January 13th 1982 saw the release of one of the most iconic games ever released. Ms. Pac-Man has some very interesting history surrounding it. First, many will claim that Ms. Pac-Man’s copyright is actually sometime in 1981 because the game says “Copyright 1981.” However, it is likely that was due to when the game was in development, and makes sense when it was released in the beginning of 1982.
One of the most interesting facts about Ms. Pac-Man is that it was developed without Namco knowing about it. Midway became impatient for the release of Super Pac-Man, the sequel to Pac-Man, which presented an interesting opportunity for General Computer Corporation, GCC.
GCC had been in the business of creating enhancement kits for games which led to a settlement with Atari for their Missile Command enhancement kit. Being leery about releasing their Crazy Otto enhancement kit for Pac-Man, GCC decided to approach Midway with the project rather than scrapping the game altogether. Midway excitedly purchased the rights for Crazy Otto and swapped the sprites to fit the Pac-Man theme.
Midway knew that a lot of women enjoyed Pac-Man, and wanted to thank those “lady arcaders.” Originally called Pac-Woman, Midway finally settled on Ms. Pac-Man. The game’s popularity skyrocketed, and earned 10th place on Game Informer’s “Top 200 Games of All Time.”
As mentioned previously, Namco wasn’t aware of Ms. Pac-Man’s development. What’s funny is that Ms. Pac-Man made a ton of money, which naturally put Midway and GCC into a legal battle concerning royalties. The case was short lived because by now Namco has heard about the game and its success. The end result was Midway and GCC turning the rights and royalties over to Namco.
But, my favorite part of the story is that Namco was so impressed by the game’s success that they adopted it into the series as one of their own. Do you think such a thing could happen today?
Want to know more? Check out Ms. Pac-Man on Wikipedia.
Gameplay footage via onvgp on Youtube
P.S. Check out how it looked on the Atari 2600
