EntelechyFuff
Member
I love Ms. Pac-Man. I have a fully working Ms. Pac-Man cocktail table. This game makes Pac-Man looks like trash. And Ms. Pac-Man has style, panache...rizz, if you will. While Pac-Man was and is a total nerd. Check her out: she's fantastic!
So I got to wondering...why doesn't Namco monetize Ms. Pac-Man more? Well, I did some googling and found out.
For those that don't know, the short version is the original Ms. Pac-Man software was essentially born as a "romhack" of the original Pac-Man arcade machine. Those dudes who created the romhack retained some portion of the rights to the game with regards to royalties. Fast forward 40 years and the rights have been bounced around and largely unified under Namco, except for those pesky royalty rights, where are now held by some shady micro console company.
Namco--geniuses that they are--have essentially thrown their hands up in this matter. They are literally going back through games that feature Ms. Pac-Man and replacing her with a legally distinct likeness: "Pac-mom". Who is a lame nerd.
Am I insane to believe that Ms. Pac-Man--the real Ms. Pac-Man--has the potential to be at least as marketable as Princess Peach? She's only the face of the most popular* arcade game ever made! And has such a characteristic appearance. Hell, she had a real identity back in distant 1982, when games were barely capable of conveying such a thing as "personality".
I get that Namco doesn't want to waste time and money in court for a character they have never really leveraged...but I can't help but believe that they are seriously missing the forest for the trees by not just taking the L and and buying the the royalty rights. Am I wrong here? Is Ms. Pac-Man actually the real nerd in this story?
*citation needed
So I got to wondering...why doesn't Namco monetize Ms. Pac-Man more? Well, I did some googling and found out.
For those that don't know, the short version is the original Ms. Pac-Man software was essentially born as a "romhack" of the original Pac-Man arcade machine. Those dudes who created the romhack retained some portion of the rights to the game with regards to royalties. Fast forward 40 years and the rights have been bounced around and largely unified under Namco, except for those pesky royalty rights, where are now held by some shady micro console company.
Namco--geniuses that they are--have essentially thrown their hands up in this matter. They are literally going back through games that feature Ms. Pac-Man and replacing her with a legally distinct likeness: "Pac-mom". Who is a lame nerd.
Am I insane to believe that Ms. Pac-Man--the real Ms. Pac-Man--has the potential to be at least as marketable as Princess Peach? She's only the face of the most popular* arcade game ever made! And has such a characteristic appearance. Hell, she had a real identity back in distant 1982, when games were barely capable of conveying such a thing as "personality".
I get that Namco doesn't want to waste time and money in court for a character they have never really leveraged...but I can't help but believe that they are seriously missing the forest for the trees by not just taking the L and and buying the the royalty rights. Am I wrong here? Is Ms. Pac-Man actually the real nerd in this story?
*citation needed
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