Game designer Toru Iwatani was born on January 25, 1955 in Meguro, Tokyo, Japan. He is completely self-taught, without any formal training in computer, visual arts or graphic design. In 1977, at the age of 22, Iwatani joined NAMCO LIMITED, a computer software company in Tokyo, which produces video games. After entering the company, Iwatani finally found his place in designing games. After working for a year and five months, he completed the work of “Pac-Man” with the help of four other people, from the concept to the final product.
Iwatani pointed out in the Yahoo article that one of the main reasons he started working on Pac-Man was to develop a game that appealed to both men and women. He pointed out that during the time period of Pac-Man, most arcade games were either focused on violence or specifically targeted at men. Iwatani hoped to expand the narrow focus of the video game industry and expand the game’s appeal to a wider audience by developing games with colorful characters as well as the themes familiar to everyone.
The inspiration for his design of Pac-Man was the pizza he ate in a restaurant. When he was eating, he found that there were many women and children in the restaurant. So he suddenly remembered his original intention of designing games for women and children, so he used “food” as the theme and pizza as the shape of the protagonist Pac-Man developed such a brand new game. At first, Iwatani was questioned and opposed by others in the company, but he was firm in his own ideas. In the end, Pac-Man 1980 had no violent elements. On the contrary, it was childlike and cute, with bright and colorful elements, suitable for people of all ages. The release of Pac-Man also became a big success.
This game was first successfully launched in Japan. After exporting the game, “Pac-Man” also attracted the imagination of Americans and Europeans. Iwatani continued to design more games. His favorite was Libble Rabble, which he designed after completing the “Pac-Man” project. Then, Iwatani participated in the management of NAMCO LIMITED.
Citations
https://pacman.fandom.com/wiki/Toru_Iwatani
thanks for sharing such an interesting story. the video is super helpful to summarize the points!
Wow, what a fun history to know. Definitely learned a lot of interesting points and the pac-man video in the end really helped to summerize your points together, I should consider embed these things next time!
This was pretty interesting to read how Pac-Man was born. I like how you incorporated a video to show your research on Iwatani Toru.
It is so interesting to know the story of “PAC-MAN”. I am overwhelmed by Iwatani’s talent.