How Pac-Man Is The Most Influential Game Of All Time
Doom? Metal Gear? They wouldn't be here without Pac-Man.
Although Pac-Man is considered one of gaming's founding fathers, synonymous with the medium and what your grandparents still think it looks like today, the franchise's influence on the industry is often criminally overlooked.
Sure, the iconography connected to the games is entrenched in pop-culture, showing up everywhere from Guardians of the Galaxy 2 to Adam Sandler's terrible Pixels, but gamers in general know little of its history outside of the fact that it was originally titled "Puc-Man" but was changed out of the fear vandals would scratch out the "p" and replace it with an "f" . And even that was only popularised because of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.
Lumped in with the likes of Tetris, Space Invaders and Pong, Pac-Man's impact is far more significant than it simply being one of the first video game phenomenons, as this tiny, unassuming release ended up paving the way for the industry as we know it today, all on a mere 24kb of code.