Happy Birthday Pac-Man!

The music is a dead giveaway. As soon as the tinny music turns into chomping noises, we know the pizza-shaped video game hero is off eating pac-dots and running away from ghosts. For 30 years now, kids and adults alike have been playing this maze arcade game, eating fruit, and trying to survive to the next level.

Pac-Man has surfaced in various formats over the years. At first, he was introduced as an arcade game in Japan. The idea was video games could be non-violent and unisex so the whole family could play. As a result, Pac-Man entered popular culture and caused spin offs and sequel games such as Ms. Pac-Man and cartoons about the big, yellow guy.

Are They Monsters or Ghosts?

Namco couldn't make up their mind whether Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde were monsters or ghosts in their marketing materials. These ghost monsters floated around the maze and in their natural state they cost Pac-Man a life if he ran into them. However, if Pac-Man ate a large power pellet, the monster ghosts turn blue and Pac-Man could eat them and send them back to their home base. Whether they are monsters or ghosts, they want to trap Pac-Man and take his lives.

Available on Numerous Platforms

Pac-Man is so universally popular that most game manufacturers have a version for their video game console. After the arcade game, Pac-Man was offered on the Atari 2600, Apple II Series, Commodore 64, Game Boy, and Nintendo DS. It is also available on modern Apple products including the iPod, iPod Touch, and iPhone. There are flash versions of Pac-Man available on the internet. Best of all, to celebrate Pac-Man's 30th birthday, Google redesigned its homepage to offer a playable Pac-Man game built into the Google logo.

When Pac-Man was introduced in 1980, no one thought it would turn into such a long-term successful game. Sometimes simplicity does win out and in this case it did.