the game character can last another 45 years.

He declines to confirm or deny whether Pac-Man, like the famous video game hedgehog and plumber, will be getting its own films. However, the CEO does acknowledge that the plan is to expand Pac-Man into non-gaming fields: “As an IP company, we will continue to prove that Pac-Man has transcended games and achieved cultural icon status.”

Despite all the plans to keep Pac-Man current, Etchells believes the nostalgia factor is what keeps Pac-Man’s popularity alive. Specifically, he argues it’s nostalgia for an era of gaming that no longer exists in the same way—the culture of the arcade. “It reminds us of childhood days playing with friends and rivals among the buzz and neon lights of the arcades,” he says. Whatever the reason for its enduring appeal, Pac-Man remains a pop culture icon and a testament to the fact that sometimes, success is only achieved when we stop running from our ghosts and start fearlessly facing them.