I just wanted to give you guys and girls a heads up about Pac-Man. Because his turning 35 years old on Friday! (Pac-Man was released on the 22nd of May back in 1980 in Japan.). And i think that is worth a mention for sure, as the game changed the video game industry for all time on it´s release. And it´s all thanks to Toru Iwatani (the father of Pac-Man), Shigeo Funaki (Programmer), Toshio Kai (composer) and Namco.

And for those who was born in the 60-70s (or before that) probably still remember the dominant years of Pac-Man in the Arcades back in the 80s. In fact, Pac-Man got so big back then that he became a pop culture icon of the 80s. And even though the arcades died out after the 80s, Pac-Man was released to pretty much every format there was (Pac-Man has appeared in 30+ officially licensed game spin-offs to this day).

Me, i still remember the first time i played a Pac-Man game. And it was the arcade version and i was about 5-6 years old at the time (this was back in the late 80s). Well, i´ve been a fan of Pac-Man ever since that day. I still have quite a lot of Pac-Man merchandise in my video game collection as well.

So what about you guys? Do you have any Pac-Man memories that you would like to share with us? And who will you celebrate Pac-Man´s 35th birthday on Friday?

Robin “V-Act” Ek
The Gaming Ground
Twitter: @TheGamingGround

More by Robin Ek:

• New Old Pixels is to bring the original ‘Toki’ arcade game, to original retro hardware
• The 2D pixel art PvPvE extraction shooter, ‘Project S.U.N.D.I.A.L.’, is coming to Steam on April 27th
• The 1-4 player egg cracking adventure, ‘CRACK’, is coming to Steam on October 26th
• The unique horror game ‘Hoarder’ is coming to Steam in 2027
• The cozy first-person warehouse sim ‘BOB LOGISTICS’ is coming to Steam in Q4 2026

Tags: Arcade, Namco, Pac-Man, Shigeo Funaki, Toru Iwatani