Released first for arcades in May of 1980 in Japan, Namco’s new game Pac-Man quickly rose in popularity over the course of its first year. The next saw even greater success for the now-considered retro game, the following year more than that, and soon Pac-Man was an international success more popular than anything else in the gaming industry. With a lasting legacy continuing today — Pac-Man being one of the most recognizable video game characters of all time and making appearances in new games even today such as Super Smash Bros Ultimate — personally I wondered why Namco felt it even necessary to release such a similar game in Ms. Pac-Man. However, after some research regarding its creation (the game was actually created by a group of MIT dropouts in America, not by the creators of the original Pac-Man), as well as by playing through the game itself, though seemingly identical in terms of mechanics, objectives, incentives, and overall world players engage with, I found key differences. I argue that within the context of Ms. Pac-Man, each of these elements has a deep and rich meaning behind it, perhaps different from or even nonexistent in the original, all tying back to the theme of corporate America, and especially feminism within it.
The gameplay of Ms. Pac-man is fairly simplistic in nature, though the game itself becomes extremely difficult as you progress through the levels. For those unfamiliar with the game, it proceeds as follows. Upon starting a level, the player has a second to absorb the maze which appears on the screen while the words “Player Ready” flash. In this moment, the player will see the pathways covered by evenly spaced ‘blips,’ while the quick observer will also see four larger blips in the corners of the maze, and perhaps even notice the gaps in the walls, which seem to be exits to outside the maze. Then the words disappear, four different colored ghosts appear in the center box, and our character, Ms. Pac-Man appears slightly below, already moving towards the left. Due to the automatic movement, the player observes how after traveling over the blips, they disappear, and in combination with Ms. Pac-Man’s rapidly opening and closing mouth, give off the notion that they were consumed. Further play will find that contact with any of the four ghosts causes death, yet consuming any of the large blinking dots in the corners allows for a small window of role reversal, where Ms. Pac-Man can consume the ghosts. Also, the gaps in the maze when traversed, simply teleport Ms. Pac-Man to the corresponding warp-tunnel on the other side. When all of the blips have been consumed, the ghosts disappear, the maze flashes brightly to show completion, and the next stage appears.
With all of this information is delivered in such smooth gameplay, the player never needs to stop and think about action occurring. Yet taking a step back for analysis leads to several potential revelations. Firstly, having the 'maze' be the world the gameplay occurs in procures a sense of entrapment. While running from the four ghosts, the walls continuous presence and constant turning create a combination of both excitement, yet pressure. With the only way of beating the level being consumption of literally every single blip on the screen, the notion of mass gluttony as the method by which success is gained has been established. The perpetual chomping by Ms. Pac-Man in combination with the direct correlation between pellets chomped (with bonus fruits appearing for added points) and increasing score only reinforces this. Proceeding to the next level, the gluttonous goal is the same, though it becomes increasingly more difficult until the player is overwhelmed, and loses all three lives.
Being a game created by three American college dropouts following a recent trend of stagflation in the late 1970’s (an economic condition of both continuing inflation and stagnant business activity) it seems Ms. Pac-Man can be seen as a simplified view of corporate America. For a budding company, or even an individual, life seemed to be all about the collection of money. In fact, to get anywhere in life, or progress to the next level per se, the only way to get there was through mass amalgamation of money. The player is constantly hungry for more and the capacity to eat seems insatiable. However, even when all of the blips are consumed, there only seems to be another higher level of life to get to, there are always more pellets to get, and while the maze walls may shift, the player is still trapped within the system of capitalism that is America. This may represent the incessant financial struggle everyone faces, and the notion that without money, we can't really get anywhere.
The most important aspect of all however, is the character of Ms. Pac-Man herself. Why did the developers choose to change the character from the masculine Pac-Man to the bow-wearing, lipstick using Ms. Pac-Man? I believe one of the reasons for this is actually in representation of the rise of feminism in America. The 1970’s saw landmark changes for women - Title IX, Roe v. Wade, laws regarding maternity leave rights, and a general empowering wave. Therefore Ms. Pac-Man is placed in this maze, corporate America, and showing her equal capabilities. Advertisements for the game focus her female identity, and in the various intermission sequences too focus on her sexuality and romance with Pac-Man. Though the game labeled her death sequence as 'swooning' as a crude way of implying her female identity, the fact that they give her equal objectives, incentives, and capacities as her counterpart Pac-Man proves this is the overall message. Pac-Man had already gained a large female player base, and Ms. Pac-Man built even more so on this, empowering women in arcades and in the workplace.
Whether these motifs were purposely embedded within Ms. Pac-Man or not, they certainly provide potential deep analysis to match a truly classic, incredible game.
For further reading regarding the creation of Ms. Pac-Man see
Comments