Video Games of 1981 - Level 4: Ms. Pac Man!

<v Speaker 1>All right, everybody, welcome back to the Surely You Can't
<v Speaker 1>Be Serious Podcast. We are here on our continuing series
<v Speaker 1>of the best video games of nineteen eighty one, and
<v Speaker 1>today we are going to be discussing Mis pac Man.
<v Speaker 2>That's miss not missus, not miss not pack Woman, not Crazyato,
<v Speaker 2>not Crazyato.
<v Speaker 3>That's for daying.
<v Speaker 2>Sure not Crazyata. All right, let's get into it. This
<v Speaker 2>is an interesting one.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, few video games in history reached the status that
<v Speaker 1>pac Man, the original pac Man achieved. Yes, because not
<v Speaker 1>only was it a big hit in the video arcades,
<v Speaker 1>but because of this character, the first hero in video games,
<v Speaker 1>the marketing potential was out of this world. Yes, you
<v Speaker 1>had pac Man shoes, you had pac Man lunchboxes, you
<v Speaker 1>had pac Man watches, you had pac Man toilet seats,
<v Speaker 1>which was a perfect thing to have. I think, if
<v Speaker 1>you know, look in that way the seat works with
<v Speaker 1>its opening closed.
<v Speaker 3>Perfect to make that a pac Man.
<v Speaker 1>That's it, pac Man cereal, pac Man cartoons.
<v Speaker 3>Did you watch the pack Man? Yes?
<v Speaker 1>I did, and I ate the Cereal, and it spawned
<v Speaker 1>a multitude of sequels. But the first of those was
<v Speaker 1>Miss pac Man. And so the question is you've got
<v Speaker 1>this thing that is the biggest hit in video game history.
<v Speaker 1>How can number two beat it?
<v Speaker 2>It's hard, yeah, but miss pac Man manages to pull
<v Speaker 2>it off.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, And we will get into the differences and the
<v Speaker 1>improvements on miss pac Man versus pac Man and why
<v Speaker 1>she's better than he is in a little bit. But
<v Speaker 1>first a little bit of history. So we talked about
<v Speaker 1>Space Invaders being a huge deal.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, Their big game.
<v Speaker 1>At the time was this game called Missile Command. Do
<v Speaker 1>you remember Missleman. Missile Command had been developed by Atari,
<v Speaker 1>by this guy named Dave Thurer. He had also developed Tempest,
<v Speaker 1>which was a huge hit for nineteen eighty Slash nineteen
<v Speaker 1>eighty one.
<v Speaker 3>Right, little weirdness with.
<v Speaker 1>Tempests there and how exactly that falls, which is why
<v Speaker 1>we didn't include it on our list, right, But someday.
<v Speaker 3>We will return to Tempest.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, But anyway, he created this game called Missile Command,
<v Speaker 1>and there were some MIT students who had had some
<v Speaker 1>success with pinball machines in the dormous. Guy's name who
<v Speaker 1>started this idea was Doug McCrae, and he put a
<v Speaker 1>pinball machine in the dorm and of course people loaded
<v Speaker 1>their quarters in and he got himself enough to buy
<v Speaker 1>a second pinball machine. Huh, And within just a couple
<v Speaker 1>of years he's got pinball machines.
<v Speaker 3>He works with his buddies.
<v Speaker 1>They put pinball machines in every every single dorm or
<v Speaker 1>like twenty different places.
<v Speaker 3>Yep.
<v Speaker 1>They realize the potential that regular video games are having,
<v Speaker 1>and so the first game that they buy is this
<v Speaker 1>game called Missile Command because it's a big hit. So
<v Speaker 1>they're enjoying the benefits of Missile Command. But then they
<v Speaker 1>start to see that their money is slowly getting less
<v Speaker 1>and less, which is a problem because that's how they're
<v Speaker 1>paying for their tuition and their beer. And so they
<v Speaker 1>realize that that guys are getting good enough at Missile
<v Speaker 1>Command that they can play for a really long time
<v Speaker 1>on just one quarter. And part of the fun of
<v Speaker 1>playing a game is not being able to beat the game.
<v Speaker 3>You keep coming back for it.
<v Speaker 1>So they have less interest and they have people spending
<v Speaker 1>more time on less money. That's a problem, right, right,
<v Speaker 1>But what do MIT guys do in those situations.
<v Speaker 3>They solve the problem. Hey, yeah, they do. They solve
<v Speaker 3>the problem.
<v Speaker 1>And so what they did they looked at it and
<v Speaker 1>they're like, Okay, what are the problems that they have.
<v Speaker 3>One of them is.
<v Speaker 1>That there's pattern here that's too easy to figure out.
<v Speaker 1>So what they do is they spend Spring Break nineteen
<v Speaker 1>eighty one creating a little conversion kit that just plugs
<v Speaker 1>into the circuit board that already exists in Missile Command
<v Speaker 1>and essentially create an entirely new type of game similar
<v Speaker 1>to Missile Command, but it's got color, it's got better explosions,
<v Speaker 1>it's got more random stuff, it's got more speed, all
<v Speaker 1>kinds of improvements that they figure out on the game,
<v Speaker 1>and all of a sudden, the quarters start coming back in,
<v Speaker 1>and I think, wow, this is actually making us a
<v Speaker 1>lot more money. I bet all of the arcades out
<v Speaker 1>there who have Missile Command would like our system, and
<v Speaker 1>so they sold it to them for two hundred and
<v Speaker 1>ninety five dollars a pop.
<v Speaker 3>Nice. I mean, it's pretty easy.
<v Speaker 1>So when you go, hey, look the game that you've
<v Speaker 1>got that's making ten bucks a day will make thirty
<v Speaker 1>dollars a day if you put our little conversion kit
<v Speaker 1>on there, and they'd re the game super Missile Attack.
<v Speaker 3>They sell a thousand.
<v Speaker 1>Wow, they sell a thousand within two months, so suddenly
<v Speaker 1>they've made over a quarter of a million dollars. And
<v Speaker 1>these are just guys in college living in the dorms
<v Speaker 1>in nineteen eighty one money.
<v Speaker 3>That's fantastic. It's crazy, crazy money.
<v Speaker 1>And so not surprisingly, they all drop out of college
<v Speaker 1>and they start their own company called the General Computer Corporation.
<v Speaker 1>When I hear that name, I just have to think
<v Speaker 1>to myself. These guys were trying to avoid being noticed. Yes, right,
<v Speaker 1>I mean, how mundane and boring a name is the
<v Speaker 1>General Computer Corporation.
<v Speaker 3>But it didn't work. They got noticed by that.
<v Speaker 1>Little company I mentioned just a bit ago, named Atari,
<v Speaker 1>who was none too happy that they had taken missile
<v Speaker 1>command and changed it into super Missile Attack and not
<v Speaker 1>given a any of the credit.
<v Speaker 3>Or any of the money. I could see that, and.
<v Speaker 1>So big bad Atari decides to sue tiny little General
<v Speaker 1>Computer Corporation for fifteen million dollars, also nineteen eighty one money,
<v Speaker 1>by the way. So these three guys, these these three
<v Speaker 1>college guys, get the lawsuit and they go this is
<v Speaker 1>the coolest thing that has ever happened. It makes the papers,
<v Speaker 1>it makes the magazines. Doug McCrae's dad calls him up
<v Speaker 1>and says, number one, are you going to win? This
<v Speaker 1>lawsuit and number two, if you don't do you have five.
<v Speaker 3>Million dollars this guy and.
<v Speaker 1>He says, I do not have five million dollars, but
<v Speaker 1>it is okay because we are going to win. And
<v Speaker 1>so they fight the big fight, except that Atari is
<v Speaker 1>smart enough to realize that they don't have a sure win.
<v Speaker 1>And what happens if they don't have a sure win.
<v Speaker 1>If they lose, it sets a precedent, which most Americans
<v Speaker 1>probably know. We have this thing called precedent in the law,
<v Speaker 1>which says, if it's been decided before, you have to
<v Speaker 1>follow what the old decision was. So if some court says, hey,
<v Speaker 1>it's okay for these guys to come in and modify your.
<v Speaker 2>Video games, that means blood the market.
<v Speaker 1>It's going to happen to all of the video games.
<v Speaker 1>So Atari decides to settle. Part of the settlement is
<v Speaker 1>that the college guys agree that they will not do
<v Speaker 1>any more conversions on video games without the manufacturer's consent. Well,
<v Speaker 1>during this litigation, all of which is happening again in
<v Speaker 1>nineteen eighty one, they were still doing conversions. They were
<v Speaker 1>still making conversions sure, and what, of course, was the
<v Speaker 1>most famous video game that they decided to do a conversion.
<v Speaker 3>For pac Man. Exactly. Wow.
<v Speaker 2>So they make a conversion kit for pac Man, which
<v Speaker 2>they call Craziato.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, have you seen Craziato? I have pac Man with legs.
<v Speaker 2>It literally is the same game as Miss pac Man,
<v Speaker 2>except to have pac Man with legs and instead of
<v Speaker 2>ghosts you have bubble creatures, gremlin type of things.
<v Speaker 1>It was a very very paltry conversion as far as
<v Speaker 1>the graphics go, but as far as the gameplay goes next.
<v Speaker 2>Level yeah, yeah, fantastic. The legs are weird, but other
<v Speaker 2>than that, it's miss pack awesome.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, it is.
<v Speaker 1>So at that point, have already they've got this conversion
<v Speaker 1>for pac Man. Yes, but they've settled the case swearing
<v Speaker 1>that they will not do any conversions without the approval
<v Speaker 1>of the developer of the game.
<v Speaker 3>Yes.
<v Speaker 1>Well, Atari didn't develop pac Man, right. Pac Man was
<v Speaker 1>a Midway game. And so they call Midway and they say, listen,
<v Speaker 1>we have this lawsuit with Atari.
<v Speaker 2>We kicked there butt, We're gonna kick here.
<v Speaker 1>But it's it's a secret settlement. It's a confidential settlement,
<v Speaker 1>a confidential agement.
<v Speaker 3>So there's no way for Midway to know what happened.
<v Speaker 1>They just bluff their way through and they say, listen,
<v Speaker 1>we've got this conversion. We think it'd be great, but
<v Speaker 1>we need your permission or you know, we can just
<v Speaker 1>go through the lawsuit process and we're going to go
<v Speaker 1>ahead and beat you two.
<v Speaker 3>Right.
<v Speaker 1>Well, as it turns out, Midway was actually looking for
<v Speaker 1>pac Man two. They were looking for it. They had
<v Speaker 1>been waiting on Namco, and Namco was dragging their feet,
<v Speaker 1>and Midway got impatient. And so when these guys come
<v Speaker 1>to them with this new game, they're like, you got it,
<v Speaker 1>love it, And Midway and General Computer Corporation form an
<v Speaker 1>alliance and together they create Miss pac Man.
<v Speaker 2>Now, technically the pac Man name is owned by Namco. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>Midway is just the distributor in America. Yes, in America,
<v Speaker 2>and GCC makes the agreement with Midway. Right, that comes
<v Speaker 2>into play a little bit later, Yeah, because Namco sues
<v Speaker 2>the pants off of it. Now, Doug McCrae says, I
<v Speaker 2>don't understand how Namco suit us, because they were involved
<v Speaker 2>in the process. They got together, they took the legs off,
<v Speaker 2>they decided to make it a woman. There was a
<v Speaker 2>lot going on that, he says. The president of Namco
<v Speaker 2>was writing us back and forth and giving us ideas.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know how in the world they got to
<v Speaker 2>They weren't a part of this agreement. So unlike pac Man, yep,
<v Speaker 2>this character has lipstick and a bow and a bow yes,
<v Speaker 2>and a mole. Yeah, and an eye.
<v Speaker 3>A mole like Marilyn Monroe. Yep.
<v Speaker 2>Well that mole makes her super sexy.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, miss pac Man, it's hot. Other differences. You
<v Speaker 1>have four mazes instead of just one. Yes, You've got
<v Speaker 1>the pink Maze, the Blue Maize, the light blue Maze,
<v Speaker 1>the brown maze, and the dark blue.
<v Speaker 2>Made you chase fruit rather than fruit being stationary, it
<v Speaker 2>hops along. You got to chase it.
<v Speaker 1>You've got multiple warp tunnels yep, instead of just wasph
<v Speaker 1>one right, You're going.
<v Speaker 2>After cherry, strawberries, oranges, pretzels, apples, pears, bananas.
<v Speaker 3>Yeap. The ghost and this is a huge deal.
<v Speaker 2>The ghosts, at least a couple of them.
<v Speaker 3>Have random movements, which means you can't do some sort
<v Speaker 3>of pattern. Can you just do the original pac Man?
<v Speaker 1>That's right, which was a big deal because it meant
<v Speaker 1>more people were shoving their money in and not playing
<v Speaker 1>as long which is exactly what Midway was looking for.
<v Speaker 2>Also, the Orange Ghost is no longer Clyde.
<v Speaker 1>But Sue right when she dies ms pac Man does
<v Speaker 1>not like circumference out and.
<v Speaker 3>Explode go into infinity. She just does a little spin
<v Speaker 3>and fall.
<v Speaker 1>She swoons. Yeah, yep, Yes, they have new music and
<v Speaker 1>new cut scenes.
<v Speaker 3>A new series were a lot of fun. Absolutely at
<v Speaker 3>the time.
<v Speaker 2>Is like I'm watching a movie inside my game, right
<v Speaker 2>I got to this point.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and the new music had a lot to do
<v Speaker 1>with how fun those scenes were.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>So here's something interesting on the music. It's iconic, right,
<v Speaker 1>we can play it for you now. So the composer
<v Speaker 1>of this music is a guy named Naoki Haigashio. Okay supposedly. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>his name appears on a credit, but other than that,
<v Speaker 1>I can't find him anywhere. Interesting, So we've had this
<v Speaker 1>fantastic music. It's kind of like the poster for Fright Night.
<v Speaker 1>The guy's name is there, but nobody can confirm that
<v Speaker 1>he was actually involved in the process. It's just like
<v Speaker 1>this random credit of a guy that nobody seems to
<v Speaker 1>be able to find.
<v Speaker 3>Now. Wow.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, interesting and such a huge part of the game.
<v Speaker 3>Wow.
<v Speaker 2>I remember when I saw him as pac Man for
<v Speaker 2>the first time. Yeah, so this is the honest truth.
<v Speaker 2>I went to an arcade called Wizards Untils, Oklahoma. There
<v Speaker 2>were so many people around the game. I could see
<v Speaker 2>the cabinet, but I could not get close to the screen.
<v Speaker 2>And I finally somebody came out of the crowd. I'm like,
<v Speaker 2>what did you see and he's like, well, it's like
<v Speaker 2>pac Man except better.
<v Speaker 3>I'm like, well, tell me, you know.
<v Speaker 2>He's like, well, she has a bow and lipstick and
<v Speaker 2>an eye, and I was like, You've got to be
<v Speaker 2>kidding me. It was next level excitement.
<v Speaker 3>You were excited about that.
<v Speaker 2>I couldn't wait to play this game.
<v Speaker 1>I saw it and I'm like, I'm a little kid.
<v Speaker 1>I'm there with my older brother, right, and I'm looking
<v Speaker 1>at it him like this is the same as pac
<v Speaker 1>Man and he says, no, there are no patterns in
<v Speaker 1>this one. I was like, ah, oh wow. And then
<v Speaker 1>I'm watching and the maze changes on level three, right,
<v Speaker 1>and I was.
<v Speaker 3>Like, oh, oh wow, different level. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>That night, literally I had no prayer of playing that yame.
<v Speaker 2>Like I saw the crowd and thought, I don't care
<v Speaker 2>about playing it. I just want to see it and
<v Speaker 2>I didn't even see it. This game sold over one
<v Speaker 2>hundred and fifteen thousand cabinets in the nineteen eighties. Did
<v Speaker 2>you ever see the one that had the speed button?
<v Speaker 3>No, like you could speed up and slow down?
<v Speaker 2>There was a Yeah. So there are some versions where
<v Speaker 2>you played normal speed. There are some versions that are
<v Speaker 2>high speed, and then there's one that you can regulate
<v Speaker 2>your speed with a button.
<v Speaker 3>Oh no, I haven't seen that one.
<v Speaker 1>I think, if I remember right, the original that I
<v Speaker 1>saw back in eighty one, it was regular sh speed. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I think I think the high speed didn't come until
<v Speaker 1>later on. But to me, that's the only way to
<v Speaker 1>play high speed is the Island like you?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah? All righty?
<v Speaker 2>Have you ever seen the Friends episode where Phoebe gets
<v Speaker 2>Monica and Chandler as their wedding gift a stand up
<v Speaker 2>misspac Man arcade game?
<v Speaker 1>Yes, Chandler has the claw. He plays eight hours and
<v Speaker 1>he can move his hand and.
<v Speaker 2>He uses the high score to put dirty words in there.
<v Speaker 3>That sounds something that I would do.
<v Speaker 2>And so they have to spend all this time trying
<v Speaker 2>to erase all of the dirty words because unplugging won't work.
<v Speaker 3>Right.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, the game back then actually had a kind of
<v Speaker 1>rom chip in them that would even if it went unplugged,
<v Speaker 1>you didn't lose your I scores.
<v Speaker 2>And so an attempt to erase the dirty scores, Phoebe
<v Speaker 2>spends a lot of time and fails, fails, and so
<v Speaker 2>right as Ross's son Ben walks, she Unleasha is a
<v Speaker 2>just a torrent of proof, a flood of curse words,
<v Speaker 2>a storm of cussing.
<v Speaker 3>Oh that that episode is really funny. It is you.
<v Speaker 1>We used to have a free video game arcade thing
<v Speaker 1>here in Norman, Oklahoma called top Dog. Sadly, it did
<v Speaker 1>not It did not make it because.
<v Speaker 2>A hot dog plays and they had games.
<v Speaker 3>They had games that you could play for free.
<v Speaker 1>They had Gallagha, they had misspac Man, they had Donkey Kong,
<v Speaker 1>Zaxon Zaxon, And what was the one that you sat
<v Speaker 1>down to play?
<v Speaker 3>Moon Patrol? Moon Patrol?
<v Speaker 1>That's right, Ye, sorry to see you go, top Dog.
<v Speaker 3>We we miss you. Yeah. This was one of my
<v Speaker 3>favorite games of all time.
<v Speaker 2>It is listed as one of the greatest games and
<v Speaker 2>one of the most successful video games of all time.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's the Empire strikes back to Star Wars.
<v Speaker 1>It is it is, It really is all right, So
<v Speaker 1>that does it for this episode.
<v Speaker 3>We've got more in the series coming up, so be
<v Speaker 3>sure to join
<v Speaker 2>Us In the meantime, d I'm gonna go play some
<v Speaker 2>crazyato and we'll be here next week to talk to
<v Speaker 2>you about another game, The Defender.