The Disappearance of Ms. Pac-Man 

I actually worked at Namco (Namco Networks, Inc.) and was brought in to do two depositions regarding Ms. Pac-Man during the arbitration, where I sat in the room with the judge and the GCC guys. I was in charge of porting the games to mobile devices, so I was brought in to discuss some of the technical aspects, presumably because they wanted to clarify certain terms. I was not privy to the contract proper, but I remember there were issues about antiquated language like "CRT" and whatnot. "coin-op" was probably in there, too, but I wasn't asked about that. Anyway, I never knew the terms of the final settlement, and I left the company shortly thereafter. When I came back to Bandai Namco mobile in 2013, where I was put in charge of producing what became Pac-Man + Tournaments, and I had to beg the legal dept, to tell me where the tripwires were as regards Ms. Pac-Man, because we in modifying Pac-Man didn't want to run afoul of Ms. and end up owing royalties on a game that wasn't Ms. Pac-Man. So they gave me a list of no-nos, like not to use any of the maze layouts, the bouncing bonus items or the ones unique to Ms., and to steer away from anything like how GCC randomized the ghost behavior. I also was in charge of updating the Ms. Pac-Man ports for iOS and Android, and my recollection was by this point Pac-Man typically outsold Ms. by a large margin, so perhaps Pac-Man being an established icon managed to still draw players who didn't grow up with it but Ms. Pac-Man did not. That's just a guess.

Pac-Ma'am.... HOW HAS THIS NEVER COME UP?

This is probably the most real a video game couple divorce can get.

Imagine walking down the street and seeing a Ms. Pacman Arcade machine to celebrate 20 years of pacman, and you're first thought is "Where the fuck is my money?"

Pac-Marie's name is so funny to me. I can't tell if it's brilliance or sheer laziness. The name is based in katakana wordplay: if you take the two strokes of the the "n" katakana (ン) and rotate each of them until they're standing vertically, it looks kinda like the katakana for "ri" (リ), turning "Pac-Man" into "Pac-Mari" Glad I finally watched this video, it's been in my recommended feed for a while. Very informative!

I personally, have always preferred Pac-Man's characterization as a 40-something year old dad. Even when the IP was only about 20 years old or so, the general public already viewed Pac-Man as an "old school game". Pac-Man is timelessly cool. I really don't get why Namco feels they need to "youth-up" the Pac every once in a blue ghost moon.

they announced a remake of Pac-Man World, Ms Pac-Man is dead, she was replaced with Pac-Mom. also i think her kid changed.

If this is about changing things up to appeal to the new generations, then the modern solution that would 100% work is to bring Ms. Pacman back as Pacmilf.

19:39 Breaking News: 40 year old man abandons his family to go hang out with "cool teens".

I wish she was brought back to the franchise. Not because she's a particularly good character (although Ms. Pac-Man is probably a better game than the original) but because she's probably video gaming's first female protagonist ever -- or at least, the first one that had any kind of longevity. I think that alone is worth respecting.

Ok, not to kill anyone’s hopes, but Ms Pac-Man is officially dead. Namco just revealed PAC World Repac, and she is replaced with PAC-Mom. RIP Ms Pac-Man. 1981-2022

Who is here after seeing the redesign for Ms.Pac-Man for the Pac-Man World Re-make 😭

Ms pac man relationship with pac man: good Ms pac man relationship with the franchise: complex

There's a bit of a correction I wanted to add. It's confirmed that the Pac-Man from Ghostly Adventures is the son of the OG Pac-Man. Yes, Pac-Man has lore.

I actually wake up every day hoping to hear about the complex, rich, and dark lore of Pac man

27:05 Looks like you've predicted the future here. With the Arcade Archives re-release of Pac-Land, Bandai Namco is starting to outright rewrite history by replacing Ms. Pac-Man with her own mother (Pac-Mom), while Baby Pac-Man has been retained, only receiving a minor sprite change to reflect the Pac-Master's wife's appearance in Museum+. So yeah, outside of the Arcade1Up machines, Ms. Pac-Man has completely disappeared forever, and now we have to deal with her mother. This means that we won't be seeing Ms. Pac-Man anytime soon, just her mother. Fuck AssGames.

so there's actually a good reason she isn't an alternate skin for pac-man in smash bros... god damn

While Pac-Marie is kinda adorable with that ponytail, and I can understand them wanting to keep the series more modern, "cuter," (cute stuff is popular in Japan) and contemporary. Still, part of Pac-Man's charm is how retro, and old fashioned he is. It's a shame there's so much legal problems with the original Ms. Pac-Man, and such. Wonder if that will effect the Arcade1up cabinets.

Man, hearing about this whole situation that happened with Ms.PacMan, Namco, and At Games almost reminds me of the legal fiasco with Sonic between ArchieComics, Sega and Ken Penders and how Ken basically screwed the legal system in his favor to own the almost all the comic characters. Kind of depressing that Ms.Pac won't be back.

Pac-Man: she took the freaking kids MegaMan MegaMan: that's rough buddy

Here's the fun fact about Pacman Ghosts: Blinky, the red ghost represents as the leader of the ghosts and is the most aggressive ghost in the original Pacman Arcade, who is always chasing Pacman. Pinky, the pink ghost is the most beautiful and the only female ghost who tries to ambush. She chases in front of Pacman while Blinky chases him behind. Inky, the cyan Ghost, is the goofy ghost who is unpredictable. Sometimes he can also chase Pacman aggressively like Blinky. Clyde, the orange ghost, is the least intelligent ghost, who moves in random directions. When he sees Pacman ahead, he will retreat not trying to chase Pacman.

“No Pac-Man character has a truly defined personality” BRUH literally EVERY character has their own personality, the ghost gang literally were designed with unique gameplay personalities to effect how the players would play around with them.

With the soon to release PAC-Man Museum + and seeing Ms. Pac-Man being censored or replaced in some of the classic games, I was wondering why this was happening and found this video. And I have to say, great video! But it is unfortunate that Bandai Namco has to pay AtGames to use Ms. Pac-Man, hoping we can see her return in the future

I wonder if Ms. Pac-Man is the first ever bootleg character in videogame history to become official, it's sad what happened to her afterwards

Numskull managed to license the rights from both GCE and Namco for their quarter scale Ms. Pac-Man arcade cabinet just before it was sold to AtGames, so it's looking like that could be the final ever official merchandise.

Pac-Marie's design is appealing, sure. But Ms. Pac-Man's design works well both as an in-game sprite and as a full-body character. Pac-Marie was clearly designed with full body character first, so she doesn't look like she'd apply well as a sprite. Also, at the end of the day, I don't care too much about the characters, Ms. Pac-Man is just a fun game that I wish was easier to play.

To clarify, Miss and Ms. are two different things, the latter being pronounced more like "miz". This was an important title for women in the early feminist movement, and denotes a woman who is unattached, but still deserving of the respect adults ought to have. "Miss" is traditionally associated with very young women and little girls, and can feel a bit insulting for a grown, independent woman,. Particularly an unmarried one, but there are also married women who choose to use the title. Giving Ms. Pac-Man that title makes her sound less like Pac-Man's inferior (Miss) or a character defined by being Pac-Man's wife (Mrs.) Using Ms. is a passive way to make her seem more like a character in her own right. This has been done before iirc, with Ms. Marvel's first introduction into the Marvel comics.

The good thing for Namco, but bad for Atgames is that Atgames is shady business and could very well dig themselves a hole over time opening them up to be bought out and/or liquidated. Either way, Namco may finally acquire the rights and don't be surprised if we finally get an official Ms. Pac-man fever era that is greatly over due.

I had no idea Ms. Pacman was a ticking time bomb when it came to lawsuits. My Mom would play her game all the time, whether through the plug&play or Namco's PS2 collection. I took it for granted.

How unfortunate. As gaming's first female character and an all around (no pun intended) icon of a bygone era of gaming, Ms. Pac Man deserves better. I hoped she would appear as an echo fighter in Smash Bros alongside her husband, probably faster and lighter. But it seems that’s only a pipe dream at the moment.

Wow pacman's divorce has been painfull

This is just as bad as Microsoft buying Rareware from Nintendo in 2002.😢

It's a darn shame if Ms. Pac-Man's being downplayed because of worries that she's not appealing to modern audiences. She's one of the oldest and most famous characters in gaming and deserves more respect. I see no reason why they can't update her design and personality to fit the modern era. Absolutely no one cares cares about "Pac-Man canon", so just modernize her like they've done to so many other video game characters. It's the best way to carry over her already existing fame while letting her get new fans.

So today Pacman 99 was released and Ms. Pacman is completely absent.

Hamster released Pac-Land as part of their Arcade Archives series today. They had to modify Ms. Pac-Man's sprite.

10:24 Thinking like that is why we can't have nice things

Forget Lara Croft and Samus Aran. I think it's pretty clear that Ms. Pac-Man was the *real* first strong female protagonist in gaming!

As much as I dislike big corps, it seems like GCC unfairly sued over NAMCO in the 2000s. According to this vid, GCC lucked into a very favorable contract. Considering GCC developed Crazy Otto, it doesn’t seem right that they ended up with rights to the character Ms. Pac-Man (as a derivative work of NAMCO intellectual property, Pac-Man) which was created by NAMCO after the game Crazy Otto was purchased from GCC.

Rest in peace ms pac man

Seeing Ms Pac Man now owned by At Games was an absolute gut puncher to hear.

It’s just a maze, It’s just a neon maze... Without you....

What a tragic ending, I almost cried.

Why does bro think he deserves royalties after essentially making a rom hack of pac-man.

I seriously don’t see any benefit to GCC holding onto the rights of Mrs. PAC MAN. Literally GCC has done basically nothing with the character outside of a few crappy rereleases here and there and now they are too petty to just give NAMCO the character when it was basically a complete rip-off of the original PAC-MAN. This whole thing just seems unnecessarily scummy on their part. It only hurts the brand, doesn’t boost it.

Interestingly, before Ms. Pac-Man made her Japanese debut in Pac-Land, Miru the Ghost was being built up as Pac's girlfriend in Japan.

I can’t believe GCC sold the rights to atgames

Ok but real talk though, Jr. Pac-Man is the most forgotten of them all, even when Ms. was still around, not even getting a single game port after the 1980’s. This treatment is completely undeserved…

Great video. Today, June 28th 2022, Pac Man World remake was announced and Ms. Pacman was changed into someone else with a pink hat!

I am currently working on a history piece for Pacman and this video was a fantastic resource... great work | SUBSCRIBED!

Ms. isn't an abbreviation of Miss. Ms. is pronounced "mizz", and is used to denote a woman who may or may not be married. Other than that, this was a great video!

I really like Pac-Marie's design, I wish there was more of them

This was an amazing history lesson. I’ve always wondered why Ms. PAC Man disappeared. The use of the legal segments and factory videos plus the humor really made it cool. Would love to see more history videos like these.

Interesting how even though Ms Pac man isn’t official, Namco tried making female characters to be a way to indirectly make her theirs.

Trying to Poochy-up Pac-Man instead of making him a legit family man who's biggest moments in the spotlight have long since passed, but hes ok with that like Pac2 and World games set him up as, is such a scummy and soulless corporate take. Having him as the older, more grounded family man during the 90s in an age of snarky mascot newcomers, was such a great direction to give the character some more personality.

I grew up with an NES at home and the only PacMan game we owned (and thus the only one I was ever truly familiar with) WAS Ms. PacMan. I was so used to Inky/Blinky/Pinky/Sue that as a kid it just never occured to me that Clyde was... a thing. Sue was always "the fourth one" to me so everything else was quite the mini culture shock once I found out LOL. I only really learned about "canon" stuff later on, so I enjoyed this video essay delving into the character and all her weird legal complications haha.

19:12 "no defined personality" I could hear the four ghosts cry. They are the only ones that always had distinct personalities from the beginning, and those personalities even reflected on how they pursued Pac-Man (with one of them being shy and not even pursuing at all or barely pursuing, I'm not the Pac-xpert, you are). Awesome video! Didn't knew about the whole lawsuit and "semi-legal knockoffs" of the arcade era. Wow.

Also Ms.Pac-Man doesn’t appear in the new Minecraft map (she is “replaced” by Miru which is a female ghost that appeared in Pac & Pal)

Just finished rewatching all of Ghostly Adventures so I'll touch on that (SPOILERS, I guess lol). While Pac-Man is the only yellow one left, his parents are hinted at being alive several times without the show. The Pointy Head Aliens say that Pac is just as troublesome as his parents, leading Pac to believe they might be on their planet. The final episode of the series involves the President's niece-- Elly --visiting Pacopolis. She reveals that she saw Pac-Man's parents when her mother took her "on a trip" somewhere. The episode ends on a cliffhanger implying that Pac-Man & Co. are going to be travelling to that location to learn more. Another episode in the series involves "The Pac-inator", who reveals that he "iced" every yellow one for a client. The client isn't revealed but he's apparently more evil than Betrayus. This hints that all of the Yellow ones are still technically alive, just frozen in ice and held captive in some unknown location. Pac-Man would've likely found his parents if they ever made a 3rd season, but I feel it's possible that they would've located and freed other yellow ones as well. Perhaps the mysterious client would be revealed, and Pac would unfreeze all of the other yellow ones. Ms. Pac-Man could've theoretically shown up, although I doubt that she would. In fact, Elly was also introduced as a love interest for Pac-Man. While Cylindria is sometimes seen as a love interest, I'd say they are usually just depicted as close friends. Pac-Man is never shown to have a thing for Cyli, and Cyli rarely ever hints that she loves Pac. Pinky hints that Cyli might like him, but she's mostly just jealous that she's closer to him. Elly is different because Pac actually has a crush on her, and they probably would've explored that more in a 3rd season. Anyways, that was a whole lot of information for a simple explanation lol

My sister who is seven has only watched the Pac-Man tv show on netflix and when my mom and I where reminessing about the game the other day she said oh I know Pac-Man its a show I watch that made me sad she doesn't even know about the game and its iconic. Im a bit salty about the show because of that

Aaand She's dead. Ms. Pac-Man is straight up dead. RIP

Small thing missing from your video: Bandai Namco actually released TWO ports of Ms. Pac-Man on Steam. One is the version in Pac-Man museum, and the other is a standalone port in their "Arcade Game Series" collection that was released in 2016. You may want to update your video to reflect that. (In both ports, neither GCC nor Atgames is mentioned in the copyrights, so them owning anything is turning out to be legally vague at best so far)

I hope Namco gets the rights for Ms. Pac-man. I honestly was looking forward to seeing what a Modern version of Ms. Pac-Man (the Pac-Man Party Version not the Ghostly Adventures look. Difference is Pac-Man still has boxing gloves and no teeth and the ghosts didnt have blue pupils and were still pretty antagonistic to Pac-man as should be expected) I always liked the redesigns they had in Pac-Man Party.

Ms.Pacman Maze Madness is the best of its franchise, period. its a cold hard fact like the sky being blue, or the inevitability of death.

I'm so glad that I discovered this channel today, there's just so much great content! I hope we'll get even more amazing videos like this in the future.

18:35 I actually rather like the redesign for Ms. Pac-Man/Pac-Marie. She's drawn less like some older supermodel and more like a youthful Kirby/Minnie Mouse/fun-loving sort of character.

I know this video's about a year old, but I have to say it: Ms. is not just an abbreviation for Miss. Ms., which is pronounced "Miz" is a sort of neutral prefix that can be applied to women who are either married or single. Basically, a way of addressing women who think it's no one else's business whether they're married or not.

it's 2022, and I've been brought here from Nitro Rad, also part of why Namco has made 'Pac-Man World RE-PAC' just to erase our mind that Ms. Pac-Man exists. I would never think how a single 25 years old fictional character would be dragged into this such a legal case. The world is wild!

Pac man world remake...

Oddly enough, Ms. Pac-Man saw a release on April 19, 2016, as part of the Arcade Game Series, some months before Championship Edition 2 came out.

Bandai Namco deserves the rights to Ms. Pac-Man. That was a bad move from GCC to sell the rights to AtGames. #justiceformspacman

God, I love your energy. This entire video is ICONIC.

Thank you, there was actually so many questions had about this when it came to Ms Pac-Man not being re-released on namco museum compilations

I really hate defending Bandai Namco, but this kinda amazes me. Ms.Pac Man is clearly a derivative character and that goes double for the game. It sounds like GCC were lucky thsy were not sued.

All in all, interesting watch all around. Given that she's one of the very first female video game characters, it's sad to see what has become of Ms. Pac-Man. She truly deserves better if you ask me.

I have DEFINITELY seen the model 2 Galaga Ms. Pac Man anniversary arcade machine with a coin slot. Probably added after, but still. Edit: I think I know why. The place I played the game at uses tokens, not coins. So nice loophole there

I'm sure somebody already said this, but "Ms." (usually pronounced 'mizz') is NOT "Mrs." OR "Miss", but rather BOTH. It is a title that became moderately popular with the "second wave" of feminism and is supposed to be 'marriage-neutral' in the sense that a man can be called "Mr." regardless of if he is married or not, but there was previously no such title for a woman.

Arcade1UP announced a Ms. Pac-Man machine with no mention of AtGames anywhere. Could this be a sign?

Wow as a fan of Ms Pac-Man this is pretty tragic to hear all of this,although I’m glad you made this video,I feel this should be talked about more given the status of such a character

Woke up to this and wasn’t expecting this wow! Great video and very informative. Had no idea about any of this.

In Pacman and the ghostly adventure it is said that pacman had parent before they were killed and if you think about it you would start to think that maybe Pacman's parents are probably the original Pacman and Ms Pacman of the video games after all in the games they do have a child which could mean that the Pacman from the tv show could be Pacman jr in this case.

Definitely using "I wanna pac you" on my girlfriend tomorrow

I always wondered why there was absolutely no mention of Ms. Pac-Man in Smash Bros.

Pac man world remake and ms pac man's future ain't lookin to bright ngl

*Excellent!!! This rabbit hole of a video kept me watching until the end! Now my coffee is cold!* ⭐😃👍

Headcanon: the Pac-Store animated shorts is in the canon of Pac-Land that implies OG Pac-Man grew old into Mr. Cookie, and Pac-Marie is dating his sucessor you play as in Pac-Land.

15:27 it's even funnier when You remember Pac-man's original name was "Puck-man"

Ending actually made my jaw drop and fist slam on the desk. Amazing video, great work done.

Good video, funny, engaging and entertaining. Well edited, I see a bright future in you.

I knew there were always murky details around copyright. But it's so weird that she doesn't get hardly any references in 2 Smash Brothers games despite Pac-Man having a decent amount of stuff he comes with. Shame she only appears as a background cameo in the Pac Land stage. No spirit, costume, trophy or anything. It's almost like they pretend she doesn't exist

Ms. is pronounced like "mizz" and is the only one that doesn't indicate a woman's marital status. The moar u know.

Namco Museum Virtual Arcade is a great compilation that includes Ms. Pac-Man and was released physically on Xbox 360 in late 2008. The compilation includes a whopping 34 games; 6 of which are Pac-Man. It's currently being sold on eBay for around $20.

Simple fix. "Mrs.Pac-Man" Mail me the cheques, Namco. You're welcome.

You got PacMan And the Blue one, The Red one, The Pink One... And Clyde Everybody knows Clyde 😃

I really miss Ms. Pac-man, she is one of my favorite video game characters and I like that game more than the original Pac-man.

And now 2 years later she returns in the Pac-Man World remake. How ironic.

Super entertaining! I also found it really refreshing to see theories being presented as theories, rather than fact. Love to see that sweet journalistic integrity! Great work!

And now Pac-Man 99 is out with no Ms. Pac-Man in sight. When will this end?

Ms Pac Man did not disappeared. Pac man doesn't cheat on her. She still exist to him. They're still together.

so that's why Ms Pac-Man isn't an echo fighter

Great informative video and definitely explains a lot about where Ms Packie has been. Hopefully they’ll be reunited one day… I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Love that use the Namaco museum Ms Pac-Man song at the end!!!