Pac-Man

On May 22, 1980 Pac-Man was released for the very first time in Japan. To this day, Pac-Man is still a household name, and we should be thanking him. Because he started a revolution in gaming. The introduction of Pac-Man to the world changed gaming from a silly past time into a mainstream activity. To this day, Pac-Man remains one of the most iconic and influential characters of the gaming era. While out for dinner at a pizza place, Toru Iwatani glanced down at his pizza after picking up a single slice, seeing the incomplete pie, he thought it looked like a head. Thus the iconic shape for Pac-Man was formed. Toru Iwatani was a developer working with the japanese electronics company called Namco, and he soon started working on a prototype to present to his boss’ at his work. Once it was completed, he presented it and it became a hit. What we know of today as Power Pellets were originally cookies and Pac-Man was called Puck-Man. Puck is the Japanese sound for munching, and since the company wished to keep along with the food theme, they decided to call it Puck-Man. Some even say that in the early stages, Pac-Man was colored like a pepperoni pizza. The food theme was used because the company wanted a game that would appeal to not only boys, but to girls as well. Puck-Man was released to world for the first time on May 22, 1980. Later that year, it was released as Pac-Man to the United States. When they decided to release Pac-Man in the states, they thought it would be prudent to change his name, due to the similarities between Puck and a certain vulgarity used here in the states.
Pac-Man is and has been important to society for so many reasons. He is one of hte most iconic video game characters of all time. Not only was he a household name, he was a pop culture phenomenon. Pac-Man was the first game that really interested girls, and to the whole family, regardless of age. Even later, as people started to illegally reproduce Pac-Man, with versions like Ms.