A
video game named PAC-Man took the market by storm
in 1981. A Japanese computer firm, Namco Limited, modeled
the game after Paku, a Japanese folk hero known for
his appetite. Bally Manufacturing bought the U.S. rights
in 1980 and turned it into a video game a year later.
The
game was simple, PAC-Man had to eat all the dots in
his maze, staying alive by running from ghosts, called
Galaxians, found in the maze. If PAC-Man ate a giant
dot, he could eat his ghostly enemies. To regain strength,
he needed to eat floating fruit in the maze.
Soon,
PAC-Man could be seen on everything from clocks, cards,
toys, and pajamas. Atari moved PAC-Man into households
with the introduction of the PAC-Man video game. This
was the start of the PAC-Man demise. Around 1982, PAC-Man
hit a slump that it never really go out of. Even the
introduction of Ms. PAC-Man did not seem to help.
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