List of Pac-Man rumors

This page details rumors and common misinformation about the Pac-Man series.
== 1980s media ==
=== The "pizza" origin story ===
One of the most widespread rumors about Pac-Man out there is the "origin story" of Pac-Man. As stated by Toru Iwatani, the concept for the Pac-Man character is said to have come from Iwatani seeing "a pizza with one slice missing". This supposedly formed the concept for Pac-Man, with the missing slice being the basis for Pac-Man's mouth. The claim has gone on to be featured in numerous pieces of media; it is a staple of video game documentaries and guide books and has even inspired official Pac-Man-pizza products (e.g. Pac-Man Pizza Parlor and a 2021 Pizza Hut promotion).
However, for as much as it is spread, the pizza story is almost certainly not true. Iwatani has gone on record to say the pizza claim is a "half-truth", as early as 1986. He explained that Pac-Man's shape was designed by heavily rounding the Japanese kanji for "mouth" (口, Kuchi), with the indented bottom of the symbol being where Pac-Man's mouth was derived from.https://archive.org/details/programmersatwor00lamm_0/page/266 (mentioned on page 266)
Going even further back, however, even the kanji explanation is likely a half-truth at best. Contrary to popular belief, Pac-Man first appeared in the 70s as a toy series by Tomy - predating the video game by six years. It remains unclear if Namco and Iwatani took inspiration from Tomy's toy line, or if it was some sort of bizarre coincidence; but the latter seems unlikely, as the Japanese names of both Tomy and Namco's products (パックマン, Pakkuman) were identical. Regardless, due to Tomy's Pac-Man character being a 3D sphere as opposed to a flat circle, it being derived from a pizza or kanji character is unlikely.
In the Pac-Man: Birth of an Icon book, several instances of interview quotes from Toru Iwatani are gathered, highlighting inconsistencies in different iterations of the pizza story. For instance, most reports state that Iwatani went to a restaurant and ordered pizza; though in one specific interview, Iwatani conflictingly states he "researched a keyword" related to eating and found an "image" of pizza that inspired him. In one interview with journalist Chris Hohler, Iwatani stated that the pizza story has "[...] already been passed into legend, so I'm going to stick with [the story]"."Pac-Man: Birth of an Icon", page 52
In a 2017 interview with Masanobu Endo, the creator of Namco's Xevious, Endo states that the "pizza" story was fabricated after Pac-Man's release. Endo claims that Pac-Man's pizza resemblance was noticed shortly after the character's creation; but it was not the "inspiration", with Pac-Man merely being a yellow circle conceptually. Endo states that "the media inflated this story", and that Namco/Iwatani ran with it. In recent years, Iwatani and Endo have had discussions about the pizza story (as both are professors at Tokyo Polytechnic University) - with Endo implying the record will eventually be set straight.https://nlab.itmedia.co.jp/nl/articles/1702/02/news085.html
Given the pizza origin story is often utilized in marketing, it is possible that the story was formed for marketing purposes; or at least an attempt to have a "good story" surrounding Pac-Man's creation.
=== Namco's approval of Bally Midway's Pac-Man games ===
In the early 1980s, Bally Midway published many of its own Pac-Man games in North America - which did not receive official distribution in Japan. These include Ms. Pac-Man, Baby Pac-Man, and Jr. Pac-Man, among others. In most cases, the games were developed by General Computer Corporation (henceforth "GCC"), or other contractor developers. Due to the confusing nature of these releases, many are under the impression that they were produced without permission from Namco. This can also be indicated by - save for Ms. Pac-Man - none of the Bally Midway games receiving home console ports from Namco.
In regards to Ms. Pac-Man, it has been confirmed by the GCC staff that Masaya Nakamura, the founder of Namco, was contacted regarding the game. Upon seeing the game - in its "Pac-Woman" prototype stage - Nakamura replied "Love the concept, get rid of the hair". This led to the Ms. Pac-Man character being redesigned (to add the iconic red bow instead of hair), to fit with Nakamura's request. As such, not only was Namco aware of Ms. Pac-Man and willing to license it, but they were directly involved with its development as well.
As for Midway's other titles, there is technically no direct proof that Namco was contacted about them. However, they were all still produced under official contract; and Namco of Japan would occasionally showcase them in Japanese media (such as in issues of NG Magazine). Starting in 1984 with Pac-Land, Namco began using Midway's characters extensively, in both America and Japan. In any case, Namco never seemed to take any sort of issue with Midway's Pac-Man installments.
In some very specific scenarios, however, there were possibly a handful of Midway releases that Namco may have disapproved of. Namely, obscure titles like Muncher on the Bally Astrocade, and a few court case rulings where Midway briefly "licensed" bootleg Pac-Man products (as occurred with Entex's PacMan2). Namco has never acknowledged these games, at the time or in retrospect, which may show that they were truly produced without permission.
=== Pac-Man's "Golden Bars" and "Screwdrivers" ===
One of the earliest Pac-Man rumors, circulating in the early 80s, relates to two supposed "fruits" that appear on higher levels. According to the rumor, "Golden Bars" would begin appearing after a select amount of Keys were eaten, and would award 10,000 points each. Following this would be "Screwdrivers", which would award 25,000 points each. The rumor also claimed that "some Pac-Man machines had them, [while others] did not".https://www.mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/spies.cgi?action=url&type=info&page=pmgoldbar.info.txt
In modern times, this claim is easy to disprove. There is no data relating to anything resembling gold bars or screwdrivers in the game's code; nor are they present in any home ports. However, the rumor was rather commonly circulated in its era. The strange claim even made it into some book publications; such as in Tom Hirschfeld's "How to Master the Video Games", which alludes to "...a series of gold and silver bars"https://archive.org/details/book_how_to_master_video_games (mentioned on page 112). As to where the rumor came from, or how it became so widespread, remains unclear.
=== Jeffrey R. Yee's high scores ===
Perhaps the most infamous of Pac-Man rumors, and one that is commonly agreed to have been fabricated. In 1982, a young boy named Jeffrey R. Yee claimed to have achieved a score of 6,131,940 points in Pac-Man. In some early high score charts, Jeffrey's score was considered the world record for the game. Jeffrey received some small-scale publicity from the score; including a TV appearance in Just Kidding, alongside another young player, Ricky Mori.https://youtu.be/EPN1GcLPG4s Following the claimed score, then-current President Ronald Reagan sent a letter of congratulations to Jeffrey; saying "You're really incredible, Jeffrey; you're only eight years-old".https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/41499
As confirmed by modern research, the maximum score achievable in Pac-Man is 3,333,360 points; meaning Jeffrey's claimed score was nearly double of what was physically possible. Furthermore, Jeffrey was inconsistent with his score claims; often saying completely different numbers in different publications. In his Just Kidding appearance, he claims his high score was "5,844,040 points", and loses his game rather quickly. He seemed to be making up excuses for losing; claiming the maze was "vibrating" and slowing Pac-Man down.
An anonymous source, claiming to have known the Yee family, has stated that Jeffrey admitted to staging the score in 1988. According to the source, Jeffrey combined multiple games' scores together, to form the impossible score.https://atariage.com/forums/topic/168172-jeffrey-r-yee/?do=findComment&comment=2099742 Ricky Mori has also theorized this to have been the case.https://www.twingalaxies.com/feed_details.php/6143/the-ballad-of-the-pac-man-king/25 While this conclusion seems plausible, it has not been verified.
Curiously, Jeffrey Yee's score was never submitted into the Twin Galaxies leaderboards. While this could be seen as further evidence of cheating, it was likely due to another fake (and even more exaggerated) score of 8.1 million points being at the top of the charts at the time.
=== Atari 2600 Pac-Man development rumors ===
Many rumors have spread surrounding the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man. The majority of these rumors purport to provide "reasoning" as to the game's poor qualities; many of which, according to statements from Atari programmers, are either false or are misinterpretations of unrelated events.
In 2015, the now-defunct "Ataribook" website compiled a list of common Atari 2600 Pac-Man rumors, and asked the port's sole programmer, Tod Frye, to confirm their veracity.https://web.archive.org/web/20150927204730/http://ataribook.com/book/what-are-the-real-facts-behind-pac-mans-development/ These rumors include the following:
*Many sources allege that Pac-Man on Atari 2600 was rushed through development in order to release by Christmas of 1981. In actuality, Pac-Man had roughly four months of development time, which was Atari's standard for the time period; though Frye did work long hours in order to get the game finished by that deadline. Frye also states that he rushed himself a bit on developing Pac-Man, though Atari's management did not (or at least not directly). Additionally, the game released in March of 1982, disproving the claim that it was rushed for Christmas.
**In 2007, game developer Scott Jacobi posted a retelling of questions he asked Frye in the 1990s (as they both worked at 3DO at the time). According to Jacobi's report, Frye showed a prototype of Pac-Man to Atari executives, which Frye considered largely unfinished. However, Atari felt the game was "playable" enough, and asked Frye to only slightly polish up his demo for release.https://forums.atariage.com/topic/81989-pacman4k/page/6/#comment-1353919 This explanation is more plausible than the more generalized rumor(s), though still contradicts other statements from Frye.
*Another common rumor is that Tod Frye produced (or considered producing) an "alternate" version of Pac-Man running on 8K of memory; whereas the final revision uses 4K, and was allegedly "inferior" as a result. Frye states that this claim "came from thin air", though it seems to be more of a misconception. In a meeting with Atari (after 2600 Pac-Man was already finished), Frye claimed he "could have done [Pac-Man] better with 8K";https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTDUB_GiTKA (mentioned at 16:53) no actual prototyping was done on a potential 8K version.
*One particularly exaggerated rumor is that Tod Frye, two-thirds through Pac-Man's development, went to Atari CEO Ray Kassar's office and demanded a $0.10 (USD) royalty per Pac-Man cartridge produced. Frye was indirectly responsible for Atari creating a royalty-per-cartridge program for developers; however, this was completely unrelated to Pac-Man, and the game was already fully finished by that point. The royalty system was created due to Frye planning to leave the company, with the royalty plan issued as enticement for him (and others) to stay at Atari.
*Bob Palaro, another Atari 2600 programmer, was initially asked by Atari to develop Pac-Man before Tod Frye; however, Palaro turned this offer down, as he was working on the 2600 port of Defender at the time. Possibly from a misunderstanding of this, some sources state that Palaro dismissed the offer out of believing Pac-Man wasn't feasible on the 2600 hardware; when in actuality, this was not the case.
*One claim states that the "head of marketing" at Atari got cold feet about Pac-Man late into development, and requested the game be outright canceled. Surprisingly, this claim does have a level of truth to it; however, it was stated by the marketing head of Atari's arcade division, Frank Ballouz. The console division's marketing team did not take issue with the game, nor did they take Ballouz's advice.
*Some sources state that Atari massively overproduced 2600 Pac-Man cartridges, in a similar manner to E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial. While Atari did produce a high amount of Pac-Man cartridges, the number produced has been argued as actually being rather conservative; particularly as Pac-Man was made the pack-in game with the 2600 console following its release.
Additionally, Tod Frye has stated that the main reason behind the game having strange colors (i.e. a brown maze on a blue background) was due to Atari having a policy that solid black backgrounds should only be used in space-themed games; but was also partly a creative decision by Frye. Despite this, other Atari employees from the time period have stated they do not recall a "black background" restriction, leading to some believing this was a misremembering from Frye.
=== Ms. Pac-Man Plus and Super Ms. Pac-Man ===
Following the release of Pac-Man Plus and Super Pac-Man, two Ms. Pac-Man equivalents - titled "Ms. Pac-Man Plus" and "Super Ms. Pac-Man" - were produced as well. Both games are merely maze hacks of the original Ms. Pac-Man - lacking the new features that Pac-Man's similarly-named titles brought.
Ms. Pac-Man Plus is the more well-documented of the two (though it is often mistakenly referred to as "Ms. Pac-Attack"). For many years, only a 1997 recreation was emulated in MAME, which was missing certain pieces of data. An alternate, more complete version was emulated in August 2022, titled "Miss Packman Plus" [sic]; MAME claims that this is the original release of the game.MAME 0.247, "pacman.cpp" source code notes Super Ms. Pac-Man is much more obscure and is not available in MAME. It is said that only three copies are known to exist, though at least one gameplay recording has surfaced.https://youtu.be/gCOO_WhZP2U
The rumor-bound element is in relation to if the games were produced/licensed by Bally Midway, or if they were just small-scale bootlegs. Both titles show signs of being licensed; Ms. Pac-Man Plus retains the Bally Midway copyrights on its marquee, which a bootleg would be very unlikely to do. However, if the "Miss Packman Plus" version is truly the original release, it is almost certainly a bootleg. It has been claimed that Super Ms. Pac-Man was part of an internal giveaway inside of Bally Midway, for employees only."There is a super ms pacman board out there that has a ROM set that was only given out to people that worked at Bally back in the 80's [.]" https://forums.arcade-museum.com/threads/has-anyone-ever-seen-this-ms-pacman-hack.463238/post-4093767 Due to both titles' obscurity, it remains unconfirmed if the games really were licensed, or if they were merely knock-offs.
=== Pac-Man version of Food Fight ===
Food Fight (also known as "Charley Chuck's Food Fight") is an arcade game published by Atari in 1983. The game was developed by General Computer Corporation (henceforth "GCC"), following their court settlement with Atari and the development of Crazy Otto, a game which was reworked into Ms. Pac-Man.
In 2019, Steve Golson held a presentation at a "Retro World Expo" detailing his career at GCC. One game discussed in this presentation was Food Fight, in which various early design documents were shown. One of these documents appears to show that Crazy Otto - as he appeared in the Ms. Pac-Man prototypes - was initially planned to be the main character of Food Fight. This design was later revised into what appears to be the "red-eyed" Pac-Man seen on the North American arcade artwork; this may also suggest the game was initially designed for Midway rather than Atari."Ms. Pac-Man, Food Fight, Quantum, and the rest: Arcade Game Design at GCC", pg 33 (note: clicking link will download document)
However, the actual Retro World Expo talk was not recorded or transcribed; the slideshow used at the presentation was released on Golson's website without further notation.https://trilobyte.com/papers/ While Golson has held numerous similar presentations, none have discussed the same Food Fight documents present in the Retro World slideshow. As such, the exact details of the Pac-Man/Crazy Otto characters' involvement with the game are unknown, or if they were ever intended to be the final graphics used.
=== Pac-Pengo ===
Over the years, there have been a handful of recollections online regarding a game titled "Pac-Pengo"; a crossover with Pac-Man and Sega's Pengo. The implication seems to be that it was test-marketed by Bally Midway, but never entered full production. Other sources seem to conclude that it was just a bootleg hack, and was not officially produced by Midway. Further backing up the Pac-Pengo claims is a government-owned Chinese website, which features Pac-Pengo on a list of approved arcade games allowed in the region.https://www.hadla.gov.hk/cgi-bin/hadlanew/game.pl?select=1&page=11
== 1990s media ==
=== Arcade version of Pac-Attack ===
While Pac-Attack was initially released on the Sega Genesis and SNES, it has been stated that an arcade version was produced as well. This claim likely originates from a list of "unMAMEd Namco Games", where the author cites seeing a Pac-Attack arcade machine in the early 90s. However, the author adds that it may have been some sort of "custom-built" cabinet running a home console version.https://unmamed.mameworld.info/non_namco.html#PacAttack Other than this claim, no true evidence for a Pac-Attack arcade machine has been found. It should be noted, though, that Cosmo Gang: The Puzzle - a game which was reworked into Pac-Attack - did debut as an arcade title.
=== The questioning of Billy Mitchell's "perfect Pac-Man game" ===
In 1999, Billy Mitchell purportedly set the highest score physically possible in Pac-Man: a score of 3,333,360 points. This was (and often still is) commonly credited as being the "first perfect Pac-Man game"; in that, there was seemingly no one who had ever achieved the feat beforehand.
In recent years, however, there have been attempts to disprove the claim. Frequent "exposes" on the subject of Billy Mitchell's Pac-Man game arose after a series of allegations regarding his Donkey Kong scores; with much evidence showing his record games were potentially staged. Following the Donkey Kong disputes, Mitchell was stripped of all of his long-standing Twin Galaxies records, including his "perfect Pac-Man" score.https://web.archive.org/web/20180412132043/https://www.twingalaxies.com/feed_details.php/1047/billy-mitchells-donkey-kong-and-all-other-records-removed/4
One common point of contradiction with Billy Mitchell's game is that, in actuality, he was not the first person to achieve a perfect Pac-Man game. One example of this is with player Bill Bastable - who achieved the same perfect score over a decade earlier, in 1988. However, Bastable altered DIP switches to momentarily "freeze" the game (in order to make the process slightly more manageable); while Mitchell claims his game was done without pausing. Various similar claims of earlier perfect games are circulated - none of which got the attention that Mitchell's 1999 game did.
The truth of the matter is that Namco, while promoting the Billy Mitchell story, was likely unaware of any earlier perfect scores being achieved. However, this leads to another point of question; it is evident that Namco and Twin Galaxies were cooperating in order to promote the Pac-Man brand, using Mitchell's high score as a point of publicity. Ironically, many of Mitchell's cited "awards" from Namco themselves are effectively advertisements for Pac-Man World, and Namco actually verifying the authenticity of the "perfect score" was likely more of an afterthought."The Video Game Fraud of the Century", Dots 6-9 (https://perfectpacman.com/)
Due to the numerous "little white lies" spanning much of Mitchell's career, it is difficult to determine what is true or false regarding the "perfect Pac-Man game". In actuality, there is no direct proof that the Pac-Man score was even achieved; while fully recorded on tape, the footage has strangely never been published. This has led to theories that Billy Mitchell actually lost on level 256, not even reaching the perfect score; however, there is no way to truly confirm this, in either direction.
==== Lawsuits ====
Billy Mitchell has filed numerous lawsuits (or threats of lawsuits) against individuals who have spoken against him. Notable parties that Mitchell has sued include Twin Galaxies, Guinness World Records, fellow Pac-Man player David Race, and two YouTubers, Apollo Legend and Karl Jobst. Many of these parties eventually reached settlement agreements with Mitchell; which generally amounted to the defendants rescinding negative articles/videos on Mitchell, and/or "reinstating" awards and high score records.
Some of these lawsuits have highlighted more indicators of foul play from Mitchell. In the Twin Galaxies lawsuit, a claim that Namco had dubbed Mitchell the "video game player of the century" was called into question. This phrase was reportedly etched into a Pac-Man plaque given to him by Namco; though when asked to provide the plaque, Mitchell claimed he no longer had it. Eventually, Walter Day (another party in the lawsuit) stated that the plaques - now plural - had been found. A blurry image of two Pac-Man plaques was presented as evidence; notably, without providing the physical specimen, and with Mitchell claiming that the two plaques said different things from each other. Through visual analysis (including an expert analysis by a forensic agency), it is alleged these plaques were somehow faked; with one featuring additional lines of text, presumably adding the claim of Mitchell being the "player of the century".https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu9Vex_IK8MMitchell v. Twin Galaxies, Declaration of Matthew Gabler
Due to the lawsuits' settlement agreements (which generally somewhat benefit Mitchell), several outlets have claimed that Mitchell "won" the lawsuit, and was found to have not staged his high scores. In actuality, the settlements do little to prove Mitchell's innocence; with many details found within the legal papers (such as the seemingly-forged Pac-Man plaques) only indicating further the allegations of fraudulent play.
=== Incorrect information in Nours magazine ===
In Volume 26 of Namco's Japanese Nours magazine (released in 1999), there was a segment detailing Pac-Man's 20th anniversary.https://www.bandainamcoent.co.jp/corporate/bnours/nours/vol26/https://www.bandainamcoent.co.jp/corporate/bnours/nours/vol26/pdf/26_03-07.pdf However, a considerable amount of information highlighted in the Nours article was incorrect - or otherwise written in such a way that caused confusion at the time. This includes:
*A section labeled "Warhol and Pac-Man" claimed that famous artist Andy Warhol had painted a piece of Pac-Man artwork, shortly before his death in 1987. In reality, this painting is from "The Homage to Andy Warhol" collection by Rupert Jasen Smith.https://www.artsy.net/artwork/rupert-jasen-smith-pac-man-from-the-homage-to-andy-warhol-portfolio While Smith was a close colleague to Warhol, the naming of "homage" indicates it was likely not from Warhol himself.
*The article claims that Buckner and Garcia's "Pac-Man Fever" hit the number-two spot on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. While Pac-Man Fever did actually make the charts throughout 1982, it peaked at the number-nine spot (in the week of March 27th).
*Oddly, Toru Iwatani is not mentioned in the article at all; however, the article asserts Masaya Nakamura, the founder of Namco, as being the "Father of Pac-Man". This seemingly caused some other publications to misinterpret Nakamura as the direct creator of the Pac-Man game, when he was really the creator of Namco itself.
*Finally, the two-page-spread ends by claiming that Pac-Man was "born on October 10th, 1979!!". In reality, the Pac-Man game was first test-marketed on May 22nd, 1980 in Japan, with full distribution beginning around July of the same year. It seems that Pac-Man's 20th anniversary itself was designed to commemorate this incorrect date, as most of its festivities (including this magazine) were exclusively done in 1999.
== 2000s media ==
=== Pac-Man World 2 "sold poorly in Japan" ===
In the early 2020s, a rumor began spreading regarding Pac-Man World 2; claiming that the game "sold poorly in Japan". Some variants of the rumor went so far as to say that poor sales of Pac-Man World 2 caused the Pac-Man series to "change direction" (e.g. stronger focus on the Championship Edition-style games), due to World 2's "failure" on the market (oddly, this ignores that World 2 was followed up with a sequel and a spin-off before then anyway).
This rumor is simply illogical; it is confirmed that Pac-Man World 2 sold over 1 million copies in North America (on the PlayStation 2 alone), which would make the game an undeniable success.http://the-magicbox.com/Chart-USPlatinum.shtml Meanwhile, the Japanese sales numbers aren't even documented; however, some believe the lack thereof indicates poor sales. Either way, the overseas sales alone would prove World 2 to be a successful game sales-wise, and Japan-only statistics wouldn't even matter in the long run. The only Pac-Man game that has ever been officially considered a failure is Kick (also known as Kick Man), an arcade game from 1981."Midway itself delivered what many feel is an absolute bomb—Kick-Man [...] George Gomez, who supervised the project, concedes the game was a failure." http://vgpavilion.com/mags/1982/12/vg/the-house-that-pac-built/
=== The cancellation of Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness 2 ===
Another more recent rumor involves the canceled Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness 2. The circulated story is about the reason behind its cancellation - claiming that it was scrapped following the merge between Namco and Bandai (forming Namco Bandai Games). While this reasoning would seem plausible, the more dismal element is that, allegedly, this was due to Bandai believing "no one cared about Pac-Man anymore".
This claim seems to originate from a YouTube video produced by Larry Bundy Jr., detailing "Five Games Cancelled for Incredibly Stupid Reasons".https://youtu.be/d9K3bjziMiI?t=240 (Ms. Pac-Man segment begins at 4:00) No source predating the video claimed exactly what was stated; with the only prior claim being that Maze Madness 2 was canceled due to "oversaturation of the genre". It should also be added that Maze Madness 2 was never announced to the general public in the first place; it was canceled before it was even unveiled.
It is likely that all of the commonly-cited reasons of "cancellation" were results of misinterpretation; some to great extremes, others less so. The main reasoning behind Maze Madness 2 being canceled is merely that the game's lead development studio, TKO Software, went out of business before the game was completed. In other potential contributing factors, it may have been due to oversaturation of Pac-Man games in general (rather than the "genre"); or due to the (at-the-time ongoing) lawsuit between Namco and GCC, regarding the Ms. Pac-Man royalty rights.
Larry Bundy Jr. has proclaimed that he sets "traps" in his videos for plagiarists, specifically following allegations of WatchMojo.com copying his videos.https://twitter.com/LarryBundyJr/status/895553580882477057https://twitter.com/LarryBundyJr/status/1537020071788392449 Considering the lack of prior sources containing the "no one cares about Pac-Man" claim, it is possible that it was intentionally fabricated for this purpose.
== 2010s media ==
=== Pac-Man character redesign survey ===
In October of 2012, a survey was run on the official Pac-Man Facebook page. This poll - among other minor questions - had the public vote on one of four unique redesigns for Pac-Man and the Ghosts, with the winner slated to be used in "the next PAC-MAN game".https://www.facebook.com/pacman/photos/10151247718395928/
Many people have confused the poll as dictating the design used in Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures; as option "A" is a strangely-modified version of the Pac-Man Party artwork, making Pac-Man more closely resemble his Ghostly Adventures form. This led to a wave of criticism against the poll in later years, with several sources going so far as to call the poll "rigged".
However, Ghostly Adventures was not what the poll was for at all. The results were largely in favor of options "B" and "D", and a mixture of these choices ("D" Pac-Man and "B" Ghosts) were used for Pac-Man Monsters, a 2014 mobile game. This poll would have been far too late to have affected Ghostly Adventures' artstyle, as the final Ghostly Adventures design(s) had already long been decided and finalized.
=== Pac-Man Monsters' artstyle===
Released on March 31, 2014, Pac-Man Monsters was a puzzle/RPG hybrid mobile game that featured a unique artstyle. Some of the designs (most notably Grand Prix Queen Fairy) have been noted as bearing a strong resemblance to the artstyle of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, an anime and manga series (most noticeably the sharper edges, spikey hair, faces, hands, etc.). Some websites have cited that an artist from the Panty & Stocking anime worked on Pac-Man Monsters;https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/PacManMonsters however, this has yet to be confirmed by an official source.
===Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures 3===
Following the two main Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures games, it is rumored that a third Ghostly Adventures title was planned at some point. The earliest known claim of this is in a YouTube video produced by "Balrog", which states that Ghostly Adventures 3 was "greenlit" some time before the launch of Ghostly Adventures 2.https://youtu.be/MFBGCAEzLb8 (mentioned at 10:55) 
In 2021, another YouTuber by the name "Yoshi Player" mentions Ghostly Adventures 3 and guesses that the game was canceled.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynw4JOeAcMQ
An official source for the greenlighting has yet to be found; though in the case that the claim is true, it may have been misconstrued from another Ghostly Adventures game (such as Pac-Man Dash! or the Nintendo 3DS game). If it was truly unrelated to another project, it may have never gotten past the concept stage, if even.
===Pac-Man for Intellivision Amico===
In the late 2010s, a video game console known as the Intellivision Amico was announced; a successor to the original Intellivision system from 1979, following a buyout of INTV Corp. by Tommy Tallarico. Due to various factors, the Amico console was never released - though has not officially been announced as "canceled". A Pac-Man game was reportedly in development for the Amico; though despite coming from Intellivision's own sources, the truth of this claim is hard to determine.
In 2022, several internal documents surrounding the Amico were leaked online, reportedly from a disgruntled employee. One document, labeled an "Intellivision Fact Book", seems to state that Pac-Man (alongside Pole Position and Dig Dug) were planned to release on the Amico; this would presumably not be a straight port of Pac-Man, as all other Amico titles were remade from scratch. Additionally, one chart displays an asterisk for titles where the license was not yet secured; none of the Namco titles have this notation, implying the licensing was already in place.https://mega.nz/file/eccQQDYC#JZ25vL83ahaWkXaF71koIszxTk3kUeB81Hr7T5Cp5zc (pages 2 and 14)
Despite this, there are several strange inconsistencies in the Fact Book document. Bandai Namco is not listed as a partnered company in the document, despite that other companies are properly noted as such. Additionally, the three Namco games present are specifically titles that were released on the original Intellivision console; this may indicate that the chart was merely referring to the 1980s Atarisoft/INTV Corp. releases of the games, in a rather dubious fashion. If the game(s) were genuinely new titles under license from Namco, development was presumably never started; likely only existing at a conceptual level.
Additionally, in a post on the AtariAge forums, Tallarico stated that he was "talking to Namco" about releasing Pac-Man (or Ms. Pac-Man) games for the Intellivision Amico, and that he had "been negotiating for months" with the company.https://i.imgur.com/vwrYE14.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/e4UywzP.png However, Tallarico would make numerous, similar claims about effectively any license of popularity (or notoriety, such as the Atari 2600 E.T. game), implying this may have been some odd form of bluff.https://www.reddit.com/r/Intellivision_Amico/comments/u9jrwx/a_selection_of_gamescompaniespeople_tommy_has/
==2020s media==
===The family relations of "Pac-Mom"===
The character "Pac-Mom", who debuted in early 2022, has been subject to debate over her actual connection to the Pac-Man family. While Pac-Mom is clearly intended as a legal stand-in for Ms. Pac-Man - and presumably Pac-Man's wife as such - it has also been commonly believed that she is Pac-Man's mother-in-law, or in some cases his actual mother. However, as more media featuring Pac-Mom was released, it became evident that she is, in fact, intended to be Pac-Man's love interest.
This confusion seems to originate due to Ms. Pac-Man's mother, "Ms. Pac-Master", having a very similar design to Pac-Mom. Based on early promotional material, it was initially assumed by many that Pac-Mom was Ms. Pac-Master; though after it was shown that Pac-Mom literally took Ms. Pac-Man's former roles (in games such as Pac-Land), this status became much more unclear. Her name flat-out being "Pac-Mom" likely also added to the confusion; though her naming scheme was really meant to show her as the mother of her children ("Pac-Sis" and "Pac-Boy"), not Pac-Man himself. In Pac-Man World Re-Pac, it is made more clear that Pac-Mom is Pac-Man's love interest; with Pac-Mom even referring to Pac-Man as "[her] love" in dialogue.
In June of 2022, an artist on Twitter known as "DingityDingus" posted a recreation of the "distracted boyfriend" meme; replacing the characters with Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and Pac-Mom.https://twitter.com/DingityDingus/status/1542235766629142528 However, a screenshot of this Tweet has surfaced with a reply from the official Pac-Man Twitter page; with "Pac-Man" stating "That's my mom...". It is unknown where the source of this screenshot is from, though it appears to merely be a doctored image; there is no evidence that the official Pac-Man account ever acknowledged the Tweet, let alone with the attached comment.
===Pac-Man's "LEGO color inspiration"===
In 2023, a Pac-Man LEGO set was released, modeled after the original North American arcade machine. With the release of this set, numerous promotional write-ups stated that Pac-Man's yellow color was initially modeled after the yellow color of LEGO bricks."During collaborations with Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc. (owners of PAC-MAN), Sven later found out that the yellow used on PAC-MAN was inspired by the yellow color of LEGO bricks. Seems like it was always meant to be!" (https://www.lego.com/en-us/categories/adults-welcome/article/best-features-in-lego-pacman)
While the LEGO claim cannot directly be disproven, it seems to have, quite literally, never been stated prior to the LEGO set's creation. Sources such as the Pac-Man: Birth of an Icon book state that the Pac-Man game's colors - including the maze, ghosts, and Pac-Man himself - were mainly chosen to contrast well on the arcade machine's screen, as the color choices were limited. Additionally, the book states that the Ghosts' colors were inspired by Sanrio franchises (such as Hello Kitty), which had become popular during the mid-to-late 70s."Pac-Man: Birth of an Icon", pages 55-57
Given that aspects of Pac-Man's color have been discussed before in interviews, it would be very odd if the LEGO inspiration had never been brought up prior to the 2023 LEGO set. This suggests - though does not outright confirm - that the LEGO "color inspiration" is merely a marketing tactic, not unlike the pizza origin story.
=== The "failure" of Pac-Man Mega Tunnel Battle: Chomp Champs ===
Following the release of Pac-Man Mega Tunnel Battle: Chomp Champs in 2024, the game was deemed a "failure" by many players shortly thereafter. While these reports appear to be somewhat accurate, they are yet to be verified by an official source.
Chomp Champs, as an online "battle royale" game, requires 64 players at a time to fill a game lobby. However, players often report high amounts of CPU or "bot" opponents filling the lobbies, with very few (if any) actual humans present.Steam reviews for Pac-Man Mega Tunnel Battle: Chomp Champs: example 1, example 2 Ironically, the game has reportedly failed to ever reach 64 concurrent players on Steam; as claimed by the "SteamDB" website, which tracks a maximum count of 52 total players on the game's launch day (and often dipping to zero players).https://steamdb.info/app/2095950/charts/#max While statistics for other game consoles are not publicly accessible, players have cited high amounts of bots on all platforms. Older Pac-Man titles listed on SteamDB that are not multiplayer-focused, such as Pac-Man World Re-Pac and Pac-Man Championship Edition DX, still regularly hold higher player counts than Chomp Champs.
Notably, Chomp Champs had a large marketing campaign prior to its release, including a drone show in New York City;https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HWnQfT5EygQ making its low player count rather significant. Additionally, the game was met with criticism due to seemingly being meant to "replace" a similar battle royale game, Pac-Man 99; which was evidently much more successful than Chomp Champs in the long run.
==References==
Category:Game Information