Gaming Ads: Backfilling #21

It's been one year and two days since my last ads update. Browsing comic books from the 1980s has led to the acquisition of some good retro game ads, and for this post I'm adding five from Atari and three from Mattel Electronics.

Happy 40th Birthday Pac-Man

Funspot

Pac-Man, arguably the most iconic video game character of all time, turns 40 today. Nintendo's Mario has likely supplanted Pac-Man as the most well-known game character, especially for the younger generation, but Pac-Man was huge in the early '80s and his impact on video games and pop culture should not be understated. Namco's (now Bandai Namco) yellow ghost chomper helped the arcade scene thrive and was plastered on numerous products, from lunch boxes and board games to apparel and cereal. The character also appeared in a Saturday morning cartoon in 1982 and had a hit song from Buckner & Garcia titled "Pac-Man Fever."

Pac-Man Plus arcade marqee.

Next Generation - Oct. 98

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of time to put together a comprehensive blog post here so it's more of a compilation of some previous postings and photos/scans of a few items I own like the marquee above. With the blog being largely centered around video game ads there is, of course, a Namco ads post which has some Pac-Man ads with the rest at Facebook but I'll put all Pac-Man related ads below. I also scanned all the Namco newsletters in 2018 that always feature images of the character and a ghost. To the right is part of an article about game characters from the October 1998 issue of Next Generation magazine. It features an interview with Toru Iwatani, the creator of Puck Man which was Pac-Man's original name in Japan. This is the second page of the article to appear on the blog (first was for Crash Bandicoot) and one of these days I'll scan the whole thing and put it in one post.

Pac-Man Board and Handheld Pinball Games
The board game was released in 1982 by Milton Bradley and I do realize I've got the ghost's eye stickers on all wrong. I don't see a year on the pinball game from Diamond Toymakers.

Stickers
The stickers from Fleer are similar to trading cards and packs included "Rub-Off Game" cards too. I'm scanning them inside of the plastic pages I keep them in to save time. I know that's not the best way to see them but I just don't have time to scan and edit each one individually. Also, a few are Ms. Pac-Man cards and I'm leaving a few regular stickers in the pages. The Pac-Man eating a ghost stickers are most likely unofficial. All the scratch 'n' sniff stickers (they still smell great!) are stuck inside an album which is why those have a blue background that says "Stellar Stinkies."

Video Game Ads
There are a lot of Tengen ads with a photo of a Pac-Man game box but I'm only going to include the ads that either have text about the game or where Pac-Man is a key part of the ad.

Gaming Ads: Namco

In 1955 Nakamura Manufacturing was founded by Masaya Nakamura and based in Tokyo. What seems to be a rather common theme among video game companies that were founded before the '70s, Nakamura began as a maker of amusement machines, specializing in wooden horse rides. The corporate website indicates the company changed its name to Namco in the '70s and entered the video game business with the release of Galaxian (1979) but that was its third game after Bee Gee and Bomb Bee. Galaxian is certainly well known but it was in 1980 that Namco became a household name with the release of Pac-Man, arguably the most recognizable video game character in the history of gaming.

Namco also released many Pac-Man spin-offs and other well known arcade games in the '80s, such as Galaga, Pole Position, Dig Dug, and Mappy. Some of its most recognizable game series that began in the '90s include Splatterhouse, Tekken, Ridge Racer, Ace Combat, Time Crisis, Tales, and Soul Calibur. While publishing home versions of its games for computers and consoles in Japan it used the brand name Namcot during the '80s and early '90s. It was in 1990 that Namco America opened which was an arcade sales division and Namco Hometek might also have been established that same year. Namco Hometek is responsible for the publishing of console video games in the North American market.

As I mentioned some time ago in the Bandai America ads post, Namco merged with Bandai in 2005. The company names from that merger have changed a few times and depending on the region each branch was based could be referred to as Bandai Namco Games or Namco Bandai Games before switching to Bandai Namco Entertainment on April 1, 2015. Normally I use the U.S. branch as the title for the ads post but these are close to evenly split between Namco and Namco Hometek, and Namco America appears as well so I'm just going to stick with Namco for this one.

Namco albums: Facebook - Google Photos