Writer of Pop Culture

This Day in Pop Culture for May 22

1980: Pac-Man Arrives

On this day in 1980, the legendary arcade game, Pac-Man was released by Namco and made his debut in Japan. He made his way over to the states by October of the same year. As you may remember, the game was hugely popular with tons of tie-in merchandise created, a TV cartoon show and even a top-ten hit. At the time of his arrival, arcade games were focused on shooting games which mainly appealed to males, but Pac-Man appealed to both genders. It is one of the highest-grossing video games of all time having generated over $2.5 billion in quarters by the 1990’s! To this day, more than 30 official “spin-offs” of the game have been produced. Pac-Man also has the highest “brand-awareness” of all video game characters among Americans – being recognized by 94 percent of them. He’s the “golden arches” of video games.