Pac-Man Fever: The Marketing Juggernaut That’s Not Slowing Down

Story by @GIJoeRepairShop

Since its release by Namco in 1980, Pac-Man has been a global marketing phenomenon like no other. At its height, there was all manner of Pac-Man merchandise, little of which actually had anything at all to do with playing the video game. You may remember the Saturday morning cartoon, the cereal, the ghost-shaped coin purses to keep your quarters, or even the stickers and posters that were everywhere. As the song says, Pac-Man Fever was “driving [us] crazy!”

As an adult, I’ve come to appreciate how enduring and unusual it is that Pac-Man merchandise still sells, nearly fifty years since its introduction. Today, nearly every antiques store still carries all manner of Pac-Man merchandise. Pac-Man coffee mugs still seem to be everywhere. It begs the question of which kids were drinking coffee in the 1980s… More importantly, it shows that there was “adult” Pac-Man merchandise, even then.

Some merchandise calls into question what exactly Pac-Man is to begin with. The figure shown here has legs and arms, and feels the need to wear shoes and gloves (but never pants). In the Pac-Man cartoon, he wore red shoes, orange gloves and a red hat (but still no pants). Somehow, he’s found a way to procreate with Ms. Pac-Man and have Pac-Babies.

It’s never really explained exactly what Pac-Man is. In this way, he’s a blank canvas to make up your own stories. (In the same way that it was never really explained what Q*bert is.) It is therefore easy to tie Pac-Man into anything, including the 1984 Summer Olympics, as seen in this sticker for a “US Pac-Man team,” featuring two yellow Pac-Men, one green Pac-Man, one red Pac-Man, and one blue Pac-Man.

In 2023, a resurrected Atari Inc. introduced the Atari 2600+ console. Roughly two-thirds the size of the original Atari 2600, this modern console has the same look, feel, joystick interfaces and cartridge support as the original console. However, the console also features much-needed modern improvements, such as an HDMI output and the ability to run the entire console off of one USB-C connection. It also features the ability to run Atari 7800 cartridges. This opens up a huge number of existing games ready to be played on new hardware, including Pac-Man! If you remember the original Pac-Man game for the Atari 2600, however, you remember that it was nothing like the arcade. The graphics were pretty terrible. Enter the Pac-Man Double Feature cartridge.

This cartridge contains both the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man and the arcade-faithful Atari 7800 version. Not only that, but the 7800 version includes some other modern features, such as the ability to choose the number of Pac-Men a player starts with and an ability to randomize the mazes in each round, for those of us who have memorized the traditional mazes by now.

Throughout it all, Pac-Man remains an enduring character and marketing juggernaut. I have no doubt that this will continue for many more years to come!