In 1982, Atari Inc. (Atari) released a
portIn computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
of
Namco, is a Japanese corporation best known as a former video game developer and publisher. The company is most famous for creating Pac-Man, the best-selling arcade game in history...
's hit arcade game
Pac-Manis an arcade game developed by Namco and licensed for distribution in the U.S. by Midway, first released in Japan on May 22, 1980. Immensely popular in the United States from its original release to the present day, Pac-Man is universally considered as one of the classics of the medium, virtually...
for their
Atari 2600The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in...
video game console. Like the original arcade version, the player controls the titular character with a joystick. The object is to traverse a maze, collecting all the wafers within while avoiding four ghosts.
The game was programmed by Todd Frye, who was given a limited time frame by Atari to complete the project. The technical differences between the Atari 2600 console and the original's arcade hardware—particularly the amount of available memory—presented several challenges to Frye. Given the popularity of the property, Atari produced 12 million units, anticipating a high number of sales.
While the port sold 7 million copies and is the best-selling Atari 2600 title, it was critically panned. Critics focused on the gameplay and audio-visual differences from the arcade version. Customers returned the game in large quantities. Initially, the port boosted the video game industry's presence in retail, but has since been cited as a contributing factor to the North American video game crash of 1983. It was followed by Atari 2600 ports of
Pac-Mans arcade sequels.
Gameplay
Pac-Man is a port of the original arcade game, which was released by Namco in 1980, and features similar gameplay. The player uses a joystick to navigate the round, yellow titular character, who starts each game at the center of a maze. The goal is to "eat" wafers scattered throughout the maze by moving Pac-Man over them, while avoiding four ghosts. Each time Pac-Man comes into contact with a ghost, he "dies", losing a life and reappearing at the center of the maze. When Pac-Man runs out of lives, the game ends. Four of the wafers are larger ones (called power-pills) that temporarily makes the character invulnerable to the ghosts. During this time, Pac-Man can "eat" the ghosts for additional points, after which the ghosts will respawn. Extra points are also awarded when Pac-Man "eats" special items that occasionally appear. Once the player collects all the wafers in a stage, the level is completed and the player progress to the next level. Differences from the original include a different maze pattern and orientation. In-game items—like the wafers, vitamins, and power pills—differ from their arcade counterparts in name and appearance, but still serve the same functions.
Development
In the late 1970s, Atari acquired the rights to produce home versions of Namco's arcade games. After
Pac-Man proved to be a success in the United States, Atari decided to produce a home port for their
Atari 2600The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in...
console. The company believed the conversion would be simple because the arcade's success was attributed to the gameplay rather than impressive visuals. Development took around five months; the process started in late 1981 and finished in March 1982. At the time, Atari projected that 10 million consoles were still actively used by video game enthusiasts. Atari decided to produce 12 million game cartridges, anticipating that every active Atari 2600 owner would purchase the game. Management also believed 2 million new people would purchase the system to play it, and predicted sales to reach at least 500 million
United States dollarThe United States dollar is the unit of currency of the United States. The U.S. dollar is normally abbreviated as the dollar sign, $, or as USD or US$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies and from others that use the $ symbol. It is divided into 100 cents .The U.S...
s.
Programming was handled by Todd Frye, who completed the task in 6 weeks. The game uses a 4
KBThe kilobyte is a unit of digital information storage equal to either 1,000 bytes or 1,024 bytes , depending on context....
ROM cartridge}A ROM cartridge is a removable cartridge that contains read-only memory devices and, commonly, flash memory devices to allow some read-write capability. A video game ROM cartridge is sometimes informally known as a cart...
, chosen for its lower manufacturing costs compared to 8KB cartridges, which had just become available at the time. After Atari acquired the rights to produce the game, Frye began work on a prototype version. The company wanted to release the prototype to capitalize on the 1981 holiday season. During the development, Frye threatened to leave Atari for
ActivisionActivision, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles. Its first products were cartridges for the Atari 2600...
unless he received
royaltiesRoyalties are usage-based payments made by one party to another for ongoing use of an asset, sometimes an intellectual property right. Royalties are typically a percentage of gross or net sales derived from use of an asset or a fixed price per unit sold of an item...
for the game. Atari president
Ray KassarRaymond E. Kassar was president, and later CEO, of Atari Inc. from 1978 to 1983. He had previously been vice-president of Burlington Industries, a textile company....
agreed to Frye's demands, fearing that losing the programmer would lead to delays and loss of profits. Frye received a
dimeThe dime is a coin worth ten cents or one tenth of a United States dollar. The dime is the smallest in diameter and the thinnest of all U.S. coins currently minted for circulation. The 32nd President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, is featured on the obverse of the current design, while a torch, oak...
($0.10) for each
Pac-Man cartridge sold. Development was hindered by the technical differences between the original
Pac-Mans hardware and that of the Atari 2600. The original's arcade boards stored four times as much
read-only memoryRead-only memory is a class of storage media used in computers and other electronic devices. Because data stored in ROM cannot be modified , it is mainly used to distribute firmware .In its strictest sense, ROM...
(ROM) in addition to 2KB of both video and general
random-access memoryRandom-access memory is a form of computer data storage. Today, it takes the form of integrated circuits that allow stored data to be accessed in any order...
(RAM). The memory types are used to store and switch between graphical
spritesIn computer graphics, a sprite is a two-dimensional/three-dimensional image or animation that is integrated into a larger scene....
. By contrast, the Atari 2600 had only 128
BA byte is a unit of information storage representing the smallest addressable element for a given computer architecture. It often designates a sequence of bits whose length is determined by the architecture...
(1/16th of the arcade board) of general RAM and none dedicated to video.
With limited memory, Frye simplified the shape of the maze with block corners as opposed to rounded ones and a less intricate pattern of corridors. The round, white pellets in the original were changed to rectangular, brown ones for the Atari 2600. This change was to consolidate resources by using the same sprite used to create the walls. To achieve the visual effect of wafers disappearing after Pac-Man eats them, the console redraws the entire maze and wafers, excluding those that had been eaten. The sprites were animated differently to accommodate technical limitations. The Pac-Man character sprite as well as the maze and wafers sprites are drawn every frame, while the four ghosts are drawn at intervals. The four different ghosts take turns displaying on the screen and only one ghost is present at any given time, which creates a flickering effect. This effect takes advantage of the slow
phosphorescentPhosphorescence is a specific type of photoluminescence related to fluorescence. Unlike fluorescence, a phosphorescent material does not immediately re-emit the radiation it absorbs. The slower time scales of the re-emission are associated with "forbidden" energy state transitions in quantum...
fade of CRT monitors and the concept of
persistence of visionPersistence of vision is the phenomenon of the eye by which an afterimage is thought to persist for approximately one twenty-fifth of a second on the retina....
, resulting in the image appearing on screen longer than once every four frames.
After seeing the game, marketing manager Frank Ballouz felt that enthusiasts would not want to play it. He informed Kassar, however, his opinion was dismissed. To help the sale of the port, Atari promoted and protected their exclusive licensing of
Pac-Man. Atari ran newspaper ads and promoted the product in catalogs, describing it as differing "slightly from the original". Legal action was taken against companies that released clones similar to
Pac-Man for home consoles. For example, Atari sued
PhilipsKoninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , most commonly known as Philips, is a Dutch electronics company.Philips is one of the largest electronics companies in the world. In 2007, its sales were €26.79 billion...
for its 1981
Magnavox Odyssey²The Magnavox Odyssey², known in Europe as the Philips Videopac G7000, in Brazil as the Philips Odyssey, in the United States as the Magnavox Odyssey² and the Philips Odyssey², and also by many other names, is a video game console released in 1978.In the early 1970s, Magnavox was an innovator in the...
game
MunchkinMunchkin is cartridge number 38 in the official Magnavox/Philips line of games for the Philips Videopac. In North America for the Odyssey² it was called K.C. Munchkin!, an inside reference to then president of Philips Consumer Electronics Kenneth C...
and obtained a
preliminary injunctionA preliminary injunction, in equity, is an injunction entered by a court prior to a determination of the merits of a legal case, in order to restrain a party from going forward with a course of conduct until the case has been decided. If the case is decided against the party that has been...
against the company to prevent the sale of
Munchkin cartridges. Several retailers assisted Atari with the release of the game.
J. C. PenneyJames Cash Penney was a businessman and entrepreneur. In 1902, he founded the J.C. Penney stores.-Early life:...
was the first retailer to launch a nation-wide advertising campaign on television for a software title. Continuing a long-standing relationship between it and
SearsSears, officially named Sears, Roebuck and Co., is an American mid-range chain of international department stores which was founded by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Roebuck in the late 19th century...
, Atari also produced
Pac-Man catridges under the department store's label.
Reception
Anticipation for the game was high.
Goldman SachsThe Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is a bank holding company that engages in investment banking, securities services and investment management. Goldman Sachs was founded in 1869, and is headquartered in the Lower Manhattan area of New York City at 85 Broad Street and has its secondary office at 30...
analyst Richard Simon predicted the sale of 9 million units during 1982, which would yield a profit of $200 million.
Pac-Man met with initial commercial success, selling 7 million copies and eventually becoming the best-selling Atari 2600 title. However, purchases soon slowed and, by summer 1982, unsold copies were still in large quantities. Many buyers returned the games for refunds, and Atari was left with 5 million excess copies in addition to the returns. By 2004, the cartridges were still very common among collectors and enthusiasts—though the Sears versions were more rare—and priced at low amounts.
Critics negatively compared the port to its original arcade form, panning the audio-visuals and gameplay. In 1983,
Creative ComputingCreative Computing was one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution. Published from 1974 until December 1985, Creative Computing covered the whole spectrum of hobbyist/home/personal computing in a more accessible format than the rather technically-oriented BYTE. The magazine...
Video & Arcade Games reviewer Danny Goodman commented that the game fails as a replica of its arcade form. Conversely, he stated that such criticism was unfair because the hardware could not properly emulate the arcade game. Goodman further said that the port is a challenging maze game in its own right, and it would have been a success if fans had not expected to play a game closer to the original. In 1998,
Next Generation MagazineNext Generation Magazine was a video game magazine that was made by Imagine Media publishing company . It was affiliated to and shared editorial with the UK's Edge magazine. Next Generation ran from January 1995 until January 2002...
called it the "worst coin-op conversion of all time", and attributed the mass dissatisfaction to its poor quality. In 2006, IGN's Craig Harris echoed similar statements and listed it as the worst arcade conversion, citing poor audio-visuals that did not resemble the original. Another IGN editor, Levi Buchanan, described it as a "disastrous port", citing the color scheme and flickering ghosts. Sklyer Miller of
AllgameAllgame is a commercial database of information about arcade games, video games and console manufacturers.Allgame is owned by All Media Guide, along with Allmusic and Allmovie....
said that although the game was only a "passing resemblance" to the original, it was charming despite its many differences and faults.
Ed LoggEd Logg was an arcade video game designer, employed first at Atari and after at Atari Games. He co-developed the video game Asteroids with Lyle Rains. Other games designed or co-designed by Logg include Centipede, Millipede, the Gauntlet series, and the San Francisco Rush series.-External links:* *...
, a former lead designer at Atari, considered the development a rushed, "lousy" effort. Frye did not express regret over his part in
Pac-Mans port and felt he made the best decisions he could at the time. However, Frye stated that he would have done things differently with a larger capacity ROM. Video game industry researchers
Nick MontfortNick Montfort is an assistant professor of digital media at MIT in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies. He is also a poet, computer scientist, and author of interactive fiction. His collaborative literary projects include The Ed Report, 2002, Implementation, and Mystery House Taken Over...
and
Ian BogostIan Bogost is an Associate Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a prominent video game researcher and designer at the independent game studio he co-founded, Persuasive Games.-External links:**** VIDEO on...
attribute the poor reception to the technical differences between the 1977 Atari 2600 console and the 1980 arcade hardware used in
Pac-Man cabinets. They further stated that the conversion is a lesson in maintaining the social and cultural context of the original source. Montfort and Bogost commented that players were disappointed with the flickering visual effect, which made the ghosts difficult to track and tired the players' eyes. The two further said that the effect diminishes the ghosts' personalities present in the arcade version. Chris Kohler of
Wired NewsWired News is an online technology news website, formerly known as HotWired, that split off from Wired magazine when the magazine was purchased by Condé Nast Publishing in the 1990s. Condé Nast purchased Wired News on 11 July 2006...
commented that game was poorly received upon its release and in contemporary times because of the poor quality. However, he further described the game as an impressive technical achievement given its console's limitations.
Impact and legacy
Initially, the excitement generated by
Pac-Mans home release prompted retail stores to expand their inventory to sell video games. Drugstores began stocking video game cartridges, and toy retailers vied for new releases.
KmartKmart is a chain of discount department stores in the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam. The chain acquired Sears in 2005, forming a new corporation under the name Sears Holdings Corporation...
and J. C. Penney competed against Sears to become the largest vendor of video games. The game's release also led to an increase in sales of the Atari 2600 console.
In retrospect, however, critics often cite Atari's
Pac-Man as a major factor in the drop of consumer confidence in the company, which led to the North American video game crash of 1983. Bill Loguidice and Matt Barton of
GamasutraGamasutra is a website founded in 1997 for video game developers. It is owned and operated by Think Services , a division of United Business Media, and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine Game Developer...
stated that the game's poor quality damaged the company's reputation. Buchanan commented that it disappointed millions of fans and diminished confidence in Atari's games. Former
Next Generation editor-in-chief Neil West attributes his longtime skepticism of Atari's quality to the disappointment he had from buying the game as a child. Calling the game the top video game disaster, Buchanan credits
Pac-Man as a factor to the downfall of Atari and the industry in the 1980s. Author
Steven KentSteven L. Kent is an American writer, known for both video game journalism and military science fiction novels. In 1993, Steven started work as a freelance journalist, writing monthly video game reviews for the Seattle Times...
also attributes the game, along with Atari's
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, to severely damaging the company's reputation and profitability. Montfort and Bogost stated that the game's negative reception seeded mistrust in retailers, which was reinforced by later factors that culminated in the crash.
Poor critical reception made this game one of many decisions that led to Atari's report of a $536 million loss in 1983 and the division and sale of the company's Consumer Division in 1984. On December 7, 1982, Kassar announced that Atari's revenue forecasts for 1982 were cut from a 50 percent increase over 1981 to a 15 percent increase. Immediately following the announcement, Warner Communications' stock value dropped by around 35 percent—from $54 to $35—amounting to a loss of $1.3 billion in the company's
market valuationMarket-based valuation is a form of stock valuation that refers to market indicators, also called "extrinsic" criteria .- Examples of market valuation methods :...
. Atari attempted to regain its market share by licensing popular arcade games for its consoles. The revenue from selling these console games did not reverse Atari's decline and the company went further into debt. In 1983, the company decreased its workforce by 30 percent and lost $356 million.
In late-1982, Atari ported
Pac-Man to their new console, the
Atari 5200The Atari 5200 SuperSystem, or simply the Atari 5200, is a video game console that was introduced in 1982 by Atari Inc. as a replacement for the famous Atari 2600. The 5200 was created to compete with the Intellivision, but wound up more directly competing with the ColecoVision shortly after its...
. This version was a more accurate conversion of the original arcade game, and was a launch title for the console, along with eleven other games. The port was also followed by conversions of
Pac-Mans arcade sequels,
Ms. Pac-ManMs. Pac-Man is an arcade video game produced by Midway as an unauthorized sequel to Pac-Man. It was released in North America in 1981 and became one of the most popular video games of all time, leading to its adoption by Pac-Man licenser Namco as an official title...
and
Jr. Pac-ManJr. Pac-Man is an arcade game released in 1983 by Bally Midway. It is based on Pac-Man and its derivatives, but is not officially part of the Pac-Man series—along with Baby Pac-Man, this game was created without the authorization of Namco...
, for the Atari 2600. Both were better received than Atari's first
Pac-Man title.
Ms. Pac-Man, for example, features a larger ROM cartridge and addressed many critics' complaints of
Pac-Man.