Ms. Pac-Man was a major landmark for the video game industry. She was the first female character to make an appearance in a video game, and she promoted gaming as something that wasn’t just for boys.
But it looks like she’s getting the shaft thanks to a legal dispute. Polygon reports that a company called AtGames bought the royalty contract from GCC’s successors, and now Ms. Pac-Man won’t appear in any new games.
Why was Ms. Pac-Man removed?
While it is always unfortunate when a beloved character gets left behind, this seems to be the case for Ms. Pac-Man, at least in the eyes of Bandai Namco.
The reason why is due to a legal dispute between the two companies. As Polygon explains, Ms. Pac-Man was born from a modded version of the game called Crazy Otto created by General Computer Corporation (GCC). GCC sold an enhancement kit to Midway that changed the gameplay of the original Pac-Man and turned Crazy Otto into Ms. Pac-Man, Baby Pac-Man and a host of other variations on the character.
However, it appears that shortly after GCC sold their rights to Ms. Pac-Man to Midway, they also sold them to a third party called AtGames, who now owns the rights to the character. This means that any time Bandai Namco releases a new Ms. Pac-Man game, they have to pay royalties to AtGames first. This has lead to the character being removed from most new games and re-releases.
What happened to Ms. Pac-Man?
In the world of video game lore, it’s not uncommon for characters to disappear from the scene. Mario gets overshadowed by Donkey Kong Jr, Galaga and Mr Game & Watch never get their due, and now Ms Pac-Man has been left behind for good.
As it turns out, this was because of a legal dispute. According to VGC, Namco licensed the Ms Pac-Man title to multiple “plug & play” handheld game manufacturers, who then released their own Ms Pac-Man-branded machines, based on NES-like technology. This allowed them to circumvent a contract between GCC and Namco that would have otherwise required them to pay royalties.
Bandai Namco sued these companies (which, incidentally, also made throwback mini-consoles and arcade cabinets) and one of the firms did a deal with GCC to acquire the alleged royalty interest owed by Namco. This resulted in the rewriting of Ms. Pac-Man’s character history to exclude her and replace her with a presumably more lucrative imposter.
Why was Ms. Pac-Man remade?
For all the talk of Pac-Man being a cultural icon, it sure does seem to be getting dragged through a lot of legal muck. A dispute between Bandai Namco and mini arcade developer AtGames is keeping Pac-Man — specifically Ms. Pac-Man — out of the new Pac-Man World Re-Pac and upcoming Pac-Man Museum + collection because of a petty royalty dispute from the 1980s.
Ms. Pac-Man was not developed by Namco as an approved sequel to the original game, but rather started out as an unauthorized hack called Crazy Otto from General Computer Corporation that gave Pac-Man legs. Bally Midway was desperate for a Pac-Man followup and agreed to buy the rights to GCC’s game so they could release it with their own label.
To avoid any confusion over who was supposed to be leading the pack, the Midway team added a bow and lipstick to the female character’s design and called her Ms. Pac-Man (the third animation sequence even has the two of them having a baby together). The Ms. Pac-Man that made it to the Genesis, Master System, and NES versions of the game improved upon the original in a number of ways including adding four different color mazes, moving the prize fruit around, and giving the ghosts a bit more intelligence with a dash of randomness to their movement patterns.
What is Ms. Pac-Man?
One of the most iconic video game characters ever created is getting rewritten. For the first time in gaming history, Ms. Pac-Man will be replaced by her daughter, Pac-Mom, in a new release of the classic maze-navigating game from Bandai Namco.
Ms. Pac-Man is the deuteragonist of Namco’s iconic pill-eating maze game. She is the wife of Pac-Man and the mother of Jr. and Baby Pac-Man. In the games, she navigates a maze with the same aims as her husband, eating all of the Power Pellets while avoiding the ghosts Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Sue.
The character first appeared in the unauthorized hack Ms. Pac-Man by General Computer Corporation, which was released as a Bally Midway game to avoid another lawsuit with Atari over a similar hack (Super Missile Attack). Namco later approved a licensed sequel to Ms. Pac-Man, and it featured a different color scheme and a redesign of the main character to be female.
